Robo getting wrapped up for transport, can't use the pinball cart where we're going so had to fold tie the backbox down for hand cart ride.
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Roadie life, day 2. Robocop is going in, it'll be at an start of summer event with local businesses.
Today marks the day The Greatest Pinball Table Of All Time™ is released natively for my Atgames 4KP virtual pinball table!
Day 1 of roadie life, Sharkey gets loaded up and goes to the local library to wait for Saturday's retro game event.
If you really must know, I'm like the George Lucas of getting the #pinball stuck where it was never meant to go AND in some places where it's actually supposed to go...
At the local #pinball spot. There was a tournament going on so that was fun to watch. I really do love Toy Story.
Robocop, Data-East 1989.
A game from the golden age where you knew you were a big shot when they made a pinball machine after you!
We'll be doing two public events back to back this weekend and we're taking Robo and Sharkey with us, I earlier checked and cleaned Sharkey, today was Robo's turn. Nothing major here, but the flippers got rebuilt and some lamps changed.
Next I'll be wrapping these games up and prepare them for transport.
If you really must know, I'm like the John Cena of getting the pinball stuck where it was never meant to go...
What's that? A solid state flipper mechanism? No moving parts at all!
The electronically controlled flippers were a Data-East invention. Up to this point even when the game itself wasn't electro-mechanical, the flippers still were. The coil used in flippers had 2 windings; high power and low power side to prevent it from overheating when held. The switch from high to low power was done mechanically before, with a switch opening and breaking the circuit to the high power side when the flipper was up.
The electronic version as used by Data-East has only one winding and instead it varies voltage, which is controlled by its own flipper control PCB. Later games used PWM to achieve the lower power mode.
DE always loved to advertise their new technologies and so the flipper mechanism has a striking "SOLID STATE" sticker on them.
This design had its issues. The timing for the voltage change is fixed, so if the flipper isn't all the way up by then, it'll just stop half-way.
Now I can play with balls while playing with balls! 
Data-East/Sega Version 3B platform is an interesting beast. When Data-East first came up with a pinball machine that had a dot matrix display, their approach was to make the display board an autonomous thing that just listened for commands from the CPU board. All the animations and stuff are run locally.
The original one had a 6809 on it like the main CPU board has too, but when they went from 128x16 and 128x32 displays to the huge 192x64, they needed a bit more muscle to handle it.
So the new version of the display board runs with a 68000. In a lot of animations the difference is pretty noticeable with the huge framerate increase and all kinds of creative transitions between the animations.
4 games were released with this platform: Maverick, Frankenstein, Batman Forever and Baywatch. It was in production for less than a year, from fall 1994 to summer 1995.
After that Sega downgraded back to 128x32 displays and a 6809 CPU.
Review for Pokémon Pinball on Game Boy Color from N64 Magazine 47 - November 2000 (UK)
You can download this issue here:
https://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/n64magazine.html
Every now and then when I post pictures of #pinball machines on sites with larger audiences, I get the question: what is this thing?!
It's so easy to get into a mind set thinking pinball is globally known phenomenon and not basically just Americas and mid/southern Europe.
Then again, people asking this question means I've managed to make someone new curious about it and hopefully at least Google it, or better yet: play a sim if physical games aren't a thing in that part of the world.
Had to try out the game about the game. Pinball 1977.
Preview for Psycho Pinball on Mega Drive.
Taken from Sega Pro 34 - July 1994 (UK)
You can download this issue here:
https://www.outofprintarchive.com/catalogue/segapro.html
I've been told Sharkey has often a ball stuck on the drop target. This happens naturally every now and then but the machine should be able to recover from it. A loose shot past the drop target in the right orbit will reset the drop target, but then the ball that didn't quite go where it was supposed to go rolls back and stays resting on the target.
This drop has the ability to trip itself in this situation, releasing the stuck ball. Obviously that wasn't happening and running the coil test verified this. It got power from the driver board's end, so I pulled the mechanism for a closer inspection. It was mechanically okay and pressing the little lever on the tiny coil drops the target as intended. But the tiny coil probably won't be too happy when its power wire is hanging there in the air!
Wasn't much of a mystery today, just plain old basic pinball diagnostics and heating up the soldering iron for a second.
Sharkey's Shootout's main toy, the Mystery eightball. It's a magnetic diverter that take a ball from the left ramp and diverts it to left or right. It can also hold the ball, while the mystery feature is running. It has a rotating disc inside with a decoder ring for opto switches so it knows which way it's pointing. During the gameplay it shows you the prize you won in the same fashion as the magic eightball toy.
Sharkey's Shootout, Stern 2000.
We have several events lined up where we'll show up with a pin. SSO will be at the local library's retro game event so it's time to give it a good scrub, fresh coat of wax and sort out any minor annoyances. #pinball
Houston's first pinball manufacturer, Barrels of Fun, launched its second machine this month, based on the Oscar-winning "Dune" films. The lessons learned from its first effort, a machine built around "Labyrinth," starring David Bowie, makes the new table even better.
