One feature I thought was going to be part of Dialed In was the ability of the other players to use the app on their phones to alter game play. Imagine if your friends could occasionally change lanes, targets, etc on you in the middle of the ball. It would add a new level of complexity and would give the other people something to do during your ball.

Well everyone could do it to each other right? Think of it as being on defense.

I had this huge list prepared of things I like and dislike in pinball. Then I realized most of the designers know how to make a fun game.The problem is upper management interfering with their designs. That goes back even to the 50s. More recently there are plenty of stories where a certain owner of a company, who never designed a game in his entire life, used to tell designers what he wanted in the game and what to do. It may have reduced the bill of material, but most likely not improved the game.

SHOTS FIRED

Higher the BOM list so you don't have to compromise your design and can skip the pro.
If you want to make LE machine's add a real backglas with chrome en different art on everything.
Nothing more.

That's not how you make profit.

This thread goes to prove people like different things.

Regarding the complexity (games are made for PAPA, too many multiballs, stacking etc etc) when you press start why not have a option (like console games) where you select your skill level. Novice/Intermediate/Pro? The code will be the same just tweaked to achieve things at different times.

Times have changed. Back in the day machines were made to be great whereas now, as in most businesses, it's the money men that determine how good a game can be. Budgets are tight and profit margins have to be maximized. Star Wars is a classic example of this.

Personally, more interactive toys, things to achieve and a true wizard mode where you really do have to accomplish things in the game to progress (ie levels).

I have no doubt after seeing latest boot video now Ben

Guess we know why it's being built in China now?

Yes, that 's actually the WMS boot sequence so I don't know what planet you are on?

Modern microprocessors are sold by a few companies that provide generic software bundles so developers can use their products.

Ben Heck used these, and was happy to promote that fact via his Farnell (sorry, Element 14) web channel.

It would be best if some on here actually had some electronic knowledge rather than mouthing off about things that they "think".

Homepin is using the same FREE software tools provided by these companies and everyone else is invited to use them too.

proves you need to change hands

Those companies did not create the assets you just shamelessly ripped off. Ben and crew did.

The Pinheck System is under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Where is your contribution to the project?

graphic_compare_TB (resized).jpg

They changed the commas at least.

Sorry, but that font is just the Atari 800 font. Hardly original.

Atari Font

I'd like to see more RPG elements. I.e. Collecting items & using those items to held progress modes. Could be weapons/spells to defeat bosses or keys to opens chests/doors. There must be reasons I don't understand that these mechanics haven't crossed over more from video & board games

I call it "clutching at straws" - what a crock!

Microchip, Hitachi and many others have free assets available for download on their websites and they actively encourage end users to use these FREE assets so they can get products to market.

This is not a new thing.

So we are clear here, Ben Heck also used these freely provided assets to build his system, certainly as a base for it - that much is very clear to me and plain to see by anyone who is familiar with how these things work in the industry. We did the same, from the ground up.

Let's stop all of the nonsense please.

.

Let me show a few things here to nip any nonsense in the bud.

Ben Heck used an easily available "hobby" style board to base his system on. This is common practice and freely available to anyone. Below you can see the Digilent board that uses the Microchip PIC32 chip. Microchip makes all the software tools freely available for all to use - Ben used them, we used them and thousands more do as well.

Also have a look at the schematic provided by Digilent (which in itself is a direct copy that was originally provided by Microchip) and compare it with a part of the schematic of AMH (also shown below).

Guess what, they are IDENTICAL. Did Ben "rip Digilent or Microchip off?" NO, he didn't, because these companies provide the information for all to use.

I have also posted a picture of our original development setup - I imagine Ben originally had a similar breadboarded arrangement - it's just "what you do" when starting on a new design.

As for the comments about fonts, come on Ben, you can't be serious.........

Schematic-Picture (resized).png
amh1 (resized).jpg
hardware_1 (resized).png
amh2 (resized).jpg

first_setup (resized).jpg

Well MicroChip doesn't include the Atari 800 font with the IDE and who in there right mind would use the Propeller unless they where coping the PinHeck System. I see it right under the DMD cable. You even copied an older system with two SD cards due to bandwidth issues with the Assembly code. This was fixed in a later revision of the Assembly code.

Your talking to the PinHeck System designer here bud.

Thanks for posting that photo Mike, it completely proves that you did "borrow" our system.

Same high score display layout, and now same video processor with parts attached that match our schematics. As Longhorn says, we can spot our baby a mile away.

propeller_markup (resized).jpg

And here's a comparison of Mike's photo (rotated) to our pinHeck board schematic.

propeller_schematic (resized).jpg

It is all industry standard stuff - there are no secrets or surprises here at all.

