Using Open Source to Reinvigorate Pinball 2000

I remember when I was restoring pinball machines that I learned a very important lesson about computer repair. I accidentally caused mainboard damage to a Pinball 2000 (Pin2K) game: Star Wars Episode 1.  It is very easy to do, because the two Molex connectors from the ATX power supply were not keyed, and you could reverse the ground for power. I did this, and took out the power circuit on the mainboard.

This was a *big* problem, because the Pin2K mainboards were a BAT style PC mainboard running a Cyrix Media GX CPU which was connected to a Cyrix CX5520 bridge. These motherboards were used mainly in set-top boxes such as cable TV systems.

The Pin2K series used a PCI custom card called a PRISM card. This card contained all the game logic, sound effects, and video packages for the games. If the power spike travelled to the PRISM card, you basically had yourself a fantastic $8000 piece of furniture.

At the time, the machine was mothballed.

I recently discovered that Big Guys Pinball have reverse engineered the Pin2K core, and created some custom boards which can be used to replace damaged Pin2K logic box systems. The new system is called nucore.

The great thing is they are using Linux (Ubuntu 8), and COTS motherboards and Video Cards, to make this system a reality. You can purchase the components separately, or as a plug-and-play system ready for production use.

The more exciting part to this development is that talks are currently happening to continue Pin2K development. When Williams wrapped up production in 1999, two tables were mothballed. Talks are now underway to commence production of Wizard Blocks, and Playboy.

I will be very interested to see if the cost of production will discourage production of these tables. Some of the challenges with these new tables is the fact that some game logic and a lot of artwork is missing.

Hooray for Open Source, and Ingenuity!

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