myPinballs New Project 2018 - 80B Display replacement with extras

[myPinballs]

Starting a few new projects this year . One of these is a replacement for the 80B display screens. The plan is to make something cost effective that will be fully plug and play with original hardware, but will also offer some enhancements to the score display over and above the originals. All settings based though so you can have factory if you wish.

I am creating a full emulation and port of the originals hardware system - 10941 and 10939 Rockwell controllers.

One interesting feature will be options to increase the display sizing

More 80b projects to enhance your loved games

Screen shot of early dev

 

[JMP]

Good to hear Jim.

I see a lot of the display modules for sale overseas, just not complete boards... @Poibug got the last one of those.

 

[myPinballs]

Good to hear Jim.

I see a lot of the display modules for sale overseas, just not complete boards... @Poibug got the last one of those.

Cheers John. I fully believe this is the best way to secure the display technology for the long term. The original chips are long gone, but the technology can live on and be enhanced

 

[myPinballs]

Test screen with working segments

 

[myPinballs]

The first prototype lcd screen came in today. Perfect size for the 80b era display panels.

Hoping to have a demo of a working display panel at pinfest this year.

 

[AlanJ]

Looks amazing, and, then do a similar thing for EM's ;-)

On a quick side note - I spoke to the ColorDMD guys at TPF and asked then why they were dropping the LCD display in favour of the LED dot matrix. They said it was simply down to availability - the supplies of the LCD screens they use is running out and they are finding it harder to source these now.

 

[myPinballs]

Some updates for this project. Progressing along

Video of a test program written for the chip hardware emulator to test the operation of the recreated ascii character set and also the internal processing emulation

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First real setup created using a custom cable and the software setup on to a raspberry pi



First output from real hardware data to the screen. Shows that data is being sent over ok, the load line is working and the interrupts are working. Some timing or character codes issues to resolve still though

 

[Arv]

Can you not get away with using a Pi Zero?

 

[myPinballs]

Can you not get away with using a Pi Zero?

Yes I will be using a zero on the production board like with my 80b sound board, but during development it’s easier to use the big brother version I find

 

[russdx1]

This is a cool project