Hi all,
I have been posting this at RGP, but figured to drop it in here also since a lot of people have moved here. I am writing new code for DM using the freewpc platform and have a bunch of beta testers who are checking out the code also. It is still in beta (rev .60 as of today) but is pretty solid with 7 modes done, 4 multiballs, 3 wizard modes and 1 video mode so far. Plans are to have 2 additional video modes and shaker motor support.

rules are being written from scratch so many of the rules are the same as original but since they are rewritten may be slightly different. Other things are completely new. I am definatly open to suggestions or adding more beta testers. If you have a DM and are willing to try out the code then that is too cool. Send me an email. Also if you want to make suggestions just based o nthe video that is cool too. I want to make this very good so suggestions are definately welcome. This is not using PROC, which requires different boards, but freewpc which is basically a software engine written to work on existing hardware. Therefore all that is required is a rom swap, just like you would normally do to upgrade your game code. The only difference is that in my case the code is much larger so I am using a 27C080 instead of a 27C040 chip.

Here is a listing of what the rules are currently and what is currently working (this is kinda long):

as of version 0.60
Advance to claw modes as follows:
1) Light all 3 MTL rollovers to light the cryoclaw light at the left inlane. Rollover left inlane to open right ramp diverter to reach the claw. Lighting all 3 MTLs also increments bonus multiplier.
2) Complete the jet bumper goal to light cryoclaw.

Advance to multiball as follows:
1) Hit the required number of lit standup targets to light quick freeze at right inlane. Roll over right inlane to light quick freeze at left ramp. Hit left ramp to freeze ball. Freeze required number of balls to light multiball. Start multiball by shooting left orbit to top popper shot.
2) random computer award of maximize freezes

All 7 timed modes work as follow:
non claw mode - Explode: a 2 ball multiball which is started from eyeball shot. Mode is timed so doesn’t end with a single ball drain and will end even if you hold the 2 balls past the timeout. Mode lights explode inserts. Explosion sound effects. Display effect is building exploding with words on top.

non claw mode - Car Chase: similar to original mode. single ball timed mode started at car crash. Lights car chase inserts. Car race / skid sound effects along with Spartan voice calls. Display effect is various car chase scenes.

Claw mode – Acmag: similar to original mode. single ball timed mode started at claw. Score at center ramp shot an unlimited amount of times. Display effect is words with twinkling stars effect.

Claw mode – Standup Frenzy: this mode replaces the old freeze mode. single ball timed mode started at claw. Scores by hitting standup targets. Targets extinguish when hit and hitting all 5 will relight them. Similar to greed mode in TZ. Boing sound effects. Display effect is hand drawn spinning disks that explode when each standup is hit.

Claw mode – Capture Simon: similar to original mode. single ball timed mode started at claw. Shoot three lit arrows to capture Simon. sound effects is simon laughing then footsteps running away. Display effect is hand drawn picture of hand cuffs then footsteps.

Claw mode – Prison Breakout: this mode is different than the original. single ball timed mode started at claw. Like a fast scoring mode, hit any of the typical low value targets such as spinners, standups, or rebounds for big points. Display effect is various very short scenes from movie.

Claw mode – superjets: a 2 ball multiball- timed mode started at claw. Mode is timed so doesn’t end with a single ball drain and will end even if you hold the 2 balls past the timeout. Mode ends at either timeout or hitting required number of jets. Shoot jet bumpers for points, extra points if you complete mode by hitting certain amount of jets. Orchestra sound effect. Display effect is hand drawn jet ski that bounces higher when jet is hit.

Multiballs:
All 4 multiballs, fortress, museum, wasteland, and cryoprison work similar to original in that you must freeze an increasing amount of balls to reach each one: 2 for fortress, 3 for museum, etc.. If you freeze more than the required number of balls then you will get that many balls in the multiball. For each multiball, jackpot lights are randomly lit and in differing ways and amounts. all 4 MBs have different display effects and sound effects. For all of them, shooting 5 jackpots lights superjackpot at the right ramp.

Fortress Multiball: 2 ball (minimum) MB. starts with all jackpots lit, each time a jackpot is hit, less of them are relit randomly, after 4 jackpots only 1 will be lit.

Museum Multiball: 3 ball (minimum) MB. starts with 2 jackpots lit, each time a jackpot is hit relight randomly 2 jackpots.

Wasteland Multiball: 4 ball (minimum) MB. starts with all jackpots lit, each time a jackpot is hit relight randomly 3 jackpots.

Cryoprison Multiball: 5 ball MB. starts with all jackpots lit, each time a jackpot is hit relight randomly 3 jackpots.

Combos: – every 10 combos (starting at 10) lights the computer award. every 10 combos (starting at 5) enables video mode.

Computer award: collected at the underground shot and a random award is chosen. Display effect is hand drawn random squares followed by the specific effect for the award given.
CA – collect bonus: shows bonus.
CA – triple car crash: flashes car crash lights and makes zapp sound – done.
CA – collect standups: counts up score bonus of 500k per standup, flashes screen and makes zapp sound – done.
CA – light arrows: lights all arrows, flashes them and zapp sound – done.
CA – light extra ball: lights extra ball light – done.
CA – maximize freezes: flashes all freeze lights, zapp sound – done.
CA – double retina scan: flashes eyeball and retina scan lights and zapp sound – done.

Wizard modes:
Huxley – start at least 4 non-claw modes then make a huxley shot (backwards up left inlane to eject saucer) to start huxley mode. A single ball timed mode in which almost everything on the playfield is a 1 million point shot. Mode currently lasts 90 seconds.

