Hi. I want to present my latest project: Controlling an electromechanical pinball machinne with an ATARI 800XL.
Unlike electronic pinballs, electromechanical or "EM" have no electronic components, so all its operation is based on relays, coils and coils with a combination of mechanisms (called banks or units) that allow a primitive form of data storage (RAM).
Well, my goal is to replace all this stuff with an Atari 800XL and buid a small controller board as an I / O.
The machine chosen is one of my favorites of the late 70's: Gottlieb's Centigrade 37. Recently a friend gave me just the playfield, in not very good condition, so I'll have to retouch some cracks and repopulate it, ie buy all post, rubbers, bumpers mechanisms, and many other things. Also rebuild a proper cabinet.
And finally the programming, which I will in Basic, by now, with the plus of being compiled and put into a cartridge to load automatically when you turn on the machine, like electronic pinballs does. Anyway I hope rewrite the program in assembly... later, to win some advantages of the processing speed.
Yeah, I heard about Arduino's and other similar hardware`s but this is ATARI AGE ¿right? We, and I, are from that time and I love it!
So... up and atom!![:-D]()
This is the playfield I have
![Posted Image]()
and the cabinet
![Posted Image]()
Inside the cabinet of a real Centigrade 37
![Posted Image]()
As you can see, getting all those parts and wired it correctly are impossible. Besides very expensive.
When the project ends, the cabinet are almost empty.
ZZT
Unlike electronic pinballs, electromechanical or "EM" have no electronic components, so all its operation is based on relays, coils and coils with a combination of mechanisms (called banks or units) that allow a primitive form of data storage (RAM).
Well, my goal is to replace all this stuff with an Atari 800XL and buid a small controller board as an I / O.
The machine chosen is one of my favorites of the late 70's: Gottlieb's Centigrade 37. Recently a friend gave me just the playfield, in not very good condition, so I'll have to retouch some cracks and repopulate it, ie buy all post, rubbers, bumpers mechanisms, and many other things. Also rebuild a proper cabinet.
And finally the programming, which I will in Basic, by now, with the plus of being compiled and put into a cartridge to load automatically when you turn on the machine, like electronic pinballs does. Anyway I hope rewrite the program in assembly... later, to win some advantages of the processing speed.
Yeah, I heard about Arduino's and other similar hardware`s but this is ATARI AGE ¿right? We, and I, are from that time and I love it!
So... up and atom!
This is the playfield I have
and the cabinet
Inside the cabinet of a real Centigrade 37
As you can see, getting all those parts and wired it correctly are impossible. Besides very expensive.
When the project ends, the cabinet are almost empty.
ZZT