Jump to content
Due to a large amount of spamers, accounts will now have to be approved by the Admins so please be patient. ×
IGNORED

MMR good ?


steptoe

Recommended Posts

Because the market that manufactorers aim for that buy NIB don't really care what's driving them, just as the majority of new car buyers don't care what's running the car but the looks and features of the car.

 

Sadly I believe you are correct. The pity is that there will be people down the track who end up buying one of these things that have no idea about what's inside (like a lot now I guess) and then find out that many pinball repair places won't touch it OR can't get the critical "hobby parts" to repair it.

 

The owners of MM will still be repairing those electronics for another 20 years.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I think you misunderstood what i've said and not all pinball owners want to or dare to repair their machine other than the obvious rubber or two and are happy to pay someone to repair it. And people are not throwing their money at Stern or any other manufacturer, they are choosing to spend their money on an expensive toy. QC is not the topic here but it was about how the MMR compares to an original MM and then @Homepin has to criticise the processor running the machine. homepin you'll get your chance to shine with TAG and I bet most of your customers won't give a hoot about your electronics running your machine and doubt your distributors use this as a sales tool, only its title, gameplay and appearance is what seperates us from our hard earned cash.

 

....and this is the very reason I have been advised time and again to NOT comment on matters like this but after repairing pinball machines all my life I just won't stand by and see people being conned like this - it isn't in my nature.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I'm staying out of this one from here on in lol.

Each to their own.

 

 

I agree - no more from me. I hope all the owners are happy but more, I hope they don't have problems with the $30 board running the machine - disgusting any way you want to try and twist it or put a shine on pure greed!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is what I don't understand about current pinball. And I'm not sure if this has already been discussed as I haven't come across the discussion (in enough detail) here.

 

I currently own a TZ and DW. As you all know they are 23 and 24 years old respectively. After multiple repairs they are still playing strong and have no issues or 'freeplay dots' (? is that a thing or did I just make up a term?).

 

I also work in the IT industry and have built a computer or two in my time. It is well known in the IT industry that computer years (like dog years are 7:1) are now approx. 15:1, therefore a 4 year old computer is equivalent to a 60 yr old human.

 

If I needed a 24 year old part for a 24 year old computer today, I doubt I'd find it. So in 24 years from now, are the 'computers' in these MMR's still going to be running and what happens if your 'computer' needs a new part? The pc parts industry doesn't work like the pinball parts industry.

 

As stated look how long Heighways computer lasted until it had to be 'upgraded'... 1 title! Yes I know this is rare as nobody else has the swappable playfield model of Heighway, but it sort of still proves my point. In the coming years, is that pc going to be fixable/upgradable? Fortunately for Heighway the answer is yes... for now. What happens if they ever get to their 10th title?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jesus, didn't mean to cause that.

I wasn't even talking about the quality. I meant they shrunk the original sewing machine style board lineup down to one board the size of my palm. Anyone who says that's not impressive is delusional. Every pinball machine is great, and people largely don't care about the build quality. To be fair, it's just like the thunderbirds pinball coming out with a big sticker on it that will say "Made in China", but people won't care, because it looks cool, tech looks awesome and if it's a decent game, which it looks like it's shaping up to be, Mike won't sell any less of them. That's not at all to have a dig at you Mike; you know I'm a religious follower of your work. I have so much respect for people who have undertaken such a project as manufacturing a pinball machine. Making a chalkboard in year 8 D&T was so bloody hard. I just think people should appreciate anything that is added to this hobby; none of it hurts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hope they don't have problems with the $30 board running the machine - disgusting any way you want to try and twist it or put a shine on pure greed!

Even if it becomes unavailable in the future, I don't think the BeagleBone per se is the problem here. There are tons of other machines that you could use to run the show, such as a Raspberry or any number of other boards. If worst comes to worst, you could use a PC to run a BeagleBone emulator. Just because the board is different doesn't necessarily mean that it will be any worse than a run-of-the-mill Spike or SAM board.

 

And the $30 price tag for the board doesn't necessarily mean that the board isn't going to last either. Today, I can buy a single-board PC for something like 5% of what a PC cost ten years ago. The low price is an indication of the rapidly falling cost of manufacturing computers, rather than an indication of low quality, I'd say.

 

But I do see the problem with different pin manufacturers changing boards as they see fit, depending on what is currently the cheapest available thing. The fragmentation created by this will indeed cause maintenance problems; right now, a pinball repairer needs to understand a handful of boards that share a lot of common components. If we end up in a situation where there are two dozen boards in circulation, expertise will end up being diluted a lot. And we'll probably quite quickly end up in a position where, to repair a pinball machine, you'll need Linux and programming skills. Not necessarily ideal…

 

Michi.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think pc based pinball is like mobile phones when they first came out in the 80/90's. People were asking (and still are!!) are they going to cause brain tumours? The answer was there isn't enough data, give it 20 or 30 years.

 

I think it will be the same answer for pc based machines. Give it 20 or 30 years (or less because of that 15:1 ratio :unsure).

