This is my current pick - simple, works exactly as expected, very small. Only thing I ever fight with is remembering to accept Mac OS's warning about connecting a USB device.
For just video (or w/ separate keyboard/mouse), the Genki Shadowcast devices work really well.
Various manufacturers have been listed, but there are actually several different companies building them currently:
- Stern Pinball (sternpinball.com) - Great, modern themes, biggest manufacturer. Recently released The Mandalorian, Godzilla, Foo Fighters, etc. Easiest by far to find to play and / or purchase via distributors.
- Jersey Jack Pinball (jerseyjackpinball.com) - Tend to be more collector quality machines. Recently released Guns n' Roses (developed with Slash), Toy Story 4, and the Godfather.
- Spooky Pinball (spookypinball.com) - Initially home brew pinball, built into much larger company. Releases include things like Rick & Morty, Halloween, Ultraman, and Scooby Doo.
- Chicago Gaming Company (chicago-gaming.com) - Involved in many things, but from a pinball standpoint, mostly have made remakes of popular 90's games with more modern hardware (Medieval Madness, Attack From Mars, Monster Bash, Cactus Canyon).
- Multimorphic (multimorphic.com) - Advanced pinball system, designed to allow changing of games in the cabinet (ie partial playfield swaps). Large screen built into playfield, ball tracking, etc. Games have been mostly original themes.
Typically each manufacturer will release a given title, at typically 2-3 "trim" levels (ie, Stern calls these Pro / Premium / LE, Jersey Jack has called them Standard Edition, Limited Edition, Collectors Edition). Price and features go up with the trim level.
Ah, I was recently shocked to see that a local arcade had a Mandalorian pinball machine. I couldn't believe something that new was being pinballified. It sits across from the old Simpsons arcade brawler that kids can't get enough of.
Chicago Gaming just announced a non-remake, Pulp Fiction. The designer and programmer are veterans from the Williams days (Mark Ritchie and George Petro)
Long since mattering, but you could move them like this if you started it, rev'd it beyond 4k RPM, and then shut the motor off prior to it dropping below 4k. Basically, the idea was the rotors would force the fuel / oil mixture out of the crankcase and keep the spark plugs from fouling.
I loved my RX-8, but it was a pain in the rear. Switched to a WRX and got 50% better gas mileage, more power, more torque, and way more room. This of course bypassed the need to check / refill the oil every other fill up (aka, every 300-ish miles) all while trying desperately not to burn your hand.
The 3B+ has ethernet (and it's gigabit - at least gig sync - ~250Mb/s max actual transfer due to USB2.) The new one (3A+) does not have ethernet but is still capable of USB booting.
I've been fiddling with this idea for a while and have basically come to the conclusion direct VGA capture isn't worth the trouble. There are VGA to HDMI converters available for about $20-$30 that do the job surprisingly well. There used to be a number of VGA -> digital chips available (TI TVP7002, etc) but they've all been EOL'd or NRND (Not recommended for new designs.)
For HDMI/DVI capture at this scale, the best option seems to be an FPGA based system. There are several boards available that have the necessary hardware but are expensive (relative to a 1-port IP-KVM), power hungry, or large (or all of the above.) The Digilent Zybo may have enough to pull it off (and has the ARM cores to boot) but is still a bit on the pricey / power hungry side. I'm hoping the new Snickerdoodle Zynq based boards will be able to do the job (with an add-on board)
Regarding using the Pi2, it might work, especially if it can be fed via the camera interface. The lack of USB-OTG (linux gadget support for KB / Mouse / Mass Storage) limits the usefulness somewhat.
I've been hopeful about the Beaglebone Black / X15 due to the USB-OTG and the tons of extra IO.
The other board of interest is the Dragonboard 410C - it can supposedly capture at 1080p60 (more than enough for the average system you'll stick a KVM on) but I'm not sure what that means explicitly (yet.) It does have USB-OTG (though it can't do USB Host / Device simultaneously.)
Regarding emulating a USB device, first thing that comes to mind is possibly using a micro of some sort that can act as a usb device, like an arduino or teensy. it's a bit hackish, but sending things over SPI should get more than ample speed for keyboard/mouse emulation, and there's code written already for a lot of micro platforms to do both.
Well, seems they might make margin on accessory and postage etc, however, the math seems pretty clear -- they /can't/ sell it at $9 and break even, so there has to be a trick...
Personally, I'd rather give my money to guys like Olimex anyway -- a notch more expensive, however these guys are /spotless/ at making everything as open as they can, and in fact, they probably 'suffer' for it as many companies seem to use their (open) designs commercially...
The article isn't really covering the modern pinball scene. While Stern is definitely the major manufacturer in play, Jersey Jack is growing and there are several more boutique manufacturers including:
Multimorphic - Offers the P3 pinball system integrating a full LCD panel with motion tracking into the playfield (as opposed to the backbox like JJ.) They also offer the P-ROC which allows replacing the CPU (a 6809/ASIC combo!) with a Spartan3 system allowing you to reprogram the rules on most 90's+ games.
Spooky Pinball - Ben Heck designed the America's Most Haunted machine, an "unlicensed" theme that is quite fun to play. I believe the first run was for 150 machines, with the next title to be announced in the near future.
Heighway Pinball - Manufacturer out of England with one title in production (Full Throttle, a motorbike theme) and are working on a licensed Alien themed pin.
There are a couple others including current and former game designers working on their own or with one of the manufacturers. This also says nothing of the pinball modding community, custom one-off games, etc.
EDIT: Completely forgot Planetary Pinball who is remaking late 90's pinball machines with modern electronics. First machine is Medieval Madness and is shipping now.
Planetary's Medieval Madness remake does indeed use a BBB as a core CPU, connected to a driver board. I don't know exactly what it emulates, if it's emulating the original CPU or it's new code (I presume some emulation layer).
It's definitely an emulation layer. The original game was written in 6809 assembly language along with talking to custom hardware, some of it in an ASIC as well as an Analog Devices DSP for sound playback.
There's a branch of MAME called PinMAME that emulates this hardware, and that's what Planetary showed in their demonstrations.
For just video (or w/ separate keyboard/mouse), the Genki Shadowcast devices work really well.