Thursday, March 24, 2022

revisiting the classics: new code megathread

Over on Pinside and Maaca I am maintaining threads where I compile fresh code modifications for old pinball games.  Some are minor ROM mods, some are full rewrites, some require hardware mods.  I will not be updating the list here, but just for the sake of browsing here is where it currently stands.

Available:

EXTRA:
Freeplay ROMs for all the classic Stern games by @slochar https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/free-play-roms-for-classic-stern-games-link

Divide-by-10 ROMs for all Williams System 6 games by Ted Estes https://www.ipdb.org/search.pl?searchtype=advanced&mpu=3

Gottlieb System 80B  Freeplay ROMS by Davroux Brothers https://www.flipprojets.fr/Proms80B_EN.php

 IN PROGRESS - maybe go cheer on the dev?
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Tuesday, March 22, 2022

roadtrip pickups

Alouette is an institution for arcade operators in the Montreal area and they announced they were doing a big parts blowout sale.  We managed to turn it into a mini family vacation, but that also included a trip to the warehouse, a stop at a friends' place on the way for a few more pickups, and some stuff that other people were holding on for me migrated to the warehouse as well.

There is a bit of an indie pinball/arcade railroad of people are Toronto / Ottawa / Montreal.  Enthusiasts that are willing to pay it forward and help other operators / collectors / restorers in the arcade world.  It is always heartening to experience that kind of mutual enthusiasm, both in how we help each other, and the shared joys of sifting through endless parts shelves.

I am not going in to the full play-by-play, but here is just a bunch of stuff I picked up on the road


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Thursday, March 17, 2022

not-quite-pinball soundtrack!

 Did you go through all of the pinball soundtracks?

Now it's time to enjoy an extremely rare Namco CD with sounds from their wackier elecmeca games.


ナムコ エレメカ大百科 (Namco Elemecha Daihyakka) from 1996

Hop on over to 765スタイル to grab the perfect FLAC rip!
Full scans are available too.

My favourites:

  • track 9 - サブマリン (Submarine)
  • track 12 - シュータウェイ (Shoot Away)
  • track 3 - おっきなゾウさん
  • track 5  - 功夫老師
  • track 24 - Mr.プロレス (Mr. Wrestling)
  • and the ultimate: track 27 - ワギャン (W A G A N)

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Wednesday, March 16, 2022

pinball soundtracks

The site Video Game Music has a large number of pinball soundtracks online.  Some are from videogame pinball, but there are a LOT of soundtracks from real pinball machines.  You can stream at the site (click any title below to go to the page,) download individual tracks as MP3s, or if you pitch towards their server hosting costs you can get permission to download the full albums.


Here are some more pinball soundtracks...


Suzanne Cianni's Xenon fx was released as a single:

Xenon

Scott Danesi's epic Total Nuclear Annihilation is also on Bandcamp:

Total Nuclear Annihilation Expanded

You can also get 2 Danesi tracks from the Rick & Morty pinball machine and the ROCs title track for the P3 game:

A System Of Parts

And if you're really hankering for the Rollergames soundtrack, hunt down this incredibly rare 2006 box set where it is included.  The other pinball soundtracks on this set can be heard in the links above.

LEGEND OF GAME MUSIC 2 PLATINUM BOX
レジェンド オブ ゲームミュージック2 プラチナムBOX

Stern has the Deadpool pinball soundtrack available on their site:
Deadpool pinball soundtrack

There is also a Black Knight: Sword Of Rage soundtrack but I do not think there is a proper digital source online.  So in the meantime, here is Scott Ian of Anthrax fame discussing it:




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Friday, March 11, 2022

exploring the arcade of Gメン'75 第24話「二人組警官ギャング」

Twitter account JGL_JP posted these lovely screencaps from the G-Men '75 TV series, episode 24 "Duo Policeman Gang" and the presence  of a Group Bingo is incredibly exciting!   The tweet says this first aired November 1975.



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Thursday, March 3, 2022

updates

Who doesn't love reviewing updated posts with me?

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new scan: Wico 1964 parts catalog

Gifted to me by pindude152 a few years ago and then sent off to Hubz @ Gaming Alexandria to get chopped and scanned, the 1964 catalog for Wico is now online for all at the Internet Archive.  Go browse it online or download the PDF. If you work on arcade machines, vending, or jukebox devices from that era, a detailed catalogue of components can be quite useful.

Wico 1964 parts catalog


Wico Coin Machine Parts And Supplies Catalog No. 400 (1964)

 

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Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Canadian Coinbox archival project

Working with the fine folks at Gaming Alexandria, I am looking to compile and digitize as many issues of Canadian Coinbiox as I can.

