Data East Star Wars at SFGE 2018

This year, I took my Data East Star Wars to SFGE.   

Star Wars in it's cubby hole in the game room. Thankfully Kylo had a good game, so he didn't go wacky with that saber.. :) 

The pinsound + flipper fidelity is capable of drowning out the surrounding pins in John Williams awesome-ness.  Hopefully you'll be able to hear it but I want to be a good pin-neighbor on the show floor. 

Download link for this Pinsound Orchestration: 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0rejma4nsqspz7m/Star_Wars_OST_By_BD2a.zip?dl=0

Playfield Photos

The illuminated flipper bat kit is RGB and can be pretty much any color.   I liked the stark white to play off the Storm Trooper art.  Though, Red, Green, Blue gives you the lightsaber feel.    You can get this kit here:  

http://www.planetarypinball.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=PPS-FLIPLIGHTUP-KIT
 

I've tried many different types of lit flipper buttons.  The ones I like the most are from Pinball Life.  I feel like they hold up better than the L-Board alternatives.

Get them here:  https://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=catalog&mode=search&search_in=all&search_str=brite+buttons

Power Stuff

Auxillary switching power supply to aide mods and reduce power load from Power Driver board.

Custom built molex connectors and a breakout board, DKTap power out

Power Breakout Board:
https://www.pinballlife.com/index.php?p=product&id=4234

DKTap:

http://www.kimballspinballs.com/dk-pinball/

Original DE MPU - batteries replaced in January 2018, no damage here.   Rottendog Playfield Power Board and Power Supply, though I have working originals.   The RD power boards seem to provide cleaner power than the original boards.

Flipper Fidelity for Pinsound:   https://flipperfidelity.com/pinsound.html

Original Playfield Power board.   Works.

Original Power Supply.  Works but the board has some heat cracking on the back.  The RD board seems to provide cleaner power anyway.

Sound Board - Parts Side

Sound Board - Solder Side

Sound board is replaced by Pinsound.

Original Speakers

Original Cabinet Speaker / Sub

Game Audits from the Show

I freed one stuck ball all weekend.   The pin help up great all weekend and had a steady line of people on it, which I really liked to see!

25 Year Old Pinball or Boxed Wine

Newer isn't always better.  

Increasingly I feel like that craggy old shotgun wielding archetype that Robin Williams would go to for laughs in his routines..  You know the one.  He's sitting on his front porch with a stained trucker hat with a dirty slogan.  A highball in an unironic "old fart" coffee cup sits on a folding table next to a rolled up newspaper and his rants about kids these days are hard to make out around the wad of chew in his mouth.   

New in Box Pinball isn't for me.   They just don't make them like they used to, etc etc.

Except for... I'm not even 40 yet, I don't like mouth and throat cancer, I happen to like loud music and I'm quite optimistic about where "kids these days" will lead our future society in terms of not being assholes to fellow humans and improving life through technology.

Except for pinball.   You see: "In my day we didn't need HD screens, instead w..."

On podcasts like Kaneda's pinball podcast there are recurring themes, paraphrased:

• New Pinball is Best
• Remakes are better than Originals
• We need more collectible, exclusive pinball

Pinside posts with themes of "DMD is now VHS" and  "LCD games dethroning the DMD juggernauts" leave a narrative that the future of pinball is about media immersion, LCD screens, run by PCs and surface-mount modernized components.

I couldn't disagree more.

New Pinball is Best

New pinball is new.  The best pinball ever, is the new one just around the corner.  Until 4 months from now when the next-new one is shipping.  Somewhere in this cycle of FOMO-fueled madness, there probably is some good pinball.   You know how you'll find the best pinball experiences?  With time.  Over time, you'll discover the best pinball machines of the current release generations.   

 

Remakes are better than Originals

The remakes are cool.  Not necessarily better.   The remakes have bigger, color displays and modern components.  Modern components that are modeled in design off of disposable consumer electronics.  Surface-mount components and a closed, non-modular system are found on the remakes.  You loose customization and repairability and trade them for a miniaturized components.  Hopefully, they hold up over time because these remakes are being applied to some of the best pinball ever made.  That's a $9k, 20 year gamble.

 

We need more collectible, exclusive pinball   

Pfft.  Pinball as a collectible.  Seriously?  Pinball is meant to be played, not idolized.  It's a game to be enjoyed with friends, not a trophy to lord over your jealous peers.  $30k pinball machines to sit in some rich guy's trophy room does nothing to spread the love of the hobby.

For me, I'm watching for known-awesome Bally / Williams titles more than NIB pinball.

