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#pinball

26 posts17 participants1 post today
Anna<p>Signed myself and the boy up for the Stern Insider accounts. No need for it in Thailand but while we are in Oz, might as well chase those achievements! <a href="https://universeodon.com/tags/SternPinball" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>SternPinball</span></a> <a href="https://universeodon.com/tags/Pinball" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Pinball</span></a></p>
Ari [APz] Sovijärvi<p>Revenge from Mars (Bally, 1999) attraction mode was just so damn mesmerising when I first saw the game back in '99. The image kind of floats over the playfield, but you can still see through it.</p><p>Technically the game has a special (and very expensive) semi-mirrored glass and a CRT hanging above the playfield, with a similar trick Asteroid Deluxe had the pretty background image added. </p><p>The game integrates the CRT pretty well, there's virtual targets the game projects over existing playfield parts and uses them to register hits. This way you can see a martian on the playfield and hit them with the ball, even when in real life the ball hit the standup target behind the projection.</p><p>But as Marge Simpson would say, I just think it's neat. </p><p><a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/pinball" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pinball</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/arcade" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>arcade</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/retrogaming" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>retrogaming</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/retrotech" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>retrotech</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/crt" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>crt</span></a></p>
Ari [APz] Sovijärvi<p>I earlier posted about the florescent tube look-alike LED-strips, that are a drop-in replacement for the originals. Here's a short video about getting rid of Revenge From Mars' original dying tube and replacing it with a LED based one.</p><p>The original starter has to be replaced with the one that comes with the LED-tube, as the technology here is very different and the LED tube becomes very unhappy with a fluorescent tube's starter. With Stern games the starter is easily visible, but in Pinball2000 you have to open the backbox rear door to access it easily. Once that's done, the new tube is installed and the game is ready to go, except it now runs a lot cooler.</p><p>EDIT: I was informed that the LED's PSU isn't in the starter, but the required LED "starter" is just a fuse. The actual PSU is inside the tube.</p><p><a href="https://video.apz.fi/w/9tGqEzR5gJaV3X8E58gYib" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">video.apz.fi/w/9tGqEzR5gJaV3X8</span><span class="invisible">E58gYib</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/pinball" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pinball</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/retrotech" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>retrotech</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/repair" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>repair</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/pinrepair" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pinrepair</span></a></p>
Ari [APz] Sovijärvi<p>Most pins before 2010s use battery backed NVRAM to keep the settings, audits and high scores between power cycles. Out of the 31 games I own, 10 still need the annual 3x AA battery replacement. I've been slowly working towards eliminating the need for batteries altogether, as most classic solid state era games can be trivially modified to use FeRAM chips instead, that do not require external power to keep their content. So today was the fun day of replacing those 30 batteries. Most of these games use the batteries to run their realtime clock, which is a minor annoyance should they ever receive a FeRAM or Flash based NVRAM replacement. Some of these games have time related feature called Midnight madness, that triggers at midnight. We've set the clocks on purpose 3 hours early, so the players can experience this mode at 9pm. <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/pinball" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pinball</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/pinrepair" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pinrepair</span></a></p>
Quester 🌤️🌈:heart_pan: :enb:<p><a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/crafts" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>crafts</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/CrossStitching" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>CrossStitching</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/pinball" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pinball</span></a> <br>2/4<br>Here's some more. The Attack from Mars one and A Tiger's Leap one are also on display at the arcade. We don't have Attack from Mars, only Revenge from Mars, but the callout "London Bridge is falling down!" always rubbed me the wrong way because that is not the London Bridge, it's the Tower Bridge. And the tiger is from Theater of Magic, another game we don't have, but I really like it and I wanted to see how well I could make this cool tiger in cross stitch form.<br>The Lord of the Rings one was a gift for my mother-in-law, who loves the franchise. And the White Water one was a surprise gift for another hobbyist who has a thing for this game, and inflatable boats were a running gag associated with him. So the bounce back was replaced with the Finnish word for a rubber boat.</p>
Quester 🌤️🌈:heart_pan: :enb:<p><a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/crafts" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>crafts</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/CrossStitching" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>CrossStitching</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/pinball" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pinball</span></a> <br>1/4<br>In my intro I said I do cross stitching. But not just any sort of cross stitching. My dearest hobby shows in this, too.<br>I've made all my patterns utilising screenshots of the ColorDMD videos, as there are so, so many of them.<br>I make these for my own amusement and to decorate our arcade. They are on display at the hangout area by my register, so anyone can come and take a look at them.<br>The first one's from Monster Bash, the second from Twilight Zone, the third one from Fish Tales and the fourth from Scared Stiff.</p>
cpi<p>new VIDEOS post: another 3 GB zip file of pinball and arcade clips from movies and TV. That's the fifth ZIP file so far, and more to come.<br><a href="https://pinballnovice.blogspot.com/2025/07/videos-part-9.html" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">pinballnovice.blogspot.com/202</span><span class="invisible">5/07/videos-part-9.html</span></a><br><a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/retroarcade" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>retroarcade</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/pinball" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pinball</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/videogame" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>videogame</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/pennyarcade" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pennyarcade</span></a></p>
Ari [APz] Sovijärvi<p>Pinball machines had originally a light panel behind the backglass with a ton of small lamps. In 1996 Sega did away with the panel and put a fluorescent tube there instead. This ended the use of flash lamps behind the backglass, but otherwise worked just fine. </p><p>One unexpected result with using the tube was that every connector in these game near the lamp would harden and eventually crumble if pulled from the boards. My guess is that the plastic in the connectors doesn't really like the heat and the UV blast they get in the long run.</p><p>In any case, I found these LED tubes that fit any existing fluorescent tube and I've used them at home for years. Nowdays I get rid of the original tubes in pins too. Their only downside was that they're a lot brighter than the real thing, so I have to install them in reverse to make them slightly less eye murdering bright for the player.</p><p>As a bonus, the tube itself is plastic, so it won't shatter if something is dropped on it while servicing the game.</p><p><a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/pinrepair" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pinrepair</span></a> <a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/pinball" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pinball</span></a></p>
SecretAntelope 🌈☕<p>Hey I at least got the high score #3 for the day! 😂 Such a hard game but I absolutely love it for some reason.</p><p><a href="https://covertcreatures.xyz/tags/pinball" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pinball</span></a></p>
Tanatoes<p>A project I've finally finished for the <a href="https://social.chinwag.org/tags/pinball" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pinball</span></a> hall I frequent: informational posters about how different parts of a pinball table work</p>
Quester 🌤️🌈:heart_pan: :enb:<p><a href="https://mstdn.games/tags/pinball" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>pinball</span></a><br>I know my partner has shared our Striker Xtreme’s custom goalie before, but I wanted to share his story.<br>First photo is what he looks like normally. Second photo is our goalie, Horst Güntherson. <br>We fixed up four Striker Xtremes another hobbyist bought from Italy. They were in abysmal condition but we got them looking nice and in working order. And we got to keep one of them for all the hard work we did. So we decided we’re making it Striker Xtreme LE!<br>We, as in myself, <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mstdn.games/@apzpins" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@<span>apzpins</span></a></span> and our friend Riku, brainstormed funny ideas how we could make this poor goalie look better.<br>First we figured he needs a paint job, his knees especially were all worn out. Paint job evolved into ’dying’ his hair and mustache. That’s when Horst started to emerge. Just the hair and mustache gave us so many improvement ideas! Riku made the sunglasses, the leather pants and the zipper for the shirt, I sewed the silk shirt by hand.<br>Horst isn’t the only custom thing in our pinball machines.</p>
Ari [APz] Sovijärvi

