PuP Packs on real pinball units – any developer up for the challenge ?

[Ashram56]

I recently acquired a few real pinball units (among them a Tron, a Star Trek and a LOTR), and going through the overall HW architecture it seems it would be possible to implement PuP packs (among other capabilities) for these (Stern SAM, Whitestar, WPC, etc).

And the beauty is that the concept is pretty much identical to what has been done in the VPinball world, ie add a snooping interface to a RPI or equivalent to the DMD interface (it’s a relatively simple cable with level shifters) to capture DMD frames and identify them, and trigger video playback using gstreamer or equivalent on the RPI.

@TerryRed I see on Pinside that a pinball modder actually did something similar on a Tron unit (you actually responded to that thread), and used your PuP Packs, but his implementation was significantly different, ie he used a modified SAM firmware to enable serial communication between the main Stern SAM CPU board and the RPI, so installation was a pain, and it was limited to Stern SAM pinball machines. Plus he never disclosed his source and essentially sold three units from what I could gather on Pinside.

Using a DMD snooper essentially mimics Vpinball implementation, it can be used across multiple generations (essentially all DMD units), and it’s much easier to physically install (a very simple PCB with a few components that would insert itself between the CPU board and the DMD board). PuP Packs triggers could be used as is…

I see here an opportunity to bridge the gap between virtual pinball and pinball, but I lack the SW skills to develop this (HW and architecture is fine).

I can contribute a Jetson Nano to interested developers (within reason, ie a few units).

Why a Jetson… because Joke aside, primarily because of my background it would be a shame, and second because I know where/how to get support for multimedia and the like, and I know the architecture better than a RPI (Jetson has a VIC, which is essentially a compositing unit for video). Plus Jetson carrier boards are cross compatible (you have Nano 2GB, Nano, NX), so if performance is a limitation, you can actually upgrade easily.

Any taker ?

@nailbuster, any interest into this ?

Cheers

You need to login in order to like this post: click here

[mk47]

Quick answer, we’re already working on it!

You need to login in order to like this post: click here

[Author]

Posts