Some pondering that led me here, your mileage may vary:

• Theme alone, can't save a pin but can sink it.
• The Pinside Top 100 List is good but also skewed temporarily by new-pinball
• Stern will keep the line running, no matter what. 
  • If you are holding a Stern title as a collectible, that probably isn't going to work out, long term
  • Expect re-runs of past titles to augment disappointing sales or delays on new release titles (ac/dc recently)
• Stern will address quality issues but to an operator's-level of satisfaction. 
  • Check your collector quality OCD at the door.
  • Expect issues to be blamed on mods
  • Go through distributor to get repairs, even out of warranty
• Stern's licenses often require protections that lead towards hostility towards game customization businesses. 
  • Alternate translite artists get take-down notices
• SAM-games were over-built in a good way.  Electronics, playfield, clear coating, cabinet, welds and connector solder - all better in SAM titles.
• SPIKE v2 isn't there, yet. But will get there.
• JJP titles are well built in terms of cabinet and playfield but the electronics are less proven and may not age well.
  • how many 20 year old PCs do you have that are still working?
  • support is problematic
• JJP Production tooling time is too high to release themed games on a schedule relevant to IP
  • Last POTC movie was released in Summer of 2017.  In Summer of 2018, you still can't own the POTC pin in your home.
• CGC Remakes are good but different in important ways.
  • The electronics may not age well
  • They can't be customized
  • They emphasize bling over truth-to-the-original
• Spooky Pinball's commissioned titles lack replay-ability and depth, they are missing that x-factor. 
  • TNA will end up being the Medieval Madness of this era of Pinball
  • Extra attention to the BOL tells me they have a keep eye on bottom line, don't expect lots of code updates long term 
    • Except for TNA - Danesi will continue to make it a great experience, on his own time and probably dime.
• American Pinball is hopeful but still a gamble.  Houdini plays well but production ramp up is taking forever. Probably not sustainable.
• Dutch Pinball - Expect them to fail.
• Heighway Pinball - They are in the process of failing.
• Deeproot Pinball - Too early to tell, expectations are currently low.

I recently found this stash of 25 year-old single-grain (yes, grain) Scotch rebottled by "That Boutique-y Whiskey Company".    It is tasty and more affordable than one might imagine.   You can drink Boxed wine or a 3 year old blended Whiskey.  They'll both go down.   Me?   I'm thinking quality of quantity.  You can have your new in box LCD pinball.  Keep selling those Bally-Williams titles to make room for the new Sterns.   They'll be making about 4 a year until the cows come home.   

You can stare at your $40k SUPREME pinball or your $15k Super-Limited Edition Re-themed Batman. I think I'll grab a $12 bottle of wine or $80 bottle of aged scotch and go play my players quality $5k AFM with a buddy.

Robotron in the House

Robotron is one of these games that I've only recently discovered a love for through the recommendation and good-advice of friends.   It is a slightly older title than I would have normally identified with as an arcade-dweller kid but wow - what a fun game! 

After spending some time with it on a friend's MAME setup and on my ArpiCade card I decided that it was the next arcade cabinet for my gameroom.  I recalled having seen one locally in a local basement a few years ago helping a friend pick up a game.  I figured it would already have sold but was surprised to find it was still available.  Not running but still available.

After some light haggling we can to terms and I agreed to buy it.  Another good friend and purveyor of arcade goodness, David - even picked it up for me while servicing the seller's Burgertime.

In condition, the game's technical condition had deteriorated a little since a couple of years ago.  I recall it booted to a memory error back then, these days it didn't boot at all.

The original power supply apparently had some issues (though was thankfully still in the cabinet.) .  This power supply sat atop the coin door. The owner would reach in and power on the game by flipping this PS on and off.   

I'm not really judging whomever did this as a fix, more so I'm just really thankful that these days Arcadeshop, highscoresaves, twisty wrist and others provide viable adapted power supply modernization options that allow you to preserve the original game harness and introduce a switching power supply.

This stuff might not have been around when the tech did the fix or maybe the owner opted for quick-and-easy route, "Just get it going."

At any rate, the original interlock switch and cabinet power switches were all bypassed by this inclusion.

When modernizing a power supply situation, I'm a fan of these Power Supplies (pictured below) that I usually get from Arcadeshop.  They have a pretty handy, well-diagrammed on/off remote wiring capability, which makes them versatile.   If you aren't a purist or working with a modern-or-remade cabinet, you can cut a hole in a cabinet and have it protrude like a PC power supply out the back of a cabinet.   No, of course I didn't do that with Robotron. 

The 4-pin connector gives you a nice ability to wire into an existing cabinet power switch and wiring loop.   I made a couple of connectors and boom the cabinet switch is back in service, as is the safety interlock.  Even though they are more annoying than helpful in most cases..

The boards have some head-scratching black paint overspray. The black paint seems more like rhino-lining material than spray paint but who knows.    Also a fair number of board repairs and trace workarounds on the mainboard.     I spent a few hours troubleshooting voltages and reseating chips before deciding, for now, the original boards are not a priority for me.

There, the game sat.  Pulled out from the line up, parts strewn about everywhere as I tried to work in free moments to continue troubleshooting.   Kids running in and out of the game room, parts everywhere.  As I opened the Nest app one night to set the temperature I saw the B&W footage of the game in the basement and this stirred decision time..

After only a few hours here and there troubleshooting voltages and reseating chips.  I decided for now the original boards are not a priority for me.   Let's just get it playing.. 

I could throw hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours at the original board stack and maybe power supply or I could throw hundreds of dollars and a few hours and do a non-permanent Multi-Williams conversion and have not only Robotron but Joust and Defender and Stargate and others..