Demolition Time – start 5 claw modes (can be any 5 and repeats are allowed) then started at underground shot. A 5 ball multiball where all jackpot shots are lit. no superjackpots though.

Back in the Fridge (BITF) – start 4 MBs to enable, then start the mode at the top popper shot. A 5 ball timed mode where all jackpot shots are lit and balls are continually fed for xx seconds (currently 60). After time out, flippers die and all balls drain, results are displayed, then normal ball play is restarted. Similar to LITZ on TZ?

Skill Sot:
There are 3 different skill shots.
1) shoot underground with upper left flipper off hard plunge – least points
2) shoot side ramp with upper left flipper off hard plunge – moderate points
3) shoot left ramp with lower right flipper off soft plunge – most points

Video Modes:
There is currently only 1 video mode written. Video mode is enabled by shooting the required number of combos; 5, 15, 25, etc. Once video mode enabled it can be obtained at the retina scan saucer, top popper or underground shot.

Kaboom! Video mode: collected at the top popper shot. Bombs are dropped from the top and must be caught by the player using a bucket. If all are caught then the player advances to the next level the next time this video mode is collected. Each level is faster and throws more bombs. After 5th level speed is fastest but distance between dropped bombs increases.

Video mode #2: not written yet, collected at retina scan saucer

Video mode #3: not written yet, collected at underground

as to fonts - pretty much any true type font can be converted and put on the DMD but many don't look right at the 8 or 9 pixel display of a DMD. Currently there are about 8 or so fonts that default into freewpc and there is enough rom space to add another 5 or so fonts. Most of the default fonts are very plain block characters. The extra fonts I have chosen are not plain and look good on the dmd and are distributed across all the different modes. If I had my way, every mode would have its own font but there is definitely not enough space for that. If anyone can find a font that is similar to the original game and send it to me that would be much appreciated.

TOO LATE - there are 3 video modes and I think you are in the minority as far as wanting them. In my code you can disable any or all of the video modes in the features menu so no problem for you.

right now it is in beta and I have a mailing list of beta testers - if you want to be one and have a burner let me know and I will add you to list and email you the code. Once all the beta testers are happy code will be released for free to public

the majority of my code is complete - lately have been going through and cleaning up some things that were not necessarily perfect in the freewpc engine - such as the way ball search and tilt were handled. Feel like I am 98% done but the last 2% has been taking longer than expected.

Hi,
game is pretty much done. I have been perfecting the shaker mode calls lately. But mostly minor, minor tweaks. The code will be free. If you have an eprom burner and a chip I can send you the code in email.

Hi all,
I am working through some stuff that I never paid much attention to in the code. Tilt for example - since I pretty much never tilt I ignored it for the most part but that needs to work obviously. Cleaning up search also. All the rest of the code is done.

I was working a ton of extra hours at work and am just finishing up a project tomorrow so I will be on this until completion for a few. Not much left really, but I will not commit to a time line - this is free work remember.

Concerning the shaker, I had played with the idea of building them to make a little bit of coin but I contacted PPS and they said they will be selling them once MMR comes out and they will be compatible so I dropped the idea - you can buy from them which is only right - they are good people. They told me to expect them to cost around 100$. By the way, I will be adding shaker support to NGG also and all the other games I recode.

I am looking into other mechanisms to add to games and am considering making some kind of boss gopher/ringmaster contraption for NGG - can't guarantee that will happen though. We'll see.

Thanks for all the support and good words. I go to the allentown show every year and live in New Jersey if anyone wants to connect and invite me over to play their games.
Jim

okay - I am calling this code done
here is a video

The display is a giant dot DMD made by boston pinball company. I bought it at Allentown show but you can order from them.

correct. That is what Rick sent me from PPS.

Please feel free to post thoughts and comments once you have tried out the code.

I would expect that they would sell a kit. Probably should start bugging Rick to sell them and maybe he will put them out sooner. I will be doing NGG next and it will also have shaker support.

Appreciate the good words.

Installing the Demolition Time Rom chip in your Demolition Man Pinball Machine

requires a 27C080 or equivalent model ROM chip. The original chip used in Demolition Man was a 27C040. The 27C080 is the identical size and shape to the 27C040 but it has twice the memory capacity. Actually that is the largest memory capacity chip that the WPC boardset supports.

To install the new game code only requires you to remove the old chip and install the new chip. There are no jumpers to switch or wires to move.

1) power off your machine.
2) Open the backbox
3) Locate the CPU board. There are 6 printed circuit boards in the backbox. The CPU board is in the bottom left hand corner and should have 3 AA batteries on it.
4) Ground yourself to eliminate any static charge your body may have by touching a ground braid or metal framework on the machine that is grounded.
5) Locate your rom chip. It is on the top ½ of the board and adjacent to the 3 leds.
6) Remove the old chip – you may want to use a plastic screwdriver or popsicle stick or some other non-metallic item to gently pry it up.
7) Install new chip. Note that small cut out on chip goes to the right. Ensure all pins go in all holes.
8) Turn on game. If chip was installed properly then you should see top and bottom LEDs go solid momentarily then top LED goes out and middle LED starts flashing. Bottom LED will stay on. If middle LED does not start flashing then something is wrong with your chip installation.
9) You are done

Optional Shaker motor installation
supports the installation of a ROAD SHOW STYLE shaker motor. You CANNOT install a stern shaker.
I contacted PPS and they told me that they are planning on supplying these shakers once the MMR comes out and that the MMR shaker should be identical to a RS shaker. Rick told me to expect it to sell for about $100.

