Jim in the UK from myPinballs has a few cool products
http://mypinballs.co.uk/electronics/store.jspHe has developed a cool board set for old Bally / Stern games that can replace some of the older boards in these machines. The one disadvantage at the moment is that it comes with no rules as you need to program yourself but hopefully a few people get in on the release and write upgraded rules for some of the classic games and share on his setup. The advantages are you can program extra rules into a game, add sound effects and music sound tracks. In addition all the cabling from your playfield plugs straight in and he is supplying his custom game program based off a future spa in which you can tweak switch numbers and lamp number etc and have a game flipping fairly quickly though obviously not all the rules will match. The other advantage is that this will be good for custom games as well especially if you want to re-theme a trashed late 70's early 80's Bally / Stern game. His set is designed so various portions of the game rules are as mini libraries so apparently fairly easy to drag a particular library for game start, ball launch, ball save, flippers working as do slings and pops and designed to recreate that classic era of building and collecting a bonus. For me I like this for a custom game perspective and I have a fully populated trashed skateball with all the cabling but a little nervous about the programming side but for around $400 AUD worth giving it a go to create a custom game.
Lastly Jim is the man behind getting Jpop's Magic Girl flipping as he designed and was programming a flipping white wood with game play features, light show etc. He also has designed a Bally's 80's digital sound board along with a echo board amongst other products.
these are his words from a pinside thread which has lots of videos etc.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/mypinballs-custom-pinball-controller-for-ballystern-gameshttps://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/mypinballs-sounds-plus-sound-board-in-developmentIt is designed to work with all bally/stern games from roughly 1976-1985. All the ones that could use the altek replacement mpu board or the AS-2518 mpu.The main features of the board set are:
- Control Original Segment Displays, or use low cost serial Led displays
- Control Original Switch Matrix
- Control Original 16 Drivers plus Solenoid expanders
- Control Original 64 non-matrixed lamps
- Additional 16 mosfet drivers for flashers, motors, magnets etc
- Additional RGB Lamp Control for extra lamps
- Large SD card sound/music storage capabilities
- Multiple Channel Sound with background music
- Sound line out for connection to external amps/audio setupsThe hardware is one side of the project, but the software framework is the other. I have been working on creating a pinball library framework which people can use to get their own project off the game in conjunction with this hardware. The framework is made up classes for all the major pinball items, so lamps, switches, drivers, displays and sounds. The game itself then has various other files including feature modes and base modes to make the game playable. I have based my design concepts on the work of other more complex pinball frameworks, such as pyprocgame. This is the framework that i use for my rewrites of Indiana Jones and Whirlwind (see my other blog posts). Without the ideas from this software i wouldn't be here.
The framework is all written using the arduino code language and C++. I am making sure that you can still use the standard arduino ide to modify the files to create your own game from. The framework is very modular and i'm pretty happy with it so far.You only need to replace 2 boards - the mpu and lamp driver. The new controller board handles all game control, displays and sounds. The new driver board handles all lamps and coils. You just leave the old solenoid power driver in there to run the 5v and 12v supplies. The old sound board can be left disconnected.
