I didnt say that they should support windows. I said that the reason for not supporting it shouldnt be the task scheduler. And I was quite clear on why.

Fair enough. But I would blame this more on the emulation software available on Windows then (ms virtual pc and vmware player).

Talking to a parallel port from a VM in windows is an issue also an USB to parallel port adds more mess.

As for emulation if you are not talking to outside hardware on an USB / parallel / ect bus then in the emulator you have more control.

With the annoucement of Rasberry Pi 2 being 6x faster than the old version, is there any chance that Nucore could run on that hardware? Seems like that would be huge cost savings!

Doesn't have a parallel port.

There are usb to parallel cables. Would that not work?

The system would need to be written to support it (ie: USB-to-parallel converter). The timing requirements of those communications are very tight and it might not work.

The bigger technical issue (at least as I see it) is that the Raspberry Pi 2 is ARM based and what they've done to date is x86 based. If they had wanted to support ARM, they could have done it a long time ago on the BeagleBone platform. The Raspberry Pi is just now getting horsepower to compete with that and it has been out for a long time.

For example, the BeagleBone is what some manufacturers of devices are going into production with (ie: in the pinball world, MMr for example). It's a pretty awesome little board. I've got a few sitting here at my desk in fact...

Jaz

It would require a usb to parallel port converter. Even then very doubtful it would be powerful enough. The Pi2 is going from a single core to a multi core setup. Emulators do not see performance improvements from this unless they are written to be multi threaded. Even then the improvement is easily negated. The emulator will always wait on the slowest thread to keep everything in sync. In this case most likely the graphics portion. An intel NUC would be a better option, but back to the usb to parallel converter.

Actually it is a little bit of a valid reason based on what Pinball 2000's harware expects. However- it is very possible to run P2K stuff with advanced rendering, audio, etc, on a windows system. The Haunted Cruise has proved this. It's running on a windows XP Pro 2.4ghz pentium 4 using a Geforce7600 graphics card and runs with little to no issues. Use a modern dual/quad core cpu and things would truely be rock solid on windows.

Getting that to work correctly took months of driver testing/writing/rewriting though. Not a trivial task in the least.

I can see a PI 2 working really well for emulation of the 2 older P2K games. You don't need a USB to anything converter for it. Use the I/O pins directly to emulate a parallel port.

There's one simple reason why you'll never see Nucore on RPi (or similar platform)... They wouldn't be able to sell it for $900.

What is a possibility is a new open-source P2K emulator (or new game even, like Lin's) running on RPi.

There's a giant parallel port right there on the Pi - it's the GIO pins.

NuCore was available as software only as well I thought. The hardware got hard to find after a while that was supported by the version of Linux they were using.

Yes, the software with the copy-protection module was $400.

I think some parallel stuff needs a real port and not some kind USB to Parallel one. Also that needs to map to the emu.

the pinball 2000 code / os is tied to an old X86 chipset.

Also the they can't just take some open source ARM to X86 code add your own code to cover the custom pci cards and add your own DRM to that.

I don't see this working well at all. For one thing, the Pi processor is arm big endian and the x86 pc needed for the pin2k is little endian. While this can be translated via software emulation, I think it adds another layer of complexity.

I don't get and don't want to get anything that you guys are talking about with all this technical stuff.

I do however just want to say that I can't wait for these guys to be up and running again. P2K is a fantastic system. Nucore helped to make that system even better.

With all the new technology out there today, I'm sure that when they come back online again, they'll develop a far better version of their old system that will not become obsolete (because of program code (like the Linux code they used) not being supported any longer or w/e) and will be able to allow people to play their P2K games for decades to come without any worries of it failing.

I wish Don and Mike all the success in the world moving forward. I can't even imagine the amount of time, work and effort they spent on making Nucore a reality. GL guys and hope you're back up and successfully running soon. Thanks for everything.

Actually, older ARM processors were also LE. However, current generation ARM processors are bi-endian. So, that shouldn't be an issue.

