Category: Rants
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Possible Bug in Bally Pinball Firmware?
I am seeing something across multiple classic Bally pins that makes me think it is an actual bug in the firmware. It has to do with the LATCH signals for the displays. Specifically the Credit/Match/Ball (CMB) display.
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We Just Have a Difference of Opinion…
“We just have a difference of opinion” – remember that? We heard that a lot during the pandemic, usually from someone that is talking out of their ass and comparing their opinion to something stated by a doctor, scientist, researcher, or in a published article. This other person is often comparatively uneducated, and inexperienced with…
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Bringing Games or Pins to a Free Play Event (e.g. Free Play Florida)?
We all love our vids and pins. And for those of us that repair and/or restore older games, most of us are proud in what we have done to return them working again and bring them back to their former glory. And we might like the idea of sharing them with others at an event…
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Got Screwed by Suzo-Happ
So a site I work with has had two GamePro monitors go down. One of them was from an odd power issue that ended up smoking one of the Zeners on its control board, and the other was just a loose power connector. These boards use a lot of smaller SMT components that I am…
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Covidiot BINGO!
I have long since observed a predictable and rather consistent set of behaviors with the anti-mask, anti-vax, anti-whateverbullshittheycomeupwith crowd that keeps popping up during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Lemme know if you spot anything familiar: They misspell vaccine as jab or poke They claim the vaccine is poison They claim there will be long-term effects of…
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Family and Arcade Versions of Pandora’s Boxes
So recently there have been these different versions of PBs becoming available that are very popular with those little self-contained panels that house a two-player setup with a game board and a speaker inside the panel. These used to come with the “real” PBs that used a JAMMA connector: But now they use these newer…
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So-called Web “Developers”
So, I have been seeing this more and more. I see the term “Web Developer” being applied to anybody that can do basic HTML5 and CSS scripting. Even worse, I see the term being applied to people that do not know enough to understand how the back end works, or cannot even spell LAMP. If…
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Words to Watch Out For When Buying Arcade Games or Pinball Machines
I have learned through many years of posts, sales, people, auctions, and similar experiences that there are certain words and phrases that you need to watch out for when buying games, boards, etc. Untested The first one, and it is a biggie – UNTESTED. Here is the truth: if dealing with a whole game, and it…
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Manager Red Flags
(Attention lawyers and previous employers: the following information does not specifically identify a particular entity. You have nothing to worry about unless you think this represents you or your company and you know there is some truth to it.) As I have worked with a few different kinds of managers/supervisors throughout the years, I have…