In what is probably equal parts of impatience and curiosity, justified-after-the-fact: I ordered a bunch of stuff from ArcadeShop.  I didn't want to do any permanent conversions to the cabinet or control panel but decided to order a Multi-Williams fPGA board and control panel, related cabling, etc.

I pulled everything, the original wiring harness, control panel, power supply, boards.   I have to admit I felt a little guilty for doing this.   I made no additional cuts to cabling, I cleaned it all as best I could, wrapped it all in paper, bubble and pallet wrap plastic and stowed it in the cabinet.

It still felt wrong..  like removing the games' vital organs or something?  I guess all of these years of watching KLOV threads and watching people get thrashed for multi game conversions has made me sensitive to this.   

I kept.. everything.  Documented it all with photos and my thoughts are that one day, I might decide to put the game back into an original state.  As the KLOV trolls might put it:

You neutered the unicorn but at least you put the balls in a jar, in formaldehyde. 

For now, though - I'm running the Multi-Williams board which is directly booting to Robotron.  

I wanted to get my Joust and Defender on, so I added a Multi-Williams control panel from ArcadeShop as well. 

The assembled Multi Williams control panel with slightly modified IL-stick joysticks and repro ball, sticks and shafts.

Then, I fell down the WICO leaf-switch hole and got stuck on trying to find a way to get WICO's working in the reproduction control panel.

I borrowed the WICO joysticks from the original control panel.  Which, it turns out isn't so original.  Looks like a converted Bubbles control panel. I rebuilt the WICO sticks with new shafts, balls, leaf switches, grommets and washers.  I crimped on new pinch connectors on the old control panel - and stowed it away for later.

The original control panel being wooden and the repro Multi-Williams being metal creates a height issue with the existing sticks.  There isn't a spacer and e-clip configuration that would allow me to get the height in range of being correct, so I came up with something that might be janky but seems to be working well, so far:

I cut square spacers out in the relative shape of the WICO from some 3/4" nominal cabinet-grade scrap leftover from another around-the-house honey-do project.  I shot it with a couple of coats of rattle-can clearcoat to give the dust washer a nice slick surface to glide over.

This gets us a closer-to-accurate height and lets me have dust washers sandwiched between the control panel underside and WICO top.   I used standoff's to mount the blocks and WICO's to the repro control panel's existing screws.

..and... after a night of installing everything and another evening of tweaking.. It lives!  Robotron in the house ya'll.   The direct-boot option on the J-Rok is pretty awesome. The game boots straight to Robotron and if it were not for the control panel you'd never know it was a Multi-Williams board.    P1 Start + P2 Start and you get to the game select menu where you can switch games.   A few games included on the board are vertical but all of the horizontals play very well.

Nathan was the first person to get a High Score recorded on the High Score board for Robotron. It is a hotly contested spot, though with Justin currently in the lead. :)

Ready Player One

Be thee warned, herein lies light spoilers.

If we were to hop into a flux-capacitor equipped DeLorean DMC-12 and travel back in time to visit my bedroom as a kid, I resembled James Halliday from the book in many ways.  In the back bedroom of a trailer in Indiana, my C64 sits on a rickety table supported by phonebook-thick Visual Basic books connected through atrocious wiring and a 9600 baud modem to the outside world.   

ATN0S37=9 <RETURN> ATDT1812-294-xxxx<RETURN>.   I could turn off error correction and ask for 9600 baud but it would usually negotiate down to 2400 baud instead.

A dot matrix printer sits on the nearby night stand. VHS copies, recorded from broadcast of Star Wars, Weird Science and real VHS without cover of Indiana Jones, Temple of Doom sit scattered around the room. Apparently I kept the Indy rental too long and the late-fees were such that they told us to just "keep it."   My folks were pissed and I recall sweeping and cleaning up in Dad's shop one summer to pay for it.

I had a nice stash of copied games from my uncle.  The parents weren't big on wasting money on computer games, as they saw it, so I spent a fair amount of time coding Zork-like text adventures on that old C64.

So, being the nerd that I am, when I read Ready Player One I enjoyed it and found a kindred spirit in both Wade and Halliday.  When I heard that Spielberg would helm the movie adaptation, I was pretty pumped about the movie.

So, how was it?   Honestly, I left mostly disappointed with the movie version of Ready Player One as compared to the book story.    Don't get me wrong, Cline's book has some cringeworthy lines of prose that might be meta towards the tweenage mindset of the content or might just be bad writing.  But, the universe is interesting and the story has a ton of potential.

My biggest let down on the movie version of the story is that the Tomb of Horrors, Joust match isn't included in any of the challenges.   Being an arcade enthusiast, I thought this was some of the most descriptive writing in the book and I'd have liked to see it come to life on screen.   I can see, how that seen might not have resonated with general audiences.   It is hard to smash-cut / montage clips of people playing video games and continue to be interesting.   