The RS shaker has a small controller board next to the shaker and from that controller board there are 3 wires that are run up into the backbox. Those 3 wires are ground, +20v power and a signal wire. The power is always present to the shaker and the signal wire tells the controller board when to turn the shaker on and off.
The wiring color code on my road show shaker is as follows (please check your shaker if different):
Black wire = ground
Red with white stripe = power + 20v
Blue with yellow stripe = signal wire

Install as follows:
1) power down machine
2) install shaker motor – make sure rotating member is not close to wire bundle. You should have some form of shield to prevent wires from getting tangled in shaker.
3) Run 3 wire bundle into back box
4) Connect black ground wire to any open spot on ground bus connector at J103 on power distribution board (right side of board)
5) Connect red/white power wire to any open spot on power bus connector at J107 on power distribution board (top of board)
6) Remove and tape car crash center flasher signal wire at J122-1 from power distribution board (light blue wire with brown marking)
7) Remove and tape car crash back box flasher signal wire at J124-1 from power distribution board (light blue wire with brown marking)
8) Land Blue/yellow shaker motor signal wire at J122-1
9) Turn on shaker in features menu

Hey all,
just got off the phone with Rick from PPS. I am going to have to make a few tweaks to the code to keep it in line with the williams copyright. Rick and I are working together on making sure that it does.

I know that there are others who are violating the copyright law with their rules changes etc. and that is not what I am trying to do.

Freewpc does not use one line of williams code. The entire code is written from scratch.
Also, my code does not contain any williams logos.

As for the changes I need to make - I had 3 instances of video animation that were similar to the original - they were: fortress multiball start, museum multiball start, and the "don't move" ball save animation. They will be removed/replaced. All other animations are new and different from the original game.

This might cause a delay of a day or 2 for those who ordered chips from me - sorry. I just want to make this right. For those who have their own chip burners and I sent code, I will send you an email with the new image when it is done. Please discard the old image.

Jim

The audio chips are on the sound board. The code rewrite is done to one chip on the CPU board.

Hope this is not turning into a bash Rick thread.

Anyway, I started a thread on the NGG code project.
http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ngg-new-rules-new-code#post-1301785

which rev of code using?

One of the things that happens I have seen is that if a multiball gets pretty crazy, some of the coils can get locked out. This is a protection/timing thing in freewpc. I think there is a bug there but haven't tracked it down yet. Because I knew this was there, I reset all the coil states during ball search so that clears this problem out. This is really a work around though.

One question though, wen the 2 balls kicked, your flippers weren't locked right? You kept playing those 2 balls correct?

could you send me a video of this please? not sure exactly what you are describing

what exactly do you mean by stuck? what was happening around that time?

yes, so that was what I thought it was.

There is a protection algorithm built into freewpc to prevent multiple coils from firing at the same time. I think this was done to prevent dragging down bus voltage which tends to cause bad things such as soft reboots. So what I have seen a few times is that if there are too many coil fire requests in the queue then things sometimes become bogged down and the queue "forgets" if a coil has been fired. It then prevents a refire because it thinks it is still firing. Only seen these a few times and it was always during a fairly engaging multiball. I put in a little chunk of code in ball search to reset the coil fire loop just in case this happens. Will investigate further when I get the chance.

I know it kind of sux to have to wait for search to clear things out but I have really only seen these pretty rarely. Hopefully I can eliminate it all together.

car crash ball save - yeah I know about that. most times it doesn't work but that is a timing thing - maybe I can fix it but I just play like its not there.

retina scan ball save is there because when the game was in beta some people complained that the ball doesn't always go straight down so we threw in a ball save there. so that is supposed to be there.

you can stack claw modes and multiballs with this code so what you describe with the claw sounds feasible. If you had done the required things to lit the claw you can keep hitting it even before one mode is done.

not sure what you mean by "game ending multiball with still 2 balls left in the game" - do you mean that MB ended but still 2 balls on playfield (but bonus didn't start right?)

yes sound like trough issue. are you running .90 or .91? if .90, try .91 - the trough timing is one of the tweaks for .91

for future reference, on all pins, just under the lockbar there should be a little label that says "install XX balls"

could you be more specific about "long way to go". We had about 30 beta testors - most of them pinsiders, and their were hardly any comments as far as improvement requests over the last few revs. Please either post here or PM me on any problems or suggested improvements.

grumpy and I are emailing back and forth to try to figure this out. Pretty sure one of the switches may be bad on his cab.

For the rest of you this brings up something you should know. Freewpc does not have as robust error checking as far as switch errors etc than the original code. Freewpc pretty much assumes everything is working properly on your machine. The original code was a little more forgiving and would let you play on if it only saw 3 or 4 balls in the trough for example (bad trough switch). For freewpc, I was pretty much assuming that the majority if not all of these machines were in homes and that home owners usually kept their games in good working order so I didn't write the additional code to take into account all these different situations where something could be broke.

So far I think I have only had 3 people say things didn't work right and every time it was a bad switch somewhere (opto on claw, bad trough switch, etc.).

oh and one other thing.

On demolition time, you will probably notice that the pop bumpers fire a lot harder than the original. That is intentional, I wanted to make the game stronger and more aggressive and that is one physical change you will see. The only downside is that you may have to adjust the sensitivity on your pop bumper spoons. I had some people report that they were getting phantom pop hits when the ball was in the pops since they were firing so hard.

