Binary Solo!

Ha, I was watching an old Funny Or Die on HBO and they had some Morse code during a news flash graphic. Since I know Morse, I rewound it on my TiVo enough times to decipher it through the music. What did it say?:

"You are a total nerd"

Any update on what day Roger is supposed to approve? It's one day next week, isn't it?

That's great. Thanks for sharing.

I played an original mm tonight, can't wait to own mmr.

THAT is awesome!

As long as you can get rid of that nasty pop, I'll be happy!

Damn Rick you make this compelling to ride this out till the end. Thanks for the update and especially the news on improved audio sounds great.

"Goes and knocks down a wall to fit more pins"!!!

I will gladly trade the WMS logo for uncompressed sound!

Now go over to stern and get their uncompressed file and remake LOTR.

Rick, that is tremendous news. And thanks for working on this in secret for as long as you did and not take deposits until the end.

I predict Rick will be Pinball's Man of the Year in 2014!

I heard a rumor my secret visit to Churchill isn't much of a secret any longer

(and if my boss is reading this I was definitely at Churchill to check in on our Raw Thrills cabinet production)

I know Rick mentioned that I sounded surprised on the phone when we chatted about the progress, and that's because I really was amazed. The game is far closer to being done compared to what my expectations were, and even better was that the list of issues I had with the game were all already on Doug's to-do list.

Hopefully Raw Thrills business will give me another reason to sneak over there and check it out in the upcoming months, but kudos to Rick and Doug for the progress they've made so far!

Rats! I secretly wanted not to want this pin!

But... But... But.... I thought this was just a crappy re-fake?

Hope Bowen does a PAPA tutorial for MMr ASAP for the fence sitters like me (will help along with the user reviews of course).

The more people we know and respect that play the game the better. This last update is a very good one.

It's only a refake in the eyes of current owners and flippers. The majority of collectors welcome it however it's the small group of those who are against it are the most vocal and constantly put it down.

AHHHH get me a H2Overdrive shipped with my MMR

Rick's site had an image of their dev board. I have added comments to it if anyone cares. Thoughts:

Beagle Bone Black (BBB) is an ARM based development board from TI. It's like a beefed up Raspberry Pi. This is most likely what the Homepin guy was talking about when he said "we're not using hobbyist grade stuff on our game" But Beagle Bone is based off a commodity ARM chip, which Rick will probably embed into a final production PCB.

The BBB could easily emulate a Motorola 68k variant that WPC games ran on. Or do scripting. Who cares as long as the game plays the same? It's like saying Lawrence of Arabia Blu-Ray isn't good because it's not on film.

BBB also has (2) microcontrollers on the same die as the ARM. These can do low-level real time events such as switch handling (looking like it still using a matrix of some king) lights, etc.

Also people need to get over how small and simple this is. My cell phone is 20 times faster than a 1990's PC and fits in my pocket.

MMRCTRL.jpg

The original PCM wasn't very large either. In the end it will be all about the driver boards.

Which are much smaller than a standard driver board AND broken up into several smaller boards for easier servicing. I really can't say enough how much I wish I could've stayed in on the LE for this... just couldn't make the finances work. Looking foward to owning a standard in the future.

Why?

I would have thought they would leave it as a daughterboard on their pinball controller, just like they have it.

Great metaphor, Ben, thanks for the post.

very exciting! thanks very much for the update!

Depending on the volume he intends to make, it could end up a lot cheaper to embed it. Could get rid of a lot of parts count from connectors to the SD card. Definitely makes it a little more expensive to replace that driver board should something go wrong, though, so there would be advantages to keeping it that way, certainly.

--Donnie

Thanks for the post Ben. I don't know what any of this means but I am excited to be in on the MMR LE!!

Post 1964. Man this thing is coming together great!

I figured the cost savings of any unused components is exponentially smaller than the cost of re-engineering a replacement PCB for the BBB. That little board is a 6 layer PCB that has gone through so many revisions to get right, I can't imagine someone wanting to re-engineer that.

It'll be interesting to see what way they go, and why (if they ever tell us why).