Lol ok. Yes using logic AND gates and a 556 timer to watch dog the solenoid mosfets is "standard". We designed so much wack into the PinHeck that its easy to spot

Yes I see the 556 timer in there. There is no reason for it. A 555 timer would be fine but I had already designed the 556 for another project so I had the footprint and layout already designed. Why would YOU use the 556 timer and just throw away half the chip.

For those that don't know a 556 timer is basically two 555 timer chips in a single IC chip. On the Pinheck we just don't use the other.

Dude your caught.

Man we would've saved a lot of time and effort if I had realized Microchip software tools bootstrapped a pinball machine, provided an attract mode, an HSTD system, scoring and score display, game flow, a bonus count, and all those fonts!

Clearly, I am the fool.

Yes the fact we can spot a lot of our own crappy mistakes in your work (the AND gates for MOSFETs, the timer, the Atari 800 font) is why it's so obvious you're using our system!

Even the fact that Thunderbirds can't be updated is a giveaway. I imagine it's because you don't want to spring for authentic FTDI USB chips (the kind that allowed PC cable updates for AMH) and you're probably also aware that the Chinese knock-off versions of those chips are basically banned by the drivers built into Windows/Mac.

http://www.metafilter.com/143836/FTDI-driver-destroys-devices

Something is rotten in the state of homepin. Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame...

If anyone gets a dump of the hex assembly for Thunderbirds, I can probably tell you in short order if its a near identical clone of the PinHeck OS or not. So far, based on HP's responses as well as a cursory look at the hardware, its apparent that its a dupe of Ben and Parker's designs. Anyone who believes that the upstream manufacturers of the chips provides enough reference material to bootstrap a pinball OS is oblivious.

You can believe the rubbish being spouted here if you want - all rubbish.

We have no 555's or 556's in our machine - anywhere. Just more crap from "the opposition". They are not in that picture because they don't exist in our machine - not even in the prototypes. In fact, I don't even recall buying any 555/556 chips, certainly not for many years?

Also, for the record, we do indeed use FTDI chips - genuine ones as they are made in China. In fact all of our semiconductors are genuine parts. Some are actually Chinese brand parts and they too are genuine.

We don't use any fake or knock off parts.

Our machine can indeed be updated, I just don't want end users doing it.

I was quite flattered when you said this, and never forgot!

In the protoboard picture. Driver board has 6 DIP-14 ICs which are going to be AND gates and a single DIP-16 which will be the 556. Even has the Watchdog LED and large 100uF cap for the ~1 second RC circuit.

For reference the pinheck has 6 AND gate ICS

Oh and you might not remember 556 but the TI part number CD74HC123 which is a 556 timer.

Same same but different.

Ben -
At least you and Mike can agree it is not easy getting a lockdown bar made.

Dear Mike and Ben,

I don't give a shit.

Love,
Kevin

I'd like to see a shift away from linearity. I love the older games because of the "open" expansive possibilities available without having to complete modes in a certain order. Sys 11 and System 80b are where my heart mostly lives.

I said it with love. How tough does that make me exactly?

I give a shit because this is the reason (I think) that Ben didn't release the v23 AMH code and pulled the old code off his website. I have a knocker working in v22, and fixed the Dr Ghost attract flipper fuse issue, but I can't build it into v23 code for lack of source code. What was once an open source project is no longer because of a lack of respect from others wanting to take shortcuts but not give credit where it's due.

i understand what you are trying to say, but here is the link (on ben's website) for v23 for AMH

http://www.benheck.com/amh/

Isn't PinHeck a massive dead end in terms of future expansion? I mean, even Spooky did a newer revision.

Not wanting end users to update code? What is this, 1997?

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I was talking about the source code. Ben does still have the compiled firmware load for v23 on his website, and AMH owners can still update their game to v23. I was only talking about the fringe case where I wanted to add features and fix bugs myself given that Ben says he's done with AMH.

Chuck caught wind of someone trying to dupe an AMH so he had me pull the source about 2 years ago.

So every time there is a code update or bug fix Homepin is going to pay for shipping to Australia to swap out boards? And in the meantime, people's games are dead in the water? Really?

So for anyone taking notes, I guess we can add "don't steal others' code" to the list of recommendations to pinball designers.

And here's the ironic part! That older AMH-style boardset is capable of updating itself via SD card just like RZ/DOM/JET - but requires code we came up with after we went closed-source.

This topic got boring all of a sudden.

..or give credit where its due and honor licensing terms on stuff you use.