Joust and Acererak being missing isn't the part that I thought was the biggest missed opportunity of the Tomb of Horrors remix, though.  The book places the beginning of the adventure in the school-planet, accessible to all students no matter how underprivileged.  I thought this coupled with Spielberg director-juice might have given Ready Player One the recipe to be a kid-adventure story for a new generation: A Goonies for Gamers.

But, that isn't what we got.  Bummer!

The movie missed plenty of other opportunities including potential for an Epic Soundtrack. Guardians of the Galaxy-level soundtrack integration didn't happen, either.

Some aspects of the movie were better than the book.  Movie Halliday leans away from his book-asshole Steve Jobs tendencies and more into his Asperger's situation.   The result is a much more interesting, likable and maybe pitiable Halliday and delivered through a great performance.

Movie Art3mis is considerably more charming that the often selfish-seeming, prickly femchismo Art3mis from the book.     

Book Ogg is far more interesting and is used in better ways than the movie.

The movie version of Aunt Alice is a step up and adds some depth to the loss in that situation.  Misses Gilmore still gets the firey shaft and doesn’t even get a pleasant exchange with Wade for her troubles.

The visuals are great, especially the Stacks and the intro to the OASIS. Though the movie stacks seem to be a bit more friendly.  Like a nice rv park for gamers.   I like the use of drones in the movie but the IOI hendhwoman is kind of pointless and the IOI infiltration plot is heavily remixed clumsily.

All said I think Ready Player One is a fun spring / early summer flick. It isn’t the epic Goonies-for-gamers story that it could have been but the last scene with Halliday did have some heart. 

I give it 3 out of 5 quarters.

Smart Plugs - a Year Later

Computer:  Tea, Earl Grey. Hot.

It's a beautiful dream and with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Siri, Bixby (ha) and others we get a little closer each time.   Add matter-energy conversion, intra-spacial tunneling that isn't bound by relativity and the speed of C and we may one day find ourselves in the Cosmos facing off against goatee-clad alien warriors.

My generation may have to wait to fully experience Roddenberry's utopian future vision for humanity, at least we can talk to our computers now and sometimes that can even carry a level of utility with it. Last year I shared some stuff here about using Amazon Echo and related Alexa Smart Home Skills and Wifi-enabled smart switches to power games on and off and to play music in the game room.  

After living with two brands of smart plugs for about a year, in our game room and other parts of the home, I thought it might be a good time to do a deep dive in how that's been working out.   What works, what doesn't.

Smart Plugs

I went with two brands of plugs in my implementation, not necessarily intentionally but that's just sort of how it shook out through coupons, rebates, coupons, etc. iHome and Belkin Wemo.   There are others out there but I'll stick with what I know.  Here are my thoughts on each.

iHome Plugs

The Hardware

Originally, I favored the iHome plugs because of their convenient size and form-factor.  The plugs have a convenient button, two convenient status indication lights: One signifying power state and one signifying wifi connectivity status.

The iHome plugs have convenient HomeKit ID labels or adding them to your HomeKit setup and for adding to the iHome app.

Based on the plug size, you can fit two on a standard wall plate or a few on a power strip with the correct plug orientation.

The App and Setup

Plug setup is pretty simple and standard for these sorts of things.  These plugs are Homekit compatible (mostly) so I opted for an iPhone to manage them.  You can use the Homekit discovery features of iOS to set them up or configure them within the iHome Control app (available from the App Store and Google Play).

The setup app attempts to OCR the HomeKit ID label while adding a new plug.  It sounds like a good idea except that in most cases, that ID window is nearly impossible to get to while the plug is in an outlet. (It is on the bottom.)     That aside, points for trying to save me the step of entering a code.

The plugs join your WiFi network and can be organized in Locations (DoddHome in this picture), Rooms, Zones, and Scenes / Macros.  You can classify a plug based on it's service type, things like fans, outlets, video games, etc.   This doesn't seem to really do much of anything, just provide at a glance the type of object on a plug.

The iHome Control app is a little kludgy in terms of device editing.  I very often power on a device by accident, trying to edit the specific device definition. Sorting, doesn't work.   

Another fuzzy aspect to the iHome setup is they have a portal account associated with ihomeaudio.com and the nature of that account is a little on the mystical side.  My original setup process required me to create an account with a username.  Later on, integrations with other services required integration to an account with an email address as the password.   Somehow in that mess, I apparently have two accounts on their backend and had to go through these extra steps of essentially sharing the plugs with myself.

Apparently they have that solved now.  The need for an account given HomeKit's nebulous infrastructure makes sense, your device definitions need to live somewhere in the cloud so that they aren't lost when your phone is reset.  It appears their original implementation didn't consider the concept of integration to third party services (Alexa Skills, Google Home, IFTTT, Stringify, etc) so I believe that is the cause for the initial account mess.

A couple of engrish emails in June of last year after all of the plugs stopped working and my accounts were merged successfully.

This made it ...slightly .. more reliable..

Service Reliability

The service reliability has improved some since my accounts were merged but still isn't exactly rock-solid.  Occasionally all of the plugs just fall away.   More often, they work from the iHome Control app but aren't available to Alexas, IFFT and other services.

