Revenge From Mars - IP Networking

[Private Gimp]

Hi all,
Just interested in knowing if anybody here has got their RFM/SWE1 machine networked and using a tournament server.

I Got a SMC 8416T Ethernet ISA NIC card shipped from Europe and installed it.
First thing I did was to blow the computer power supply because I failed to switch it to 230V (left it at 115V as powered by the pinball tranformer and attached the power cord..ouch!!) - please watch out for this!!
It wasn't straight forward but persisted and got there so if anybody is planning on doing this, LMK if you need any help. Clays guide doesn't explain all of it.
Its cool to be able to control the machine via Telnet. I found it was a little bit more difficult than I anticipated because of the NIC and its configuration exercise using DOS only.

I plan on hooking it into a tournament server next.

Kind regards all,
Cliff

[beaky]

sounds like fun.
so what features can you access via the telnet?

[Private Gimp]

Been fooling around with it a little and found you can:
Start a game, end a game.
Launch each different play mode, great for practising on.
Tilt the game.
Flip the flippers, also turn them on or off (so they don't work)
Lauch and serve the ball/s.
Access the feature programming and audits
Turn lamps on and off etc.
Reboot the game
Error reports.
These are simple things you can do in it. Its a real shame that Williams/Bally didn't get the time to fully develop this technology before closing.
I really want to explore the Tournament possibilities which is a little more difficult but not impossible.

I posted a question to the makers of Nucore on the network-ability of Pinball 2000 plans, have a look at there response in the Nucore thread on this!

Cliff

[beaky]

you could really make someone scratch their head. imagine setting it up in Tournament mode with a c.c.t.v camera above the pin. then while your mate is playing it you sneek into the next room and watch the p/f on the monitor for the cctv and start controlling the flippers or ending the game early and starting a new game, or just stuffing around with other features. 

[Private Gimp]

Exactly. This would be very entertaining!
I would mind running a script so the game can play itself as an attract mode, or issue a sequential bunch of commands to start a game run a particular mode 3-4 times as a practice round, tilt and return to regular play.
I want to get the networking going wirelessly (using a wireless bridge), it would be a hugh advantage as I can use a laptop wirelessly on the LAN. Working on this one.

The only thing that can't be done is allowing modification of the game code, imagine being able to add or modify features and rules, unfortunately you cant write your own rule set, if only???

Who knows, may be some day!