 

By the way, if the MM at the recent Greg Berry Cup at the Peacock Inn was an MMR... I didn't realise it was an MMR :lol. I thought it was an MM with a ColorDMD in it. Can someone please enlighten me? Was it an MM or MMR? @hotty you said you've played an MMR. Were you referring to that one??

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why not buy 10 replacement boards for $300 and you then have a lifetime supply to swap in whenever they go kaput?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Aussie Arcade

 

I think two replacement boards would be overkill, I have a couple of PCs about 10yrs old still running my mame cabs fine.

 

I'm 48 now, if trying to set up a PC the size of a matchbox to emulate my defunct beaglebone when I'm 68 is my biggest concern I will be a very happy man :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think pc based pinball is like mobile phones when they first came out in the 80/90's. People were asking (and still are!!) are they going to cause brain tumours? The answer was there isn't enough data, give it 20 or 30 years.

 

I think it will be the same answer for pc based machines. Give it 20 or 30 years (or less because of that 15:1 ratio :unsure).

 

By the way, if the MM at the recent Greg Berry Cup at the Peacock Inn was an MMR... I didn't realise it was an MMR :lol. I thought it was an MM with a ColorDMD in it. Can someone please enlighten me? Was it an MM or MMR? @hotty you said you've played an MMR. Were you referring to that one??

Yes it was MMR and thanks to the owner for sharing it with us and all goodresponses following my post. I think we put too much emphasis on pinballs at times and get caught up in what's good bad and indifferent. I think the future of pinball survival will always be just a board away as the genius minds like Pascal and Rottendog will continue to design replacements long into the future. Pinball 2000 copped heaps of criticism but someone managed to emulate the software illegally of course but they did do it. The sale of parts has proven to be most profitable long after the first sale of the NIB, so let's all take a chill pill and enjoy this hobby we call pinball.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the coming years, is that pc going to be fixable/upgradable?

 

Probably not. But it doesn't matter. Because there will be PC emulators for at least another fifty years. Future-generation machines will probably quite easily run dozens of such emulators concurrently. And, by then, such a machine will probably still not be any larger than a Raspberry Pi. So, you'll probably be able to run 20 pins simultaneously on something the size of a matchbox, and that matchbox will talk wirelessly to the controllers in each pin…

 

Whichever way this goes, it's going to get better and cheaper. That's simply the history of computers.

 

Hardware availability isn't the issue here, I believe, because pretty much anything can be emulated. What is more of a concern is that the know-how is changing, and fewer people will have the knowledge it takes to fix something that uses some obscure board that was used in ancient times (such as 2016…)

 

It's a two-edged sword. On the one hand, modern boards are smaller, cheaper, faster, and dissipate less heat (and so need less power). On the other hand, they are more complex and shift the emphasis from hardware more towards software. You win some, you lose some…

 

Michi.

Edited by Michi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Car engines the same type of thing, tell a mechanic 30yrs ago a pc will control the engine one day, a what ?

 

You have nailed the problem - misunderstanding!!!

 

A "PC" certainly does NOT control a car engine. "Embedded microcontrollers" do.

 

Believe me, there is a world of difference.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jesus, didn't mean to cause that.

I wasn't even talking about the quality. I meant they shrunk the original sewing machine style board lineup down to one board the size of my palm. Anyone who says that's not impressive is delusional. Every pinball machine is great, and people largely don't care about the build quality. To be fair, it's just like the thunderbirds pinball coming out with a big sticker on it that will say "Made in China", but people won't care, because it looks cool, tech looks awesome and if it's a decent game, which it looks like it's shaping up to be, Mike won't sell any less of them. That's not at all to have a dig at you Mike; you know I'm a religious follower of your work. I have so much respect for people who have undertaken such a project as manufacturing a pinball machine. Making a chalkboard in year 8 D&T was so bloody hard. I just think people should appreciate anything that is added to this hobby; none of it hurts.

 

I'm delusional, I would wager that if you lay out the Williams PCBs against the PPS PCBs on the floor (yes that big old sucker that takes up most of the underneath of the playfield) that PPS board set is the same size if not bigger :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You have nailed the problem - misunderstanding!!!

 

A "PC" certainly does NOT control a car engine. "Embedded microcontrollers" do.

 

Believe me, there is a world of difference.

 

I was curious so I looked on the net, close enough for me :)

 

"Well, confused? In simple words, microcontroller is a full fledged PC in a single chip!"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You encouraged me to look too since I only saw it's OS when first released, from an embedded board system I think it is easier to repair and find the cause through process of elimination so the old MM is proven to stand the test of time. New MMR is cloned perfectly but with the majority on the underside of the playfield will make things a tad more difficult because I'm only guessing there's more components on the other side. The pinball 2000 model had great troubleshooting software does this MMR have the same as the old style or much more detail anyone? @Homepin machines electronically embedded system should be tech friendly but from a wide sales point of view its not what will sell machines.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Administrators
You encouraged me to look too since I only saw it's OS when first released, from an embedded board system I think it is easier to repair and find the cause through process of elimination so the old MM is proven to stand the test of time. New MMR is cloned perfectly but with the majority on the underside of the playfield will make things a tad more difficult because I'm only guessing there's more components on the other side. The pinball 2000 model had great troubleshooting software does this MMR have the same as the old style or much more detail anyone? @Homepin machines electronically embedded system should be tech friendly but from a wide sales point of view its not what will sell machines.