Sometimes but not always I can trace this to internet connectivity outages or power outages.   If the cable modem disconnects but wifi remains up, it seems as if the plug times out connecting to the cloud.  Even though the plug LED's indicate successful operation it becomes unavailable to iHome Control, Apple HomeKit, IFFT, Alexa, etc.

The solution, annoying as it is, seems to be to just unplug the iHome plug - plug it back in once the internet is available again.

This is .. annoying, especially considering the whole point of this is to have plugs located in inconvenient-to-reach areas, like behind big-assed video games or floor lamps tucked away behind the couch in the Den.

Network Presence and Data Consumption

On the wifi-side, the iHome plugs seem to work out well in terms of connectivity to our mesh network.   They stay connected to our wifi, despite loosing connectivity to their parent cloud services.

They do, however consume more traffic than the Wemo.   Below is one plug, for 60 days. (Left)   Not a ton of data for 60 days if you compare to something like an IP camera, though. (right)  But still, 200 mb U/D of data consumption to turn something on and off might be a consider if you are living the mobile-broadband / limited data lifestyle.

Customer Service

My early impressions with iHome customer service was pretty dismal, especially considering the added bonus of complexity and burden of proof associated with the concept of: "Your service's integration with (other service) is down."    The classic technical support tendency where multiple vendors are involved to point to the other guy takes hold.

In order to get support at all, I had to distill the issues down to distinct failures with iHome products themselves.  The integrations with Alexa, IFFT, Google Home and others just isn't something they are set up to support.

One step in the right direction is that recently I received a proactive email blast to let me know their services were unavailable.   The outage lasted for about 18 hours, which was a bummer but at least they owned it. 

iHome Conclusion

iHome seems to be improving but hasn't been a trouble-free experience.  My plugs are in the "not bad enough to replace but not good enough for me to keep buying" category, for now.   If the service continues to improve, I'll consider them for future growth.

Belkin Wemo Plugs

The other brand of smart plug that I engaged with was Belkin Wemo.   Sort of, by accident.  It was a function of coupons, rebates and Christmas, Birthday and Father's Day gifts that put me into multiple ecosystems.

The Hardware

The Belkin Wemo smart plug originally was released on only the gigantic wall-wart format (below, left) and more recently is available in a new mini-plug design that is still larger than iHome's mini plug but small enough to not take up an entire outlet, or small city block like the original plug.

In addition to the smart plug, Belkin was wise to offer a wall switch and they were one of the first to market with a Wifi / Cloud Services enabled wall-switch like this. 

The App and Setup

Setting it up

Setting up the Wemo plugs using their app isn't quite a walk in the park but has gotten better over the year.  Originally, I experienced considerable weeping and gnashing of teeth using their setup process to add plugs to the network.  The Wemo plugs join and present themselves as Wifi endpoints.  You set up the plug by starting the app, initiating the new device process, then jumping out of the app, joining that temporary Wifi endpoint and re-opening the app.

That's not unheard of for these devices but two issues persisted during my initial setup of Wemo devices.   The first was that the app open / close - join / rejoin activities would crash the app and leave the plug in some sort of half-configured state.    The second was that the original firmware for the plugs (circa 2015) didn't include support for strong Wifi passwords.  If your router has a strong wifi password with spaces, special characters - you'd have to join the plug to an insecure endpoint, allow it to update firmware, then rejoin the secured endpoint after the firmware update.   Classic technical chicken-egg complex.  I need wifi to get the firmware update but  I can't join the wifi because of the firmware.   SUPER FRUSTRATING....

Good news is, they seem to have most of those issues ironed out.  The last five plugs I've installed came boxed with an appropriate minimum firmware and the app is considerably more stable.   

Living with it

The Wemo app has received alot of nice little quality of life additions over the last year.   Inclusion of thumbnails, a simple but effective editing interface and simplified new-device-onboarding have all been added and work extremely well.

Wemo still doesn't natively support Homekit but the service is so good, I really don't miss it.

It was a rough start but Wemo has gone from barely able to get it working to, rock solid in a very short period of time.

Service and Reliability

Where day-to-day use is concerned, the Wemo's stand out.   They just work.   All of the time.   Power outages, cable outages, intermittent internet connectivity, foam rave parties (ahem), whatever.  They just always work and they always work on all vectors.   They self correct, they stay updated, they work in the App, they work with IFFT and Stringify, they work via Alexa Skills.   

Did I mention: they just work?

Network Presence and Data Consumption

On the network, the Wemo Plugs consume a tiny amount of data.   11/16mb U/D for 6 months.    That's some efficient use of data!   Sipping it like a nice wine instead of gulping it down like fermented grape juice sold in a bladder.

Network Naming

and...  I didn't even know that I wanted this but... the Wemo plus are piping the device name over NetBios, meaning each plug shows up on my network with the name of the device I have set in the app, versus the random Mac-Address fragment I get from iHome.  Most routers allow you to alias a Mac with a network name or establish a static lease to accomplish this.

It was so refreshing that I didn't have to do any of that... 


Again, it just worked.