I do not plan on writing new modes or making any more changes to this code. I am now working on NGG. Having said that, if there is something major that is wrong in the code that you find, please let me know, I will fix it.

There are more call outs in my code than the original - but I may have used them in different places than original. so that is what you are probably noticing.

Swear roms add maybe 50 or so new sounds and about 25 of those actually do not swear, but are not located in the original code. Some have installed the swear roms and selected "additional sounds" in the option menu which then adds about 25 new sounds but not the swearing ones. That is how mine is set up. you could also add all the sounds as you like.

should have 5 balls.

I just had a flash back!!!!
I got a ball stuck under there and I don't know how but it eventually found its was to inbetween the elavator opto board and the motor. The elevator moved and the ball crushed the opto board - destroying it. I think you should get it out.

So even though you just started a claw mode, the claw will remain active if you have claw modes stacked - this is normal behavior with the code. You can have 2 or more claw modes running simultaneously.

If the ball is not being recognized at the elevator then the opto there is probably dirty. What should happen is that it should eventually go into ball search the claw should grab the ball and drop it on acmag. Are you saying that the ball is not picked up in ball search? Is the elevator not moving? I would clean both your elevator optos.

Okay, I just read through the code. this is a bug. Good catch. What is happening is that the claw service doesn't end until the 10 sec timer expires, even though you already started a claw mode right away. Then you hit the claw shot again, but the code thinks you are still in the claw service so it doesn't restart and just sits there. I will have to fix that so that as soon as any claw mode starts the claw service is reset and waiting for a new ball.

Looks like we will be going to 0.92?
Anyone find any other bugs while I am updating?

that may be an unsupported feature in freewpc. I thought I had removed all the unsupported features from the options menu, but I think I missed that one. I am not sure how many lines of code it would take to add a dimming feature for GI, let me look at the code and see which way we will go.

this is known. It happens on my table also, not as often as yours though. I added a short ball save if the left outline is detected right after the saucer sol fires as a work around. I will leave that in and lower the sol power a little and we will see if that stops it.

I am a little nervous about lowering that too much because if someones coil is too weak then it will not work at all if the power is too low.

Hey all, I got both of the reported bugs fixed (eject kickout coil strength reduced and the problem with rehitting the claw before it is reset). I am also incorporating some other changes that I had on my mind.

One of the things that bothered me was that there were many modes that were ready to start but the player had no good indication of that. There are lights above the underground hole for demo time and computer award but no indications for huxley wizard mode, explode, car chase, video mode, or back in the fridge (although back in the fridge probably doesn't need one since it can only be started after all 4 MBs are completed).

So I added an information status display to the right side of the DMD - this already (somewhat) existed on 2, 3, or 4 player games but not on 1 player. I changed the 1 player game to match and added indications at the top of the status section. It is basically a letter at the top, so for example, if video mode is ready then a "V" will be lit at the top of the screen.

The last thing that I am trying to get fixed is the multi-drain bug. Sometimes when you drain several balls at the same time during a MB the trough would get confused and not update until search kicked in. This was fairly irritating, especially for a person like me who is not a great player and drains all the balls all the time. I think I got this one fixed, but am going to do some heavy testing for a few days.

Should have this out in a few days then.

One other thing is in the works that you all may be interested in. A fellow pinsider who is a professional artist has volunteered to do the drawing of all the graphics for my NGG code. After looking at the graphics for DM he is probably going to help rework those also. He has a lot of high end graphics tools to reprocess the images and clean them up a lot better than I did and also is willing to draw stuff too. He has already sent me some of his work, both of new hand drawings formatted for the DMD and some of the graphics that have been cleaned and redone. It all looks really, really good.

If you want to ask him any questions or add input, please post here as he is on pinside and I will let him speak for himself.

no pressure on Mario, I want to give him as long as he wants so a good job. This is free work remember? We are doing this for the hobby, not for money so no pressure.

I am going to release what I have when it is ready to go.

Okay,
so I am happy with the new code changes. Calling it rev 0.95. I expect there will be one more update when Mario gives me the updated video but if you can live with it now it should be good for you.

Check out a video:

1) not enough room on the rom to put both versions.

2) hacking the original is not legal as per PPS

3) I suppose you could sell my chips on ebay if you got someone to buy them. Same stuff happened to CCC but it is a little irritating

4) until someone cracks the encoding algorithm for ATRAC (or sony open sources it) there is no way to change sounds or music

5) there was another thread asking which game I should do next. T2 was high on the list along with NGG and TOTAN. Since I already own NGG that is what I am currently working on.

I am really hyped up right now. Marco sent me 2 sets of frames to test for animation. Here is the video:

Rules question for all of you players out there,

I did something a little different with the DM rules in that there are timed modes, multiball modes and also something new, hybrid timed-multiball modes (explode, car chase, superjets).

In these hybrid timed-multiball modes, the game gives you an additional ball but the mode still ends after a time (or completing the mode in the case of superjets) but the player may or may not have drained the additional ball before the timer ends. So here is the question.

While the mode is playing things like video mode and the claw diverter are disabled since there are 2 balls on the playfield and hitting either of those disables the flippers which would cause the player to lose their 2nd ball. But if a player holds onto the 2nd ball and the mode ends due to timing out, then the player hits either VM or the claw then they will lose the one ball as the flippers will be dead. I have gotten a few questions about this and whether or not that is the way the game is supposed to play.

What do you think? Is the hybrid mode too confusing?