Jaz

You can address the pins directly. There's no USB involved. You'd probably need to write a driver in C to translate from the emulator but there's plenty of IO pins right there that can be directly driven and not emulated.

Yes, so they could actually get paid for their work. Your posts infer they sold hardware so they could rape you with it.. I'd wager they sold hardware because it was seen as a necessity.

No, nobody said anything about rape. I have no idea what their profit margin was on the hardware. The point is that there isn't much margin to work with if you're selling a $35 RPi.

The board serves three purposes:

1) real nvram storage. Works just like the original nvram.
2) protection. This was a license requirement.
3) hardware expansion.

Oh, and if you hook a momentary swith to the correct jumps it inverts the screen.

Yeah, but if you are selling the hardware just as a means to an end.. usually most don't look at markup on that to be their main argument in their pricing... just don't be eating it.

People requested updates so I thought I would check in.

The lawsuit continues. No real news to report there except it is progressing.

We have two code updates in the works. One is out on BETA testing currently and the second is in ALPHA testing. Things are going well on the code front and you will see new features and we have further optimized code. One of the features is you can disable bulb checking from the Nucore menu. If you want to install LEDs this is a quick and easy option to avoid the credit dot. It's also a way to remove the credit dot from bad lamps if you don't feel like tearing a lot of the top side of the machine off to replace a pop bumper lamp (*cough* rfm *cough*.)

We're doing our best to get Nucore out again and appreciate all of the positive support.

This is good news! I don't own a RFM - but plan to buy one that needs some TLC in the near future. When I do - I want to update it with Nucore technology to make playfield changes painless. You said "soon" a year ago - is anything eminent now?

The razpi is too damn slow to be emulating x86 instructions real time and driving the gfx. Maybe in another 10yrs.

I did say soon over a year ago. At that point it was going to be very soon. The lawsuit obviously delayed it and I can't give any new timeframes until the lawsuit is over. Doing so would be guessing and That wouldn't really help anyone.

So what about the people that did bought Nucore with good intention, believing that it was copyright-legal?
Another dozen of lawsuits for selling them illlegal "genuine software"?

You can emulate the Pi in linux through qemu and play around with without actually owning the hardware to see how it handles. I've tried running some VMware on my actual hardware PI v1 256 MB, it was painfully slow. I ended up turning it into an emulation machine for a friend.

It is copyright legal. It will be proven as such shortly.

great. can you speculate on how soon after said proof we will see nucore 2.0? i am really looking forward to updating my two machines.

2.X is being tested now. Hard to say. Testing now and it will be ready possibly before or definitely after the case is finished.

You realize that in the court of public opinion - each party has their own "spin" on things. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
Use of QEMU is perfectly legal ... as it's open source. The question is if NuCore needs to provide the source code of their derivate product to make it legal.

As a software developer myself; I've used GPLed software in my software. The key is you have to clearly divide the two products and offer the source for the GPLed portion.

Is there more then one case? I think there is the GPL case and they DMCA take down.

and if they do give out the source code they can't trun around and sue some from makeing there own build even one that takes out the dongle based DRM.

Off hand I can think of at least one other case that was kind of like this take open source code add some stuff to it + some kind of DRM / key system with out giving the code and then trying the DMCA take down route on someone who put up just about / the same thing with a DRM bypass / keygen.

Now what will the rights owns think about being forced to post the source code / be forced to have no DRM / dongles?

also there can be some unintended consequences depending on how things go in court with bad laws like the DMCA.

QEMU is perfectly legal but it and other VM / emulators can be used to bypass / cheat / reuse some software licenses. one EG Some vendors license their application per processor / but in VM you tell the VM system the I have 1 Socket with say 32 cores.

Now in this case this more of a VM for a old embedded PC system that has software tied to custom cards / old chipsets. Now the code used hear can be useful for other cases like this. But why does the right owner needed to give ok this / get a cut / force DRM for something that still needs the some of the old hardware as all that is being replaced is the PC?

