I want to add the ability to "lightly" tilt my Eight Ball Champ once per ball, which has a plumb bob tilt switch, ball tilt, and two slam tilt switches. It currently tilts the first time any of the switches close. I figure there are a couple of elegant ways to accomplish my goal, but I wonder if my google-fu is broken and someone else has figured it out for me. Some modern games have the ability to give a warning for a plumb-bob tilt, if allowed by the machine owner. I would like to add this ability to my machine. That, and I believe that a little bit of bumping is part of pinball and we all could use a second chance if we get a little bit over-zealous in the excitement of a huge scoring opportunity.

First, I suppose it is possible to modify the ROM for the game. I haven't been able to find a lot of ROM customization help for 1985-era Bally games. I suspect that I would have a hard time reverse-engineering the code and re-writing it. I may have slept at a Holiday Inn Express recently, but I am not a programmer. I would need something like a C++/FORTRAN/BASIC/PASCAL base program to edit/re-compile in order to consider pulling such a thing off. I don't think Bally released their un-compiled programs.

Second, and more likely, is to use an Arduino rig to run some code that detects the plumb bob switch, buzzes for ~2 seconds once per ball, and then closes a relay that re-connects the plumb bob sensor and allows the machine to tilt after your one warning. I would leave the slam and ball tilts intact so that it is still illegal to violently bump the machine. The slam tilts end the game, and the ball/plumb-bob tilts end the ball and skips the bonus (which is where most of the points are scored). I am 100% confident that I can program an Arduino to accomplish my goal, but I don't really want to permanently dedicate a rig to the task if there is a more simple solution. It would be ironic but also a little bit "cool" to use an Arduino to perform a simple task to add functionality to a 30+ year old 6803 board. I just might hook it up for a few weeks, simply for the satisfaction.

Whaddya think?

I triple-checked my registers for a tilt warning setting in EBC. Nothing available.

I figured out how to do it with an Arduino. I would use the outball switch to reset after every drain, run a program that sets off a buzzer for one or two seconds after first tilt bob switch indication then close a relay to "reconnect" the tilt bob for the remainder of the ball. Pretty simple thing to do, considering I think I can figure out how program an Arduino to autonomously fly a drone to deliver packages for Amazon.

I could probably do it with a more simple circuit, but I would have a hard time figuring out how to let the plumb bob ricochet a couple of times after the first bump and only provide a short buzz indication. I think I need something with a mechanism to "clock" the circuit.

There is a 120V AC plug in my cabinet, so it is pretty easy to power something.

It looks like I can probably make it happen for about $20-25 with an Arduino (those things continue to drop in price), so I think I will. If I could figure out how to hook into the "too much english" speech in the Squawk and Talk instead of the buzzer, that would be awesome. I am guessing it can be done.