I could simply eliminate the 2nd ball and make it a standard timed mode. Alternately I could make it a MB and when the 2nd ball drains the mode ends. My thoughts were to hybrid that and give the 2nd ball as sort of a bonus to the player but still keep it a timed mode. but again, if the 2 balls are still in play when the timer ends then the game will steal that 2nd ball if the player inadvertently starts the claw or VM which tends to piss people off.

Opinions would be appreciated.

you might want to hold onto that one. We will probably redo the rules for it eventually too.

The more I think about it the more I think I need to eliminate the hybrid mode. I don't want people confused by the rules of the game. Eliminating the 2nd ball would be the easiest fix as the mode is already written as a timed mode and would only require changing one line of code.

But since explode and car chase are such dangerous shots and there is currently no ball save for them I am going to have to fix that if I make it a single ball timed mode.

Mario just sent me a bunch more animations and I can't help but tease. They will blow your mind.

So then I am thinking once we get all his animations in we will be putting out a final 1.0 release. That being said I have a hand full of tweaks to do to the code such as the above discussed elimination of the hybrid modes. If you have other things on your mind then now is absolutely the time to send them to me.

I agree with the others but maybe not this one. The reason it comes on is that you can stack MBs. If fortress is running and you light enough freezes you can start museum while fortress is still running, for example.

I just got this fixed. Will be smooth on the next release

yes, should have been same. I will verify.

I just read through the code and the only place that tournament mode sets is computer award. That is the only random variable in the game. The other thing people typical do is disable the claw. This does not happen automatically, you would have to select to disable the claw separately. Does that sound right? Do you think that the claw should be automatically disabled if put into tournament mode?

I will test tournament mode tonight to figure out why comp award is not working.

alright so I went through a bunch of computer awards last night with a 3 player games on tournament mode and they were all the same for all 3 players. I went to 6 computer awards each and they were identical.

There was a bug though, so that was a good find. when in tournament mode, after displaying the computer award it will show what the next award is and that was wrong. It showed the next award as bonus every time. This only happens in tournament mode. I will fix it.

the code should be fair and balanced for your tournament as is though.

8mb chip has more pins and will not fit into the socket

I think there is some confusion here though, between bits and bytes, as 8 mega bits = 1 mega byte. the chip you want is 8megabit or 1 megabyte which is a 27c801

a few things still need to be written in the code. For now support is there to turn lights on or off or flash at a preset rate. I would love to pulse the lights at a variety of different rates and dim the bulbs. Look at what williams did with the flashers on NGG or MB. also stern on IM and SM is very good. We don't have that written yet in the code.

By the way, I fixed the claw movement already for the next rev and a lot of other little tweaks. I have been playing the new code in my machine for about a week and it is much better. Also roughly half the new animations are done and I quite like them. In the end we will probably still keep some of the old animations for some very specific modes. Mario is really helping take this to the next level.

I would expect it to be done within weeks.

one of the things that was requested was to add more bling to the code. I am currently writing several brief "light show" type lighting sequences. Once I get this done I will send the code to Mario and battle test it for a few days, then it will be released.

here is just a quick update. that's again to everyone who has given me feedback as that is what most of these changes are based on. And, like I said before, the below is not a wish list but things that are already fixed and running on my machine. Once I run it for a few weeks and verify that no bugs pop up then it will be released.

things that are fixed:

Added the following new animations created by Mario:
explode hit
combos (4 different ones)
fortress multiball start
cryo claw
jackpot
super jackpot
car crash
ball save
shoot again
plunge ball
rollovers completed
rollovers
quick freeze ready / quick freeze
skillshot
standups (a bunch of different ones)
jets
jets completed

Added lighting effects (bling, bling) to certain effects (previously only ball lock and computer award had specific lighting effects):
ball lock
computer award
MB jackpot
MB super jackpot
super jets hit
acmag hit
car chase
standup frenzy hit
explode hit
cryo claw start

Fixed problem where sometimes the skill shot timer stayed on too long.

For video modes, now some points are awarded for activating a video mode even if you abort

Fixed bug with computer award when in tournament mode where previously the “next” computer award displayed was incorrect

Changed the way arrows light during MBs. Previously combos were disabled in MB and both the arrows and jackpot lights served to indicate a jackpot. Now the arrows do not follow the jackpots and combos remain in effect during MB

Fixed problem with capture simon arrows. Previously during capture simon mode, the combo portion of the arrow control would take over when it shouldn't have. This confused the player as they didn't know if the arrow is lit for a combo or for capture simon.

During MB start, made ball eject faster from top popper so it comes out with balls being served from shooter lane. Previously there was a 3 second delay for the top popper ball.

Added top popper mystery awards (you look great today, enhance your calm, 1 credit violation) These are awarded if the top popper is hit when nothing is lit and score 1 million points. The speech sounds for “enhance your calm” and “1 credit violation” are only present if the swear roms are installed and “extra sounds” or “swear sounds” is selected “on” in menu.

stopped plunger from double firing after launching a ball.

Changed car crash scoring as follows: Previously car crash scoring was reset to 0 at start of car chase but not reset at end of ball. Switched that so that score is decreased by one level on end ball but not changed at all if car chase mode is started. Also, multiplier stays until end of game once received (same as before).

Computer award light now does not flash when computer award is disabled – such as in MB.

Launch button now flashes when machine is ready to launch ball.