Wemo Conclusion

Adding Wemo plugs to my network with the early firmware was problematic but modern incarnations of the plug appear to be shipping with more complete and stable firmware from the factory.   The Wemo app tended to have minor issues setting up new plugs originally but has since become quite stable.   The app features lots of nice features and the backend cloud services are especially solid.  The addition of a Wemo mini plug that splits the difference in size between the original wall plug and the smaller, iHome plug alternatives combined with service stability make Wemo my first choice for future additions.

Bringing it all Togehter

In my scenario, a humble $29 Echo Dot brings it all together.   I chose a Dot over the original Echo because, well: I had one sitting around from a work-related thing.  (Proof of concept of an Alexa Skill.) 

Also, I didn't need the full speaker capability of a full-sized Echo, this Dot is plugged in via  headphone jack to an audio receiver.  This allows us to hear (or optionally mute) Alexa's responses and gives the added benefit of voice-controlled music through connected music services.

One thing I liked about using an Alexa-enabled device over a Google Home (personally) was that I have experience building Alexa Skills and utilizing Amazon Web Services.  If I need something custom, I can whip it up pretty quickly.   So far, the stock capabilities are working just fine for my purposes, though.

Connecting the plugs

You enable the connectivity between your smart plug (or other devices) and the Echo / Alexa devices through the skills interface.  

You basically pick the skills from the Alexa Skills catalog related to the plug vendor, sign in if necessary and then the Echo devices can discover those plugs on your network using those Alexa Skills integrations.

 

Once discovered, your smart devices will appear in the Smart home screens in the Alexa App.   These screens recently underwent a design change and they feel a little clunky in terms of design and layout but the app is solid, functionally.

From here you can organize devices into groups.   So, define a group names "The Pinball Machines" and choose all of those devices connected to pinball machines and Alexa will control those devices together.   

Likewise, the group definitions give you an opportunity to alias or rename individual devices.   Pictured here, Donkey Kong is an alias to the plug named Donkey Balls, which.. is an Expanse tv show reference among other things.   

Sometimes grouping and aliasing is handy when the name of a plug doesn't work well with voice services.   For instance, prepositional phrases can confuse Alexa.    "Alexa, turn on Revenge from Mars" should control the plug for that pinball machine.   However, "Alexa, play my awesome playlist from Spotify" plays music from a connected service.  Including "from" in the name of the game made controlling that device difficult.   Aliasing it as "Revenge" or "RFM" alleviates this pain and AI Intent confusion.

So, that's about I have for this post.    Voice control in the game room is pretty danged cool.  I'm sure one day, someone will shut down a game on me while I'm playing it in an irresistibly evil move.   Hopefully voice recognition will improve and more plug options with better support will emerge..

Until then, if you need me - I'll be in the gameroom plugging and unplugging iHome plugs trying to keep them working. 

Gameroom Changes, Concluded (Early 2018)

Former Layout

Using ideas and help from friends, Justin and Nathan (who have a lifetime anytime-no-questions asked pass for all there help moving this stuff around), it was a very good layout.  As you entered the room, Tapper was in front, in the middle, with the arcades flowing off the left side and pins to the right.  

Back left housed my Dome environmental system and back right included a small love seat and and large-ish TV for consoles and movies. 

Pros:

• It presented very well and was logically balanced.

• Pins-in-a-row makes me smile

• Added the loveseat / couch area for movies and consoles

• Good visibility to the TV from most of the room

• Open layout = good airflow

Cons:

• Pins in a row, make for crowded multiplayer games

• Arcades often ignored

• Have to pull pins out to work on them

• Mortal Kombat in the Middle of the room, is big

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Working Concept and Bad Math

The new concept was to intersperse the pinball machines alongside arcades.  

By this, hoping to achieve these benefits:

• Pinball machines are easier to work on.

• Multiplayer games are less crowded

• Arcades get more play

• Better "themed zone" potential around isolated pinballs

I measured the room and equated lines to linear feet.  Still, somehow I managed to misjudge the size of the Mario Kart cabs and where I thought I could squeeze an extra pin (left side of the page above) - near the mini-split AC unit - wasn't happening. 

As you enter the room, I put STTNG and Tron together, followed by Mario Kart(s) and AFM.  Cocktail in the center.  Made for interesting theming opportunities for posters and "stuff" around STTNG and lets me see more of the STTNG side art, which is cool.

On the right side, Indy, the Mario hyperspin, Multi-Kombat and TOTAN on the wall.

On the center / right, Q*Bert, Donkey Balls, Tapper and an enlarged seating area for TV / Console / Gaming in the back.  More comfy couch from the clearance back-room of Ashley Furniture FTW.

The back left houses AFM, Atari Star Wars (yes, I fixed the marquee light :) ), the Dome tucked behind it and DESW  alongside the dome.

Early IMpressions

My early impressions are: I like it.  But we will see when the newness wears off.  I will say, the practicality of being able to more easily work on the pins (without pulling them out of the row) seems to be encouraging me to give them the maintenance attention they need more readily / without feeling like a total chore. 

