Absolutely bonkers. Anyone remember the Technology Connections video from a while back about pinball machines?
He cracked one open to reveal the “computer” like 500 relays connected with spaghetti. Can’t imagine how much of a nightmare it must be to debug those. At this point, so much documentation and tribal knowledge is gone that this dude is basically reverse engineering each machine. Hats off.
Edit: article actually points out that he bought out all existing documents from one of the pinball companies.
I do love Technology Connections. When I was a kid, my uncle had a pinball machine in his game room and we would play that thing for hours on end. It was really fun seeing Alec crack one open and give us an extended tour.
Absolutely bonkers. Anyone remember the Technology Connections video from a while back about pinball machines?
He cracked one open to reveal the “computer” like 500 relays connected with spaghetti. Can’t imagine how much of a nightmare it must be to debug those. At this point, so much documentation and tribal knowledge is gone that this dude is basically reverse engineering each machine. Hats off.
Edit: article actually points out that he bought out all existing documents from one of the pinball companies.
There’s a huge amount of knowledge in experts around the world who share in that passion, just like in ancient radio repair.
I do love Technology Connections. When I was a kid, my uncle had a pinball machine in his game room and we would play that thing for hours on end. It was really fun seeing Alec crack one open and give us an extended tour.