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Comment by yunusabd | Hacker News Reader

With a claim like that in the title, I would at least expect a comparison to other electromechanical games and a discussion on why this would be the most complex one.

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It actually doesn’t seem to qualify as an electromechanical pinball machine at all. Given the 17 computers in control and modern playfield mechanisms and sensors, it is almost certainly considered a solid state pinball machine.

EM machines use much older tech - look at Gottlieb machines from the 40s-70s. Even they switched to SS by the end of the 70s

Electromechanical as opposed to video, not meaning 'no computers'.

I think y’all are both right and I appreciate the additional contexts. It’s just awkward to headline the article with a term that has a pinball-specific usage and not define it or dig into it a bit more.

I’m super impressed though Andy, did you use MPF or something else to program it? I’m only just dipping my toes into building my own pin, it’s quite intimidating realizing the breadth of skills required.

EDIT: another post clarified that it is on MPF - nice!

It was prototyped on MPF. But I later refactored and used a more direct API for the P3-ROC. Because these games are nothing like typical pinball. And because I'm allergic to frameworks. The direct API isn't public but I can share it with you if you want.

Nice! Direct access seems like the way to go if you're not worrying about the single player modes and shot structures, and if all the sound is from the physical interactions. I appreciate the API info offer, but I've already got the FAST Neuron controller, so I think it's a different path for me

That's a pinball-specific nomenclature. From the outside, all the games are "EM": the primary nouns and verbs of gameplay occur relative to those mechanisms. The distinctions of "SS" and "DMD" exist mostly to describe the shifts in rulesets, servicability and audiovisual feedback.

The individual playfields aren't very complicated compared to typical pinball. But all of the elements together makes for a lot of logic, channels, and code.

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