Added a few extra levels to kaboom to make it more difficult. Previously there were only 3 difficulties. Now there are 6 (last ones nearly impossible). (Personally, Level 3 feels about right to me so that is where I set my start level in the feature menu).

Added extra bonus award for completing either kaboom or shooting video mode (catch all bombs or shoot all baddies and increase your VM score by 50%)

Made claw move more smoothly when controlled by the player.(YESSSS!)

Changed VM order such that which VM the player sees first is randomly chosen

superjets, explode, car chase modes were changed to a single ball timed mode only – doesn’t disable claw or VM as before.

Moved line on DMD so there is more space between words.

Car crash award (and Triple) now displays points awarded

Changed “light arrows” computer award so that not only does it light the arrows (which is mighty lame) but it also awards 3 million points.

Prevented quotes from getting interrupted by other quotes by eliminating preempting by sound calls that have equal priority. This causes less quotes to be said because they will only speak when channel is free. Preemption will still work for very important sound calls as they have higher priorities.

Flasher now flashes to warn of ball release after video mode.

Now able to hold flipper buttons down to fast forward through Computer Award Bonus just the same as you can the end of ball bonus.

send me PM

alright all, got .99 release ready. I will start sending it out in the next few days.
If you want it - send me a PM. For those who have sent me a PM in the last few weeks I will be responding tomorrow to everyone.

I am calling this one .99 and not 1.0 as you can see. So this may or may not be the last release. I am calling this one .99 because I could see some possible changes in the future as follows:

1) pretty much no one but me has tried this code with a shaker. I think once PPS releases their shakers and people get them in their machines there may be some comments/feedback which leads to some changes to the shaker code. Of course, PPS may never sell shakers or they may sell them 2 or 3 years from now. I don't know.

2) Mario may or may not give me some more animations to put in the game. If he chooses not to, then that is cool. I understand that what he gave me so far was a tremendous amount of work and he is not getting one nickel for it so how much more can we ask?

So then, there may be a future release based on the two above "maybes" but I suspect that "if" it happens that it will be pretty far away down the road, if at all. So this is the release for now and it may possibly be the last one.

I am really happy with how the code has come out and I want to thank every one who gave me feedback along the way, even the hyper-negative people. I rather have someone let me know that they hate some feature of the game and be overly blunt than to let it sit there and make the game suck.

I feel like I have learned a lot along the way and I think there would have been a lot of things I would have done differently if I knew then what I know now. The next game I code will definitely be better and again, I want to thank all of you for pointing out things that I wasn't aware of and developing my pinball coding skills.

I still have it. I will send out soon

I am pretty sure you have a bad trough opto. The original williams code was very forgiving and would check for failed switches and compensate accordingly. My code doesn't do that. It assumes that you have a fully functional, perfectly working machine with 5 balls in it. So if you don't, you can get some unexpected behavior.

To be fair, there are some areas that my code is different form the original and some would argue that the original is better in these areas. Here are a few off the top of my head:

1) There is no car crash ball saver. I made explode and car crash worth more points to try to balance the risk-reward here though.

2) If you do a warm reboot (hold down start button in middle of game) then I have been told that things don't always seem to reboot properly. I haven't been able to replicate this on my machine but some people have complained about it.

3) some people have complained that the magnet hold strength is too strong on their machine and that they have to shake the claw a little to get the ball to drop. Again, doesn't do this on my machine - I think not all the machines are quite the same due to age, maybe.

4) my code doesn't allow for a broken trough opto like the original code did. If you have bad optos you can get endless ball serves or other such nonsense. If all your optos are good then you should have no problems.

C, you were one of the few beta testers who really put my code through its paces and tried a lot of scenarios that I hadn't thought of. Much thanks to you, my friend.

unfortunatly no one is currently making these. Rick from PPS told me he is going to start when MMR comes out as MMR will have a compatible shaker. In the meantime you can fab one up if you are inclined. I need to do that myself.

that's a bug. it will be exterminated

Hey all,
The article I mentioned is up. You can check it out here:

http://pavlovpinball.com/completing-the-code/

yes - back in the fridge is supposed to do that. I will look into the extra ball behavior you described.

thanks for the thumbs up. A few thousand sounds real high though. I am guessing DM/DT is in less than 100 machines.

oh snap. I don't know what happened but the line that killed the extra ball flag was commented out. I hate bugs. I will fix.

sounds like a stuck acmag switch. doesn't happen to me. anyone else?

I checked the code and it shouldn't be the switch. Not sure what is going on here. Does this happen in specific scenarios. i.e. from cold boot or from a quick cycling of the power switch?

the launch button and the right thumb are wired as the same button. you might have a pinched wire somewhere between the two?

it worked for me – also it displays the scores of the last game played even if not in tournament. Only difference is that in tournament mode the displayed scores are held longer.

I fixd this in next rev. I gave the warning 2 seconds.

do you remember which MB you had running? Do you remember where you started the VM (eyeball saucer/eject or the top popper? Which version of code are you running? I can't seem to repeat this.

Maybe.

I stopped the ani at frame 24 from what you gave me – the explosion goes too quick and doesn't look quite right – I didn't find a blank frame

This is fixed in next rev

This is fixed in next rev

Next should be out by this weekend. Here is what I have. Nothing earth shattering here - just mainly tweaks to core. Also for those who asked here is the most recent history going back 2 revs:

Demo Time Rev History
Expected release 08/08/2014 last official release on 05/16/2014
rev beta – 1.01 file name: dman_sji_10241_01.rom
burn using a 27C080 chip (1meg)

changes since rev 0.99b:

Changed lighting effect priority for effect that turns GIs back on after a video mode. This was set at equal priority with other effects and if it happened that another effect was running then the lights might not be turned back on. Now lights always turn back on as expected.

