We are putting an enormous amount of time into the underlying technology that goes into the ball to make it mobile device controlled. For instance, we have built our API on two levels. A low-level API which gives us a set of basic functions such as toggling a pin on the actual microcontroller and a high-level API for the ball which abstracts these calls to something any app developer can easily use with absolutely no hardware experience. The high-level ball API uses the low-level API and allows a developer to simply say, for example, moveBall(direction, speed). In essence we have a platform for connecting the app world with the real world and this allows us to place our technology into any type of device from simple to extremely complex very quickly. The ball is our first product and it is a good way to prove the technology in a fun way.
Identify a ball in a box of items, toss it up in the air, and then catch it. Congratulations, you've just exhibited more computational power than most computers are capable of, including some very precise physics simulation and inverse kinematics.
Very nice, I love pinballs. There's room for improvement on the ball detection and flippers movement, probably requiring a faster processor and complex code; I mean having really good control of the flippers (and ball detection accuracy) so that a flipper can be used to stop and direct the ball by firing it before the ball enters in its area then using the flipper returning to place to damp the ball speed, then before the ball falls into the hole, wait the right amount of time before firing again the flipper to give the ball the desired trajectory. This is not too hard to learn for a human but probably quite a challenge both for hardware and software.
Only ironic to software developers. The engineers who produced the ball understand that changing the properties of the ball in that way would reflect in the aerodynamic properties of the ball, which gets fixed at the start of competition.
It’s not hard to fix your software that you created. It’s much harder to get global consensus on a change that wasn’t required before your buggy code was released into the wild.
Well what if the balls performance is due to patented innovations that the company wants to protect? We don't know the facts here, just some blogs opinion.
ballysternos is a really neat arduino project that sits on the debug header of old bally and stern mpu boards. the arduino holds the 6800 in halt from the start and re-implements game code
i've seen at least two of these in the wild, one in a Bally Eight Ball running "Eight Ball Plus" code, and another in a Stern Meteor running "Meteor 2021". both add some neat super-features and game modes, the Meteor has an accompanying wav trigger board, speakers, and amp to add wav sound effects as well -- anyone who loves Meteor will appreciate (or hate) that it no longer screams your spinner value in a high pitched tones.
Tele-Ball (or BallTime in Apple-speak). Hook the movements of two such balls together via a phone call so widely separated people can enjoy the bonding power of play.
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