Nearly everything in this world of electronics is built of building blocks like this and almost always things get engineered down. It's all a matter of how much you can save over the long haul with your up front investment. I'm sure if we were only thinking one or two thousand of these boards is all that would ever be made, sure, you'd probably be right that it isn't worth it. But if Rick thinks his longer term business plans are solid enough to warrant thinking in the five figure range for boards, things might be a lot different in terms of if it is worth it or not.

I really don't know what the numbers are, but I do think there's a volume at which it would make serious economic sense to re-engineer it. What that volume is depends on a lot of factors that only Rick knows. I'm just saying it wouldn't surprise me if that number is low enough that it fits in his long term plans to do it. It also wouldn't surprise me for it to stay like it is. Time will tell...and it could change over time, too. There's no reason why he couldn't keep it like it is for these machines and then use profits to re-engineer to help profitability of later machines, too. As long as the boards are plug compatible (and no reason they couldn't be), people won't care much.

--Donnie

You might save a few dollars on the BOM by doing a custom board, but given the cost of redesigning it, the only valid reasons I could see to do that would be to save space or to eliminate the modular approach. Space is certainly not of concern here. Eliminating the dependence on TI for the modules might be of minimal value. Eliminating the board to board headers would also be nice, but probably not worth a total redesign.

What I do find odd is that there are not screwholes on the custom carrier board to line up with the BBB. This design relies on the the friction fit of the connectors to hold it together.

I think there is clearly a third group of people that have posted here which I am a part of that I would label "cautiously skeptical". It really should be OK to ask technical questions about this new platform without getting shouted out of the room as being a "flipper" or a "hater".

So along those lines I will say I think it's great news that Josh was impressed with the game! But in keeping with my skeptical side, he admits he noticed issues which have already been identified by the programmer on the project. While it is probably an easy matter to rectify these software issues, my question is, how is Roger Sharpe supposed to sign off on the "it looks and plays like an original" by the end of this week if this programming hasn't been completed?

Exactly! so sick of that "flipper" / "hater" crap. There are many reasons why some are not on the band wagon and it doesn't have to be so damn personal... can't believe the uproar from a made up word like "refake".

...it's not the word...it's the attitude....

Even easier than that, since MM ran on the 8bit 6809 chip, not a 16bit 68k variant. Probably more work replicating the functionality of the WPC ASIC than that old CPU. Since Rick is re-sampling the sounds from source materials, there's no need to fool with the audio ASIC on the A/V board either. Sounds like it's down to timings and polishing... getting the lamps to look right and matching the timings and feel of the original driver system.

Seems kinda weird your following this thread then...

Since they're using an emulator they'll have to adapt the emulator to use whatever new sound system will be in place.

Well, if the playfield is the same, you just need to convert the harnesses... Would be a nice kit to sell.

I do have one question - will there be an external audio amplifier board? Ben identified what appears to be an audio amp on the controller, but it's singular (vs WPC95 separate cab and backbox channels), and there's no heatsinks like the original amps got. See http://www.parts4pinballs.com/images/products/specials/A-20145-2-L.jpg for comparison (lower-right) Simply put, will your audio system have any oomph? Since you're using original, uncompressed sound, I'd hope you'd marry it to appropriate hardware. No $2 Chinese speakers like Stern, please.

weird is as weird does!

You've said your piece repeatedly now. Please don't continue to troll an update thread.

that would put this hobby on its head indeed. 2014 and this still hasn't been implemented is probably the most amazingly stunning omission to date imho.

Exactly. People getting the MMr know it's going to have differences from the original however if it plays the same that is all they are really concerned with and they are not going to pass if off as an original. I can't see why anyone would be against MMr other then they are upset they are not going to be only ones who own a MM anymore or they are worried it's going to effect them from a monetary standpoint. I own a MM so if anything the MMr could devalue my original if it's a success, however I support MMr because it's gets MM in the hands of many collectors who always wanted it. Worst case it fails and PPS never makes another game again, however if it succeeds then they can make other titles and get them in the hands of more collectors. Just a shame people are against it and would rather them not be made.

nothing weird about mental illness...