Rewrote code that adds time to a running timed mode if a video mode is started (acmag or capture simon, for example). Previously, 10 seconds were added to the running timed mode timer as it was assumed that a video mode would last less than that and the mode timer would be about where it left off before the video mode. Now, it captures the exact time left and resets the clock to that time at video mode exit.

Fixed date structure type checking so that dates will now fall into normal ranges. Also fixed the logic for entering dates so that they roll properly and do not exceed normally expected bounds.

Changed the way initials are entered to allow for fast scrolling if buttons are held down.

Added small pause so that letter positions do not jump in pinmame when entering initials (this problem did not exist on WPC hardware, only in pinmame).

Made tilt warning timer set to 2 seconds. Previously it was set to 0 and then if plumb was bouncing you might receive an immediate tilt with little warning.

Added tilt check to ball save routine – previously if ball save was active and the game tilted additional balls would be kicked.

Changed display of ball save timer to be more prominent on DMD. Changes were made for the following modes: acmag, capture simon, car chase, demotime, explode, fortress, museum, prison break and standup frenzy. Previously the ball save time was a little number on the DMD with no label as to what it was. Now the words “ball save” appear next to it.

*********************************************************************************************************************************

Demo Time Rev History
05/16/2014 last official release on 04/24/2014
rev beta – 0.99b file name: dman_sji_10240_99.rom
burn using a 27C080 chip (1meg)

changes since rev 0.99:

Fixed problem with Capture Simon mode where it was giving 2 credits toward starting Demo Time mode instead of 1.

Fixed new bug with extra ball where extra balls were not being decremented after being collected. This bug was only introduced in rev .99 due to the top popper code being rewritten at that time.

*********************************************************************************************************************************

Demo Time Rev History
04/24/2014 last release on 01/10/2014
rev beta – 0.99 file name: dman_sji_10240_99.rom
burn using a 27C080 chip (1meg)

changes since rev 0.95:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Added the following new animations created by Mario:
explode hit
combos (4 different ones)
fortress multiball start
cryo claw
jackpot
super jackpot
car crash
ball save
shoot again
plunge ball
rollovers completed
rollovers
quick freeze ready / quick freeze
skillshot
standups (a bunch of different ones)
jets
jets completed

Added lighting effects (bling, bling) to certain effects (previously only ball lock and computer award had specific lighting effects):
ball lock
computer award
MB jackpot
MB super jackpot
super jets hit
acmag hit
car chase
standup frenzy hit
explode hit
cryo claw start

Fixed problem where sometimes the skill shot timer stayed on too long.

For video modes, now some points are awarded for activating a video mode even if you abort the mode and choose not to play it.

Fixed bug with computer award when in tournament mode where previously the “next” computer award displayed was incorrect

Changed the way arrows light during MBs. Previously combos were disabled in MB and both the arrows and jackpot lights served to indicate a jackpot. Now the arrows do not follow the jackpots and combos remain in effect during MB

Fixed problem with capture simon arrows. Previously during capture simon mode, the combo portion of the arrow control would take over when it shouldn't have. This confused the player as they didn't know if the arrow is lit for a combo or for capture simon. Now combos are disabled when in capture simon mode.

During MB start, made ball eject faster from top popper so it comes out with balls being served from shooter lane. Previously there was a 3 second delay for the top popper ball.

Added top popper mystery awards (you look great today, enhance your calm, 1 credit violation) These are awarded if the top popper is hit when nothing is lit and score 1 million points. The speech sounds for “enhance your calm” and “1 credit violation” are only present if the swear roms are installed and “extra sounds” or “swear sounds” is selected “on” in the menu.

Increased shooter lane refire delay to stop occasional plunger double firing after launching a ball.

Changed car crash scoring as follows: Previously car crash scoring was reset to 0 at start of car chase but not reset at end of ball. Switched that so score is decreased by one level on end ball but not changed at all if car chase mode is started. Also, multiplier stays on until end of game once received (same as before).

Computer award light now does not flash when computer award is disabled – such as in MB.

Launch button now flashes when machine is ready to launch ball.

Added a few extra levels to kaboom to make it more difficult. Previously there were only 3 difficulties. Now there are 6 (last ones nearly impossible). (Personally, Level 3 feels about right to me so that is where I set my start level in the feature menu).

Added extra bonus award for completing either kaboom or shooting video mode (catch all bombs or shoot all baddies and increase your VM score by 50%)

Made claw move more smoothly when controlled by the player.(YESSSS!)

Changed VM order such that which VM the player sees first is randomly chosen

Superjets, explode, car chase modes were changed to a single ball timed mode only – doesn’t disable claw or VM as before.

Moved line on DMD so there is more space between words.

Car crash award (and Triple) now displays points awarded

Changed “light arrows” computer award so that not only does it light the arrows (which is mighty lame) but it also awards 3 million points.

Prevented quotes from getting interrupted by other quotes by eliminating preempting by sound calls that have equal priority. This causes less quotes to be said because they will only speak when channel is free. Preemption will still work for very important sound calls as they have higher priorities.

Flasher now flashes to warn of ball release after video mode.