The goal is that they will eventually all be scanned and shared on the Internet Archive.  Can you assist in this project?  If you have any copies I would love to hear from you at thetastates@gmail.com or reply to this post.  I'll put a list of what I've acquired so far at the bottom.

If you can scan your copies?  Amazing, yes.  If you have copies to donate?  PLEASE!  If you want to sell issues?  Contact me anyways.  

Do you have issues from 1946-1972?  Definitely contact me ASAP.

Huge shout out to Retro Dave who scanned his 1984-03 issue and sent me the images.  I prepped and compiled them in to a PDF and you can now go read and download it over at IA.

Canadian Coin Box 1984-03 (March 1984)

My earlier scans are all now up on IA too:

Shout out to Arie who provided me the first batch of magazines, and then to Jean-Marc who donated 3 huge boxes worth.  This list covers a few different magazines, and all are going off to be scanned.

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learning pinball tech fundamentals

There are many great places to learn about pinball online, but instead of taking a pinball machine and then braeking it down in to its basic parts, how about we start with the fundamentals and build towards a pinball machine?  That's certainly an approach that jives even better with my own learning style.

I want to point out Mark's Fun With Pinball Simple Devices page, where he has an EM pinball machine broken down in to fundamental components, so you can see how every part operates in isolation.  From pop bumpers, to drop targets, to score motors and even the playfield magnets that give Twilight Zone The Power, there are many diagrams and videos to explore.

one example would be this stepper demonstration:

you can go to the site to view the video

 

There are also the education pages which "include short lessons that use pinball machine parts to explain scientific principles".

Click the above link to go to his Learning page, but also here is a paste of those main lessons:

Switches and electric currentSwitches and electric currentSwitches and electric current
Solenoids, relays and electromagnetismSolenoids, relays and electromagnetismSolenoids, relays and electromagnetism
Flippers, coils and powerFlippers, coils and powerFlippers, coils and power
Electromagnets and accelerationElectromagnets and accelerationElectromagnets and acceleration
Chimes, vibrations and pitchesChimes, vibrations and pitchesChimes, vibrations and pitches
Testing Solenoid StrengthTesting Solenoid StrengthSolenoid strength test



An incredibly useful visualization he has put together is the  Animated Schematics Diagrams for EM machines.  Perhaps you've seen the long-scroll that is an EM pinball schematic?  A lot of that can be readily explained with methodical patience, but it is definitely intimidating at first glance.  And even if you can trace some of the basic functionality like how your drop targets are scoring (or failing to score,) the introduction of the "Score Motor" can be a challenge to wrap one's head around.

This site has animations reviewing the score motor operation for numerous functions, from the context of schematics and I highly recommend checking it out: emSim: Animated Schematic Diagrams for EM Pinball Machines.  You can pause the videos and see what pulses are active from a score motor at any time.  Remember, a Score Motor is just a set of stacks of switches that are either on or off, depending on what part of the motor rotation we are at.

still from animated schematic diagrams


There is a lot more to explore on his site, including online EM classes, 


Once you have the fundamentals of operations and want to fix specific problems?  The best place to go is still Clay's pinrepair site: Pinball & Coin Operated Games to 1978.

Working on a more modern game than 1978?  Get started diving in to your system via pinwiki.
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Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Niche Mechanisms 004: rotation

You turn a knob and the whole world rotates.  OK not the whole world, but the whole world under glass.  The platform shifts.  The playfield tilts with your delicate wrist movements.

Rotation is one of the fundamental mechanisms used in game design, going back to the skill games of the 1900s.  As with our other Niche Mechanism examinations, rotation is mechanism embedded throughout arcade history across the globe.  While it might not give the same kind of thrills in the 21st century, the inherent simplicity has helped it be resurrected endlessly for over a century.

Within the topic of "rotation" we are going to be breaking things down in to a few sub-categories:

  1. Coin guidance
  2. Ball guidance
    1. Tilting labyrinths
    2. Fire Escape style
    3. Hill climbers
    4. other ball guidance games

For all of these we are letting gravity do the work, and just adding a bit of rotation into the mix.

Let's get nerdy about arcade games.  We begin in Germany, thanks to the amazing work over at Alte-Spielautomaten.



section 1: Rotation - Coin Guidance

1909 Schlaumatz (smartass) by Athenia GmbH

Guide the coin down to the slot at the bottom of the wheel.  If the coin enters the slot it falls out at the bottom right, advances the ratchet wheel, which dispenses your winnings.  If you fall off the track, your coin is added to the payout coin stack.

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