Pinball Repair - Arduino Upgrade Update

[@daniel197979]

Amazing work done. I am going to start restoring an EM Sinbad soon but your work is very inspiring. Please do keep it up. MOre information on the build please.

[@davesthinktank]

Thanks for your encouragement! I will likely have a third video on the Arduino, as I've done quite a lot of work on the sound in particular this month. I've also added a ball save feature for @snextime below!

[@MRNBricks]

Pretty slick.

[@davesthinktank]

Thanks! I just can't help having new ideas to boost the fun-factor on this machine!

[@MRNBricks]

@@davesthinktanki like it. I have a beat flash in pieces that I bought. I’d love to implement this someday when I get it working again. Looks like it adds a lot.

[@gallimead]

I'm really interested into tinkering with the original code on bally SS. How difficult is it??

[@davesthinktank]

I did a lot of programming of large systems back in the 80s and 90s, and although all the programming came back to me, I found it a challenge to figure out the Arduino code. It's a pretty big system with a lot going on. But I worked at it a bit at a time. The Flash Gordon code was not well documented, but the names of variables made it fairly easy to follow small blocks of code (e.g. TopPopLit, BallInSaucer, FreeBallCollected, etc.). But it certainly can't hurt to get the Arduino IDE (you can get it for free, just to check it out), and look at the code to see what you make of it. Be sure to keep a separate copy of the original code. Look for the starting point function loop(), and follow the code to see if you can follow. The IDE also makes it easy to track variables through the code, and find functions. So, give it a try and see how far you get!

[@snextime]

No ball save?

[@davesthinktank]

I fixed it so that if the ball goes down without hitting anything, it will kick your ball back out. I'm not sure if that counts as ball save. You can absolutely program a ball save with whatever rules you wanted, though.

[@snextime]

@@davesthinktank ball save is when you drain in like 10-15 seconds after you plunge the ball. A second chance at that turn.

[@davesthinktank]

@@snextime Now I'm thinking I might really like to write a ball save, with Princess Aura saying "Don't kill him yet, Father. I want him!"

[@OptionKnob]

@@davesthinktank I had someone write a ball save for my FG roms about 6 yrs ago and its a game changer especially for guests!(: He wrote it using that first switch you hit in the shooter lane and then test bank 20 in the admin has 1 to 15 to roughly account for up to 15 seconds of ball save time, so you can adjust it. So when you launch the ball the timer starts after you hit that first switch in shooter lane, it also lights the shoot again circle insert at the drain letting you know that it just popped another ball out into the shooter lane. Its an amazing feature and allows you to set the game to 3 balls vs the old school 5 balls.

[@gallimead]

I have a bally silverball running BSOS. And it's totally different, more playable, harder game. It's great!!