 

Yeah sort of.

WPC 95 is a cut down and cheaper version of the 89. I have seen a few of the ASIC's fail on the display driver and they're not fun to replace and what were they thinking putting the batteries at the top.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was curious so I looked on the net, close enough for me :)

 

"Well, confused? In simple words, microcontroller is a full fledged PC in a single chip!"

 

...and again, that is a MAJOR difference.

 

A PC has dozens of separate sockets, RAM, plugs and sockets etc etc that ALL give trouble and create reliability issues.

 

An embedded controller has none of these drawbacks.

 

You also have problems (in most cases) as the large majority of PC's run Windows (a few Linux) and we all know how reliable Windows is - constantly rebooting, upgrading etc etc

 

Imagine your pinball rebooting or demanding an upgrade once a week - not on!!!

 

Embedded controllers usually DON'T run OS like this rather they operate using "machine code" (well, ours does and so did Williams, Bally, Gottlieb, Zaccaria etc)

 

There are a few key differences for you - there are many more

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was curious so I looked on the net, close enough for me :)

 

"Well, confused? In simple words, microcontroller is a full fledged PC in a single chip!"

 

I know blokes who have raspberry Pi's as ECU's,

So i think your previous point was valid

 

My EMS stinger ecu in my street racer can be driven in real time straight from my PC, so I think that would count also

sure the computer uses the controller to connect to the motor and sensors but so does a pc when its connected to the hardware on a Pinball

 

as said by previous Post, emulators will be used no doubt if Boards are no longer available in the 30 years time.

And like allot of tech hobbies, With this sort of systems we should see custom game rules being made, sick of these rules oh lets load up a new one. Nope that one sucks, ill load up this one.

 

at the end of the day, you wouldn't have been able to make a game like WOZ or hobbit with the old tech.

 

This is however a good point made, hopefully they can find a tech and stay with it for a while, If its not the PC part its self, but the controllers connected to the hardware and the PC being a bit more across the board, Pun intended that would be helpful for techs

 

But I do see the problem with different pin manufacturers changing boards as they see fit
Edited by jason1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please note that I am NOT trying to hang shit on any machine, MMR included.

 

What really peeves me is that it seems the large majority of buyers of this (and some other new machines) are thinking that they will be just as repairable as an MM or other WMS machines and this simply will not be the case.

 

Same as machines running PC motherboards - disaster!

 

I'm not commenting further as I have made my observations clear in numerous other threads.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What really peeves me is that it seems the large majority of buyers of this (and some other new machines) are thinking that they will be just as repairable as an MM or other WMS machines and this simply will not be the case.

 

I think this is a valid point, some people and some techs included Wont be able to fix it, as it is something they dont know. Because we cant deny it is different.

 

But the flip side is there will be a generation who will be able to do it as they understand the PC components more than some who currently fixes pinballs, Or even understand it more than than the current boards in pinballs, because it is a tech they are more used too

 

Again using the car analogy, I know car guys who know nothing more than Carby engines, they can do some outstanding tuning on those motors in their sleep, they are mechanics been in the industry longer than I have been alive, and they are fantastic mechanics .

Do they know how to tune Via an ECU? no, and some thought you could never fix a car or custom tune an Engine with an ECU, they thought the car would be rooted if the ECU failed and there was never would be an option to upgrade ECU's and so on

But history has stated other wise.

 

A new generation of people came along who learned this stuff they are Excellent at doing that, but in fairness probably cant tune a carby,

Then you have some of those traditional mechanics who adapted and learnt Programming of ECU's, so they can do both carby tuning and Ecu's.

Then you had Some who just threw their hands up and retired.

 

My point is, there are people who do understand this PC stuff, and this is where the pinball hobby is heading.

There are going to be techs who wont work on them, sure.

There will be techs who will be able to do both new and old systems.

And there will be techs who just do new systems because they understand the new system but dont understand the old system.

 

when new tech comes along this is how it has always been.

 

But your point @Homepin is valid, not every one is going to understand or simply dont want to fix newer pinballs. So there is certainly that aspect.

Just Like the old pinball tech back in the day when they changed from EM to boards. he either adapted or stuck to what he knew. And there is a need for both however

We cant be under the illusion that it will be fixable by every one fair point

 

PS, Do i think you should stop what your doing in using the more traditional or common style tech? No, if your wanting to cater for those who already know the traditional boards and the common parts then that makes sense, but also makes sense for a pinball company who wants to move out of the style pinball's we have been seeing for the last 25 years. I dont think it is one or the other

Edited by jason1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you're going to keep it, try and buy the original. Everything's modular and easily reapired and replaced - the remake not so much. This doesn't matter if you'll turn it over in a year, but if like me it's a buy and hold, mm is better.

They both play identically btw

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...