Jeremy Melton

I recently came by some source code to control the power driver board of a P2K machine. This is NOT Pinball 2000 source. This custom source was written by Daniel Johansson for his home made machine (which has been canceled).

Here’s some information about the source pulled from his site:

Below is the source code for the power-driver-board-part of my Sparks Pinball 2000 project. It is written in C as a Linux kernel module utilizing the real time extensions RTAI from https://www.rtai.org/. The sound and graphics part (not published here) is written in C++ as a Linux user space program. The communication between the two part are made using FIFO:s. The code must only be considered as test software. It is very poorly commented and may not be easy to read. If you make any modifications to it, please send me a copy…

Maybe there are someone out there who are interested in continue to build on the code and maybe write a Pinball 2000 Open Source Toolkit, that can be used by anyone interested in making their own Pinball 2000 game. If so, the code must be rewritten. It isn’t a good way to place everything that has to do with the power-driver-board (including the rules) in a kernel module. One idéa is to simpify the kernel module and let it only deal with functions that has directly to do with the power driver board like fire solenoids, flash lamps, running lamp patterns etc, and sending switch event up to a user space program where all the game code is written. Another way is to write everything in user space using RTAI-LXRT and skip the kernel module part…
Here is the code: ***. Disclaimer: The code is “as is”. Use it at your own risk. I will not be responsible for any hardware malfunction.
I included a definition file for SWEP1 for anyone interested in writing new software to their own game…

Paired with the information on Pinrepair.com, I think you could have a really good head start on a custom machine.

And a bonus video of Daniel’s machine in action:

Source: p2k.zip

* Pinball 2000 is a trademark of Williams Electronics Games, Inc. All rights reserved

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I’ve been exchanging a few emails with Chris Eddy (Creator of the PBOS). I have to say, the more I learn about the PBOS the more excited I get about it. While he’s working exclusivly with the system 3/4/6/7 machines. It looks like it’s just generic enough to work on a homebrew machine. He’s also working on his very own driver/MPU board.

I’m keeping close tabs on this project. I’ve decided to hold off on my attempts at creating a PBOS of my own. This project is just too promising to pass up!

Please, take a look at the PBOS command language for yourself. Chris would love to hear any feedback you have for him. You can find his email on his site; or you can leave a comment here.

PBOS Command Language (doc, pdf, html, odt)

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Stumbled across this on RGP:

I have the code for my PBOS working to the point that I can coin up
1-4 players, and play a full game on the machine. Not to make it sound
too advanced, it does not do a lot, like score and multiball and most
of the sounds yet. But it has flippers, bumpers, slings, FIRE targets,
POWER targets, 1-6 targets, some sounds, and other stuff.

His website goes into some minor detail on the goals and progress. You can view that here: http://www.pbos.info

I don’t know about you but I sure hope he releases everything to the open source community. I’m a bit biased since I might be able to take it apply some/all of it to my machine.

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Just a quick update on what I’ve been working on. I’ve had a bit of success getting scoring and the scoreboard playing together (see video). Another feature that you don’t see in the video is that all the switches point value can be set via the C# app that I made.

I’ve added the source below. Keep in mind this is all just hacking at this point. It’s probably not very helpful but it can’t hurt.

The led matrix on the top isn’t broken, I just hooked it up wrong :-/
 

Source

Spin:

• Main program (serial, scoring, switches) [SerialTest.spin]
• Maxim-ic 6953 chip object interface [MAX6953.spin]

C#:

• Serial communication to the prop [Program.cs]

Misc:

• Command Structure List

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You’ve waited long enough and I’ll keep this post short so you can get to the pictures! Here are some rough sketches of some ideas that I’m thinking about for my machine. 
As you can see I’m planning to create a professional level machine (quality/details/features) with some fresh ideas. Not being a manufacture has some benefits. I can include things that would be virtually impossible for a manufacture, like Stern to create (Manufacturing and  licensing costs).

(Click an image for fullsize) 

Factoids and notes: 

• As of now my goal is to create a tribute of sorts to the old stadium. A lot of the design decisions are made with this in mind.
•  Overall I want to stay away from the pitch and bat machines (except for the mini playfield)
• The mini playfield will be a small scale of the new stadium.
• The mini playfield will play like a ‘pitch-n-bat’ machine.
• The rivalry mode is quite complex. I’m not sure if it will make it to the final machine.
• ‘Big Hurt‘ is the only comercially made baseball related machine — excluding pitch and bat machines.

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