The downside is, you sort of loose that wow-factor of the line ups of games and pins.   One of the first visitors to the room noted, "you need more pinball."   It was tongue-in-cheek but having the games spread out does make it seem like "less pinball."  Since I'm continually just-as-interested in arcadeyness as pinball, I think the room fits my bipolar (and scattered) approach to the hobby... Kinda meta.. 

At any rate, I shared out the room as it was a mess and in transition and thought you might enjoy to see the progress in a little over a month since that video.  Thanks for checking in on my craziness!

Out with the New, in with the Old

We arcade collector types always show videos of our game rooms in ideal conditions.  Everything on, the music pumping and game sounds whirring.     Not today.   I'm going to be real and show you the mess in my basement and talk about game conveyances that have been on my mind and are under way.

Shamefully messy and cluttered game room with games going out and coming in, along with a video look at Star Wars Trilogy.

Starting the new year, decided to get off my bum and make a few changes to my game line up that have been on my mind for a few months.  In the Pinball realm, in the last 3-5 months I've said goodbye to Stern's Star Trek and hello to Attack from Mars.  More Recently I've said goodbye to Ghostbusters and I'm saying hello to STTNG, for the second time.   My Revenge from Mars is tentatively sold and I'm not sure what replaces it (if anything).

For arcades, I decided to let go of my Nintendo Red Tent, which is now packed and ready to make a trip literally to the other side of the country.  Getting rid of the Red Tent frees up room for two stand-up arcades or options for opening the room up to be a little less crowded.

(Less games, whaaaat??)  :)

More is not always better...

The final arcade going to a new home is my Star Wars Trilogy Stand Up.   In it's place is coming Atari Star Wars (the color vector version), so I'm trading the 1998 version for the 1983 version.  Out with the new, in with the old.   

Speaking of Craigslist - the scammers are out in full force..

So, why the changes?

I knew after SFGE last year that I wanted an Atari Star Wars.  There was one on the floor, it seemed to stay up all weekend and I offered to buy it but someone else apparently beat me to it, the seller never responded to my texts but I did see it getting loaded up with a new owner.   I have zero vector arcades in my current line up, so it checks two boxes for me, adds the vector and adds a super collectible Star Wars cab.  Larger theme though, just continuing to try to balance between the want for collector-typed games and the utility of finding game-play types that aren't necessarily otherwise represented in my game room

Why Get rid of the Red Tent?

Doing an audit of available gaming devices in our house, there are two arcade cabinets and nearly a half-dozen other things available that are capable of "Nintendo-y" play.  Just came down to calculus of unique playability and utility over available space.  Nintendo VS is well emulated on two of our multi-games.  The wii, the wii-u, the switch, the classic nes, classic snes, a couple of DS consoles - all giving us access to myriad sundry parts of the Nintendo game catalog in console form.   Seemed like it was time to free up the space and make room for something else.

Why get rid of the Star Wars?

This one is a little harder since I have a soft spot for this particular game and era of gaming.   In the end it comes down to overlap of similar experience as well.  I could get a similar gaming experience in console or MAME form.  I know I wanted to own the older Atari / Vector game and I really don't like having theme overlap.  So, Star Wars trilogy gets the short straw.  Though, maybe one day I'll have room for the sit-down projection version!

Why the pin changes?

Why Get rid of Revenge from Mars?

Really just a matter of theme overlap.  Since I have AFM and even though it intuitively might sound cool to have "the pair" in a collection, I'm not really curating a collection so much as a fun game room.  Both good games but AFM wins for me on nostalgia for pure pinball and so it stays.

Why get rid of Ghostbusters?

Mostly, long term reliability concerns.  Partly a re-focusing of my hobby activity.

A couple of days before my summer get-together.  My brand new Ghostbusters pin crapped the bed, so to speak.  The lower playfield started to flash and the switches stopped working on the lower 1/3 of the playfield.   Node board 8 failure appeared on the diagnostic.     

Just what you want, a few days before an event - the newest pin goes down.   

I call the distributor and they were great about the whole thing. "No worries, we'll get you a new one out, no charge, just drop the old node board in the return box and send back to Stern."    Awesome. Well, sort of awesome. 

I inquired about paying for overnight delivery and the dist. explained in the most politically correct manner possible that they could put the order in but... dealing with Stern - no guarantees on when the part would leave Stern. 

Long story short, on Ghostbusters, I ended up with a $300 lighter wallet for a spare node board.  Thanks to steady troubleshooting work from Charlie and Nathan (who helped with overall prep in many other ways too) - the game was working for the event.  Until it wasn't.  The timelapse video of the event showed the glass coming off of Ghostbusters 1/2 dozen times throughout the twelve hour event.   In fact, I'd say that Cody spent more time fixing Ghostbusters that day, than I'd spent playing it to date.

Meanwhile.. all those old Bally-Williams just kept running.. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm done with Stern after one bad experience.    In fairness, the SMD LED boards on my Star Trek started to fail and they replaced them, for free and were very cool about it. 

I am just saying that I wish they'd have engineered in protection to their miniaturized circuit boards to make them more failsafe in SPIKE systems. The SMD miniaturized components do not appear anecdotally to be as resilient as the 30 year old electronics in some of these older games..  What happens if Stern is no longer making pins in a decade.   Most of these 30 year old electronics can be serviced with a de/soldering iron and time.  These miniaturized components are a whole different ball of wax...

