I've been building a virtual pinball machine over the last couple of weeks. It runs a public domain program called Visual Pinball, and I have it running in a real 30 year old pinball cabinet I was able to salvage. It's going to take a couple more months to get it set up just the way I want it, but it's functional now. The link to my build is here:

http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?showtopic=14698&st=0

There is a lot of info on this site if any of you guys are into pinball and are interested in building one for yourself. You can just install the software and download some tables first to try it out and see if you like it!

interesting

Some coworkers of mine from a few years back toyed with making full sized virtual pinball machines and selling them, but the software was still pretty new, and the amount of capital ($$$) needed just to create the prototypes and first few stock machines was more than we could muster together. I would love to add a full sized VPin to my game room to go along side my MAME machine and Theatre of Magic pin, but I don't know if I will have enough space. Although, if I did do it, I would build my own cabinet to make it the exact size that i wanted (to match the size of the screen).

I am going to have to look at your posts closer when I get home. Too many curious eyes here at work.

Interesting link Steve!
What's the size of the Main LCD? Maybe you can incorporate some AudioBytes for the audio

Fascinating stuff. I love old pinball machines, but I think I'm going to miss the convention again this year. Sigh.

The main LCD is 42", 27" LCD for the backglass. I'll be adding a 19" monitor for the dot matrix display (DMD) screen (the one with the score). I went cheap for the sound, a Logitec 50W sub/speaker setup for $99. There are a lot of examples out there of people who made one of these, and they play great. Search YouTube for "Visual Pinball" and you'll see ton's of examples.

I'll be in Las Vegas at the end of the month Ken, and I plan on stopping by the Pinball Hall of Fame when I'm there. They have over 200 pinball machines all ready to play.

OK. Now that I finally took a few minutes to look at it, I REALLY like it... Oh wait, those "few minutes" were about 90 minutes ago. I just keep finding more and more out there about these VPin machines. Some people go all out and I can't imagine how much they spent, but I may have to add this to my list of things to do some day. (After the basement and V4.0 of my theater is done this year, new deck and outside stuff done next year, kitchen and bathroom remodels the year after). By then, I will have everything figured out. I would probably build the cabinet myself since I could get it the exact size, but who knows...

How much money do you have into yours so far, if you don't mind me asking...

Nick,
It really is amazing. You can spend very little or go all out like you said. Some people out there are selling pre-made machines (without the tables installed because they have been programmed by everyday people who make no money on their work). Just the hardware and the emulation software. A pre-built machine can run from $5000 to $5700 (without shipping, which is about a $300-$400 freight charge)from a dealer like this one:

http://virtuapin.net/index.php?main_page...7e3cf04d96dadb1

I was able to build mine for $2250 so far, and all I have to buy now is the material to put the bezels around the playfield and the backglass. I can also spend a little more down the road to have custon vinyl decals made for the machine. My biggest expense was the 3 monitors which ran about $950 total. Next biggest expense was the PC parts which cost me about $450, but that's because I already had some video cards and hard drive lying around. I was able to save a bunch of money by getting the cabinet (with playfield glass and legs!) for only $300 delivered since there is a dealer only 20 miles form here and he wanted to get rid of the old cab.

Here's some pictures of the machine that you own, emulated:





If you search on Youtube, you'll see some videos of this game in action, and it plays very well (nice and fast!).

You mentioned MAME. Even though I already have a MAME cabinet, I thought it would be cool to put it on this machine too. I use the backglass to run my front end (HyperSpin) to choose my game. I have 850 installed, and they all have intro videos that play on the backglass. You use the pinball flippers to move up and down through the games, and the Magna-Save buttons (red button underneath the flippers) to move up and down an entire letter in the game menu. Everything else is mapped like the pinball (add credit, start, etc). I use a wireless joypad to play the games. Here are some pix of that:









So, if you consider that you can get a virtual pinball machine as well as a MAME machine for less than $2500, it's not a bad deal.

I love 1943!!!

That is so cool! maybe one day

Very cool, awesome addition to any rec room.

This just makes me want to play real pinball.

Anyone have a Twilight Zone game all shined and spiffy they'd like to donate?

That is really cool.

Just...Amazing, Steve. You do the coolest projects. Now, I'm going to have to learn all about this. I had work to do this week!

This is really sweet. As a pinball/video game geek, I'm impressed!

Thanks guys. This is one project that is just as much fun building as it is enjoying the outcome! I've made a bunch of progress (actually I'm almost done - I just need to make some monitor bezels), and if anyone is still interested my latest photos are here:

http://www.vpforums.org/index.php?s=&showtopic=14698&view=findpost&p=129656

Oooo... STNG, Twilight Zone, Indy, and of course Theatre of Magic (what I own)...

I am REALLY liking this project. Looks great! I still would like to try one out sometime before ever investing the time/money into it since I am not sure how well I would like it being video and not physical pinball... Of course, my only video pinball experience has been on the XBox, or on a PC screen where the screen has to scroll around showing about 1/3 of the playfield at a time (where ever the ball is) and it gets nauseating at times.