Just a quick reminder that I run a #peertube instance that's intended to be an archive of all the #pinball related videos I've done. It has everything I've originally uploaded to #youtube and I'm working to bring over the #twitch archive of us being asses on live stream.

Here's everything it has, organised in playlists. One of the hilights is the birth of Hopeakuula arcade, having some really old stuff from the literal start of the place.

video.apz.fi/c/apzpins/video-p

Pinball hideoutapzpinsA pinball addict. I tend to enjoy working on pins as much as playing them!
Ari [APz] Sovijärvi

One thing I never tire of watching is an EM pinball machine resetting the score displays at the start of a new game. As a kid it puzzled me so bad how it worked, later in life I got to take a deep dive in the soul of electro-mechanical things. Even when I know exactly what's going on, it's still captivating to look at. #pinball #70s #retrotech #electromechanical

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Ari [APz] Sovijärvi

Here's Hopeakuula Arcade's main room. Located in Kouvola, Finland, this hobbyist run, not for profit arcade has been welcoming the pinball-curious folks since 2011.

Mostly run by yours truly and my partner in life and crime, @quester, we aim to keep pinball alive for the next generations of players. The collection has over 35 games, ranging from 70s electromechanicals to the latest 2020 ones.

#pinball#arcade#kouvola
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Ari [APz] Sovijärvi

Hello people! I've been on the Fediverse for couple of years now, so here's my re-#introduction

I'm Ari, better known by my tag APZ and this is my #pinball repair, #arcade and #retrogaming account. I mostly post about playing and repairing pinball machines, but I also work on #retrocomputing with all the classics.

An IT guy by day, I moonlight as a pinball arcade owner here in #finland with my partner @quester. This is purely a hobby of mine, I do this to keep my sanity and to keep pinball alive for the next generations of players. At the moment I own a bit over 30 pinball machines from 70s to 2020s.

A lot of what I do involves #electronics, #CAD for now obsolete parts and #3dprinting and tabletop #cnc to recreate them.

I love to #travel, usually to meet like-minded arcade collectors. I have a strong preference to #repair stuff instead of throwing it away. I'm a #linux user since mid-90s, having been part of #foss movement most of my life. I also edit arcade related videos.

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