This all resonates with my inner grumpy-getting-older man..

For now at least, my acquisition and play tendencies are leaning back towards older stuff.   So much of pinball today is trying to herald back the golden era of Bally/Williams 90's pins, why spend the price of a nice car on a new pin when you could spend 2/3 the price for better pinball?  Especially if it's better playing AND better built...  

In Summary

My short (want) list for arcades is currently: 

Atari Star Wars - (One on the way!)
Tempest -  (Maybe less of a priority with Star Wars coming..)
Burger Time - (Honestly I just think the cabinet is fun)
Joust, Robotron, Defender or a Multi-Williams Cab (Pure arcade fun)

My short (want) list for pinball is currently:

Medieval Madness - (preferably original, good players condition)
Monster Bash - (original, not remake - should never have sold mine... )
Total Nuclear Annihilation - (one of these things is not like the others)

..something different.  An EM, Solid State, etc.

So, that's me in early 2018.  Subject to change on the ADD whim as always, my collection philosophy for Q1 2018 is: bring on the oldies but goodies.  Now, I've got a mess to go clean up so I can get back to having a functional gameroom again! :)

(Sold): Revenge from Mars

I'm selling my RFM... 

Ad Stuff

$SOLD

Plays great and super clean / well maintained. Super cool game, the holographic effect is very cool and well integrated into classic pinball gameplay.
Running PRISM but appears to have been upgraded via an upgrade cart.   I believe it belonged to pinsider, "Hilton" at some point, I got it from pinsider, "fuseholder" about a year ago.

Full LEDs
Red candy powder coated legs
Custom figures and other upgrades
Interactive color changing saucer mod from mr pinballz in Europe, extra saucer disks

Cabinet art is really good,

The pin2k glass that is on it is very good.

Just making room for another game / eliminate some theme overlap in my gameroom.
Would trade for an Atari Star Wars Stand Up Arcade or trade plus cash towards a Total Nuclear Annihilation

I'd have to rent a truck to deliver, so delivery isn't available but I work at home and can meet with a shipper / mover if you'd like.  I have an arcade friend that makes frequent trips to the Birmingham area for anyone in that area.

How I came about the game.

I picked up this Revenge from Mars from the Pinsider, "Fuseholder" - who said he had gotten it from Pinsider, Hilton.  Evidently the Prism card had been updated at a show.  The game was in the ChicagoLand area and it cost me extra moving dough with STI / NAVL to get it carried up 34 steps from the basement where it lived.  

I used to own a SW Episode 1 and I recall not really liking the Pin.   I had never really spent much time on RFM until a local friend got one - and after spending some time on the game, I was pretty well smitten with it.  What struck me about the game was that it was a considerably better game of Pinball than the SW Episode 1, which came later.   The cheesy / campy alien theme was a nice compliment to AFM and I remember thinking that I'd probably never be able to own AFM, they were still going for about 8k on the average.   I felt like RFM would be my answer to get the cheesy mars-attacks theme without the crazy 8k price tag.

As I got to know the game, I really learned the appreciate it for other reasons.  The holographic denizens of the game modes, mattered.   The integration with the theme was excellent and the soundtrack, over all, was a trip down Bally-Williams memory lane with reprised voices in callouts and musical nods to other games... Of course, the usual AFM soldier-guy voice but I was delighted to also recognize the "boogie" theme tune from Scared Stiff and some notable voice talent from Medieval Madness.

With RFM in my arsenal, I thought i had my martian-themed pin checkbox, checked.

Why I decided to let it go.

In the summer, as AFM remakes started to ship, I was perusing Pinside and found an original, players-quality AFM for about $4k.   I took the bait and bought the game but had low expectations.   As the game arrived, I was happy to see it cleaned up quite well, had original B/W boards that were free from hacks and the playfield was decent, not so bad as to consider replacing but also had some questionable mylar added by previous owners.

With some parts, a few repairs, a modernization, ColorDMD, Chrome Plating, Mirror Art Blades, my stash of LEDs and a ton of work, AFM turned out better than I expected and quickly became one of my favorite games.  Now, I have two alien-themed games.

My gameroom layout is typically a 60/40 ratio of arcades to pins but at my highest count, I had 9 pinball machines.  I learned, at that time that in order to maintain a proper balance, I personally can own no more than 6 pinballs at any given time. The maintenance time-requirement (much of which is self-imposed), coupled with demands of being dad, hubby, primary earner and primary fixer of all things in my universe all lead to the number 6 as my upper limit, for now anyway. 

With 6 pins, I really have no tolerance for theme duplication so decision time came.  Which of my two martian themed pins gets to stay and which gets to go.  Hard decision because both are great pins but in the end, I think the pure and simple nature of AFM won the day and so my RFM is up for sale to find a new home.

Video Walkthrough

Photos

High Resolution Photo Gallery: (many more images on this image site:)
http://images.eyedyllic.com/Hobbies/RFM/n-fMZK4Q/