Request Newer Sterns

[yuriijos]

Is it a licensing thing or what? but there are no newer Sterns on TPA. It would be so awesome to see Spiderman, Lord of the Rings, and The Simpsons Party Pinball to name the best. Please make any of these happen!

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

I'm sad to say that we might not get any Sterns beyond World Poker Tour, the SAM technology is impossible for FS to emulate at the moment. However, there is a chance of getting TSPP and LOTR as Kickstarters.

 

[yuriijos]

Indiana Jones is no slouch either

 

[George Klepacz]

Why is SAM impossible to emulate? Just too advanced for today's chipsets? Just curious.

 

[Rudy]

After listening to the TOPcast podcasts episodes with Greg Dunlop and Keith Johnson there's a strong possibility that we're not going to see many Sterns in general due to how they're programmed. If I was listening correctly, only a certain amount of Stern Whitestars would be possible in TPA because of how they're typically run off two chips instead of one (one for the game, one for LEDs). Trying to emulate two chips would be an incredible amount of resources and that may not even include the sound roms.

Not only that, the problem with Stern was that they didn't have major revisions which condensed code. They simply added more code into the chips which made them incredibly inefficient, you'd get code from the era of games like Flight 2000 and extra code blocking out parts of that code to make something else work differently. There was a switchover near they end of the Whitestar era where they condensed it into one chip, but by then they were well on the way to creating the SAM system.

So before 2001? - Two chips will be a mess.
After 2004? - The individual chips are too powerful for android devices

Leaving a very limited window of games that could be emulated in TPA, which is limited further when you discount the licences that are hard to get. This could also explain why it's Harley Davidson (third edition) that's in the game not the original Harley Davidson which would have been a Whitestar with the two chips.

So ultimately, it's not looking good. On the plus side, Bobby has mentioned in the past that they've fixed elements of code that were in the actual games themselves, if the Williams/Bally licensing requires that only the ROMs from finished versions of the game can be used then the 'modified' code will either be Gottlieb or Stern games. Given that Stern seem to have a good relationship with Farsight I'm willing to bet that it's Stern that's allowed code to be condensed, modified or fixed.

 

[netizen]

Except that Pin*Bot is a shining example of a game with ROM changes. Especially with the scores now not freezing out at 9,999,999.

This single game shows that it isn't just Sterns that are having code changes done to them and that blows your entire speculative nonsense out of the water.


RBION is a 2 chip whitestar machine and it is emulated on Android, and every other system.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

Except that Pin*Bot is a shining example of a game with ROM changes. Especially with the scores now not freezing out at 9,999,999.

That was likely not done in the ROM itself. Bobby mentioned in The Pinball Magazine interview that when they had fixed some known issues with the real No Good Gofers, they did so not by altering the ROM directly, but by programming the emulator in such a way to recognize the faulty outputs from the ROM and act in a way to mitigate them and/or hide their effects from the player.

Pinbot's emulator likely is now programmed to realize when the ROM has nined out and to essentially take over the scorekeeping/display functions form that point.

I would assume trying to directly modify the sometimes-ancient and usually extremely-cryptic contents of the ROM binary is an absolute last resort for FarSight. The risk of breaking things is just too high.

 

[netizen]

I would assume trying to directly modify the sometimes-ancient and usually extremely-cryptic contents of the ROM binary is an absolute last resort for FarSight. The risk of breaking things is just too high.

I refer to the statements made by Jay in the Kickstarter video for T2 referring to correcting code that leads to simple errors like this. And the short discussion with Mike during the reporting of the pin*bot bug where he stated the error was in the ROM.

Unless FS comes right out and directly states it was done 1 way over the other we, as end users, will not know for certain.

I won't add to the speculation, I can only rely on the publicly made sources that I have access to.

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

I refer to the statements made by Jay in the Kickstarter video for T2 referring to correcting code that leads to simple errors like this. And the short discussion with Mike during the reporting of the pin*bot bug where he stated the error was in the ROM.

Unless FS comes right out and directly states it was done 1 way over the other we, as end users, will not know for certain.

I won't add to the speculation, I can only rely on the publicly made sources that I have access to.

Corrections such as these are implemented in the emulator, as the source code for the ROM is not available to FarSight so far as I know. Bobby goes into a little detail as to how it's done in that interview I cited earlier. I used my knowledge and experience as a developer who used to have to do similar things to interface point-of-sale systems to surveillance systems to fill in the gaps. So I think I'm bringing a little more to the table than just wild speculation.

Am I 100% certain this is how it's done? No. But I would be shocked if such corrections were being made to the ROM itself instead of having the emulator work around the issues.

Also, we could always ask Steve Ellenoff directly how it was done. He does visit here from time to time.

 

[Carl Spiby]

I would have thought, Grand Prix for example, would be really easy to make as it has no licence attached to it (NASCAR but made for Europe).

 

[Sean DonCarlos]

I would have thought, Grand Prix for example, would be really easy to make as it has no licence attached to it (NASCAR but made for Europe).

I had always assumed that machine had the Formula One license attached instead. Is it more generic than that?

 

[Baron Rubik]

I would have thought, Grand Prix for example, would be really easy to make as it has no licence attached to it (NASCAR but made for Europe).

Found a Nascar available to the public, in 'the loft' at 'Ice Cream Farm, Northwich, in Cheshire.
http://www.cheshirefarmicecream.co.uk/the-loft/

 

[David Pannozzo]

I would have to say if SAM were to be Emulated, my guess it would be done on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. They are very powerful systems, I think they could handle the SAM chip board. I have Steve Ellenoff on Facebook I'll write to him and see what he says if he answers back, recently he told me he's not on Facebook to much right now because he's constantly busy with his job and getting Roms emulated for the pinball arcade. So I will try to get back to you all as soon as I can, or if you see him on here first then ask that question if you could. Later.

 

[Baron Rubik]

I would have to say if SAM were to be Emulated, my guess it would be done on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. They are very powerful systems...

But... The largest sales market for TPA has been stated as ios with Android coming close second. Which means the 2 largest sectors would be unsupported, which begs the question, would it be worth it for Farsight financially.
They make the bulk of their sales through mobile platforms.

 

[Carl Spiby]

I had always assumed that machine had the Formula One license attached instead. Is it more generic than that?

Its completely generic.

I would have to say if SAM were to be Emulated, my guess it would be done on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. They are very powerful systems, I think they could handle the SAM chip board. I have Steve Ellenoff on Facebook I'll write to him and see what he says if he answers back, recently he told me he's not on Facebook to much right now because he's constantly busy with his job and getting Roms emulated for the pinball arcade. So I will try to get back to you all as soon as I can, or if you see him on here first then ask that question if you could. Later.

It already is emulated.