Now able to hold flipper buttons down to fast forward through Computer Award Bonus just the same as you can the end of ball bonus.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

just emailed out the latest code to all the beta testers.
Here are the changes:

Demo Time Rev History
08/08/2014 last official release on 05/16/2014
rev beta – 1.01 file name: dman_sji_10241_01.rom
burn using a 27C080 chip (1meg)

changes since rev 0.99b:

Changed lighting effect priority for effect that turns GIs back on after a video mode. This was set at equal priority with other effects and if it happened that another effect was running then the lights might not be turned back on since an incoming effect cannot override a running effect of equal priority. Now it is set as highest priority and lights always turn back on as expected.

Rewrote code that adds time to a running timed mode if a video mode is started (acmag or capture simon, for example). Previously, 10 seconds were added to the running timed mode timer as it was assumed that a video mode would last less than that and the mode timer would be about where it left off before the video mode. Now, it captures the exact time left and resets the clock to that time at video mode exit.

Fixed date structure type checking so that dates will now fall into normal ranges. Also fixed the logic for entering dates so that they roll properly and do not exceed normally expected bounds.

Changed the way initials are entered to allow for fast scrolling if buttons are held down.

Added small pause so that letter positions do not jump in pinmame when entering initials (this problem did not exist on WPC hardware, only in pinmame).

Made tilt warning timer set to 2 seconds. Previously it was set to 0 and then if plumb bob was bouncing player might receive an immediate tilt with insufficient warning.

Added tilt check to ball save routine – previously if ball save was active and the game tilted additional balls would be kicked.
Changed display of ball save timer to be more prominent on DMD. Changes were made for the following modes: acmag, capture simon, car chase, demotime, explode, fortress, museum, cryoprison, wasteland, prison break, Huxley, superjets and standup frenzy. Previously the ball save time was a little number on the DMD with no label as to what it was. Now the words “ball save” appear next to it and it is always on the bottom line (except for standup frenzy and superjets, which is on top line).

Changed ball save timer for explode and car chase to be set to value of a mode ball save instead of a MB ball save (these can be set to different times in the feature adjustments but they both default to the same value – 10 seconds). These modes were previously MBs and were changed to normal timed modes in .99, but I forgot to change the ball saver accordingly. It is correct now.

Added ball save timer to superjets, which did not have one.

I amailed it to you 6 days ago. I guess this means you didn't get it?

to erase the chip, you need an eprom eraser. Then you burn it using a burner. Two deferent pieces of equipment. All chips that have a clear glass window on them are erasable, for the most part. Although really old chips tend to not want to erase very well.

Yes, you can send a chip back to me and I will reburn it.

Merry Christmas to all. It's been a long while since I've made any changes to this code so I finally got some time to put it up on github. So it is all there and open source for anyone who wants to further tweak and work on it. This was a lot of hours of my life so I hope it lives on and others can make it even better.

Unfortunately I was having a hard time connect to my old branch so I created a new one. Here it is:

https://github.com/CardonaPinball/freewpc_DM

Please post here if any of you make more upgrades, changes or mods or if you want to further discuss.
James Cardona

Yes, if you don't have a burner, I can burn you a chip. Send me a message.

My chip burner was down for about a month so a few guys contacted me and I shooed them away but I got it working again today (I hate windows).

If people want to jump in and update code, that's really cool. There are some bugs still out there. I suspect they may be memory management issues that tend to only happen when multiple modes are running simultaneously. Adding more animations sounds great too. I could help but don't want to be the sole programmer in the effort as my time is fairly constrained lately.

1.01

all the code rules specific to DM are in a folder labeled machine/DM. Almost everything else is the game engine. The animation frames are in the images folder.

There actually is a main, like you would expect to see in any C++, but after post the code goes into a message queue loop. Events on the playfield trigger messages that are dropped in a queue and are served to code that is listening for the message. This is all handled by the engine. If you just want to play with changing rules, read through the code located in machine/DM. I have the files split up by modes.

Any specific questions about what or why I've done things a certain way, feel free to post.

To change images:
1) add the new frames to the images folder. Make sure they are in the pgm format as that is all that the code can read.

2) open the file labeled wpc.ild in the platform/wpc folder. type in the names of the new image files. Here is an example from the .ild file:

IMG_FREEWPC_SMALL: images/freewpc_logo_6.pgm
images/freewpc_logo_5.pgm
images/freewpc_logo_4.pgm
images/freewpc_logo_3.pgm
images/freewpc_logo_2.pgm
images/freewpc_logo_1.pgm
IMG_FREEWPC: images/freewpc_logo.pgm

The IMG_FREEWPC_SMALL and IMG_FREEWPC are name tags for the first and last image. The code calls the image renderer by these tags and basically says start at the first image and continue until you reach the last.

If you want to add completely new animations, instead of replacing, you would also have to add the code to call the animation. That is also not too difficult. Look at the code, pretty much every mode has examples of how I did it.

for anyone who it matters, this code does not support the pinsound board. sorry

I just sold my last chip. prolly I can get more but I appreciate everyone sharing. that is super cool. I did this project and gave the code away for free so it makes me feel good that people are not trying to profit off my work and are paying it forward. good job

Just got in some new blank chips. If anyone needs a burn just let me know

it is my understanding that the frame data for the color DMD is on the colorDMD itself and it has some sort of algorithm to detect the frame data being sent to it and then it replaces the old frames with colorized ones. So in the case of this new DM code, it has totally different frames, at least a lot of them, so the color DMD has no idea what they are and has nothing to replace them with. A really dedicated person who had a spare 6 months on their hands might be inclined to colorize the frames and submit them to colorDMD to make this work but I don't know of any such person.