What if some codes an VM that lets you redirected PCI card to a VM in a new system and just VM all the old chipset an other hardware to make it run why should they be able to step in use the DMCA to shut that down?

GPL and LGPL licenses are open to too much interpretation. This is something everyone agrees about. We will prove that we are in compliance. We will also prove it to the point that anyone who has a good understanding of those licenses would agree.

Prove to whom? your closed court case?
Simply put GPL/LGPL license are open for interpretation according to you... But clearly if you used QEMU in ANY FORM; you are REQUIRED by the license to post the source code for QEMU as used in your project. So; please point us to the example where you've provided *ANY* source code?

You don't understand the licensing as used in our situation. We will prove it openly.

In this case; Nucore and the other guy are in a legal struggle. Nucore is suing the other guy because he released a clone of Nucore. IIRC; he basically took Nucore's software and re-packaged it and provided for a free download via torrents. Nucore took offense because they believe it's their hardwork and art to have created the software in the first place.

The other guy posted here on Pinside that Nucore's "suit" is without merit because Nucore used QEMU in their software distribution without providing said source code.

I don't believe either party is 100% correct here nor to I believe either story. Regardless Nucore needs to take action to protect their body of work... but at the same time; the other guy had identified (at least to me) that Nucore is illegally distributing QEMU by violating the terms of GPL. If Nucore chooses to ignore this issue AFTER the court case is settled... then well; let's hope it doesn't get to that point.

Huh. umm. The GPL is very clear:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html#SEC4

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.

a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language

So; My expectation is that you openly show *US* where you are providing the source code for the QEMU distribution. Anything else is you doing nearly the same kind of damage as the guy you are suing.

LGPL by the way. And This situation is very complex and the nuances matter. Once we're able to go through the details I'm sure you'll agree. Just please have patience.

LGPL ... if you modify the source; you share the code. Period. No grey area.
We'll see how the court sides with you. I wish you luck; I really do... but as a guy who has used LGPL in my own products... I FREELY offer the source code to my customers... paid or not. That is what the LGPL requires... that's what I do.

as someone that has dealt with GPL/LGPL issues I agree, I don't see how its "open to interpretation" at all, it's quite clear really

if Cisco/Linksys could not win I don't see how nucore could possibly win

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation,_Inc._v._Cisco_Systems,_Inc.

note that Cisco "believed" it was in compliance also... yet it settled, made a large donation and released all their GPL source...

sooooooo... ya

good luck

think the torrent is still kicking around too

If he modified LGPL code, yes. If you just used LGPL code in your product you do not need to release the source to your whole product (GPL is more viral like this and would)

qemu seems to be GPL, not LGPL

http://wiki.qemu.org/License

There's two pieces.. A few pages back; the part in question I think is LGPL.

so they are getting sued for a GPL/LGPL violation and stopped selling it so they could claim no infringement (since there is no $$$) and then they sue in the pinbox guy because he is costing them $$$?

I think we are in a logic loop

No they are suing pinbox guy, in trying to defend himself he alerts QEMU guy as possible infringing and to help try to get it thrown out of court. The only reason for not selling it right now seems to be the litigation.. Because.. Reasons?

This whole thing is a clusterF. All I know is that if I were on an open source project like Qemu, I'd be upset over the use of the code.

We will see with the Pi2 if it can convert on the fly and still keep it in real time. I am doubtful, that is a lot of work to re-convert the datastream like that, even if the hardware is probably 100 times faster than the original p2k hardware. Rough figure solid true emulation, not interpretive emulation (HLE), via hardware virtualization needs a good 10x the processing power of the original to run (granted the code is well optimized), adding in another data conversion into that process and you're really going to tax the cpu. ARM is not ideal for this. Some tiny lin box would be great though.

Am I wrong or does it looks like the Nucore guys did use an open source program, put the cracked/modified RFM software in it, added a dongle and sold it?

for example;
If you recreate an existing process with Arduino, you never can claim copyrights on open source...

That's not correct.

So then why do you guys get a lawsuit?