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Bally / Stern SS's get into the 21st Century - Introducing "ColourClassic" Score Displays

AlanJ

AlanJ

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Been working away on this project for the past few weeks.

I had a silly idea a while back about bringing full colour score displays to Bally (and Stern) Classic Solid State Games.

I wanted them to be plug and play - i.e. Simply remove your old score displays and slot in these new ones.

A nice range of font and colour options.

Ability to add your own "fonts".

Splash screen - again user selectable / can create your own.

Here is a Fathom Splash screen - very raw example, just from a photo off the cab side art:
IMG_2392.JPEG

here are sample fonts:

Nixie Tube:
IMG_2393.JPEG

Neon Colour:
IMG_2394.JPEG

7 seg white
IMG_2395.JPEG

flip digit
IMG_2396.JPEG

yellow / blue dots
IMG_2397.JPEG


IMG_2398.JPEGIMG_2399.JPEG

LEGO
IMG_2400.JPEG

IMG_2401.JPEG

IMG_2402.JPEG

IMG_2403.JPEG

IMG_2404.JPEG

IMG_2405.JPEG

IMG_2406.JPEG

Nixie 2
IMG_2407.JPEG

IMG_2408.JPEG

IMG_2409.JPEG

IMG_2410.JPEG

3D
IMG_2411.JPEG

IMG_2413.JPEG

Here is a youtube video of the display in demo mode:

Early days yet,
 
Great idea, will they be able to support the elusive comma's somehow?
 
astyy said:
Great idea, will they be able to support the elusive comma's somehow?
Click to expand...
Hi, Yes - two ways to do this, first way is a hardware solution, using a led between the displays and masking it out with a comma shape - rgb led so the colour can match the "font" being used. Downside is it probably will look crap with certain "fonts"
Second Way is to add the comma to the images - would need then 2 images for each number ie "1" and "1," , "2" and "2," etc. I like this approach, but quite a few of the "fonts" ive got already dont really lend themselves to having a comma - but haing said that, can probably get them re-done, or create new versions.
 
AlanJ said:
if you have an example ?
Click to expand...
These are vintage sci-fi:

Retro Sci-Fi Fonts | FontSpace

Looking for Retro Sci-Fi fonts? ✓ Click to find the best 111 free fonts in the Retro Sci-Fi style. Every font is free to download!
www.fontspace.com www.fontspace.com

And these are modern sci-fi:

design.tutsplus.com

31 Best Sci-Fi Fonts (Science and Retro Styles) | Envato Tuts+

If you need high-quality scifi fonts, check out this list of the 31 best scifi fonts you can find at Envato Elements!
design.tutsplus.com design.tutsplus.com

I was looking for something retro for a Flash Gordon, but I can see someone with a futuristic SS pin wanting something like the latter ones. Don’t know how they look with numbers tho’.
 
as a lover of colordmd, if you described them to me I'd be excited but seeing them, not convinced.
 
AlanJ said:
Hi, Yes - two ways to do this, first way is a hardware solution, using a led between the displays and masking it out with a comma shape - rgb led so the colour can match the "font" being used. Downside is it probably will look crap with certain "fonts"
Second Way is to add the comma to the images - would need then 2 images for each number ie "1" and "1," , "2" and "2," etc. I like this approach, but quite a few of the "fonts" ive got already dont really lend themselves to having a comma - but haing said that, can probably get them re-done, or create new versions.
Click to expand...

Just a heads up on this, that Europeans prefer to use . as a separator (eg, where we would write 123,456.78 Europeans prefer 123.456,78)

If possible it would be best practice to try and put a small whitespace between digit groups, though that might be difficult with the displays you're using I suppose. Might be easiest to just not worry about grouping
 
Wizcat said:
Just a heads up on this, that Europeans prefer to use . as a separator (eg, where we would write 123,456.78 Europeans prefer 123.456,78)

If possible it would be best practice to try and put a small whitespace between digit groups, though that might be difficult with the displays you're using I suppose. Might be easiest to just not worry about grouping
Click to expand...
I could if I cold get a single display - however I haven't yet found a single display that is the correct dimensions, hence the decision to use a separate display per digit. It's a real shame I can't use old mobile phone displays as many of those are the right dimension - but the issue is they are all undocumented and almost impossible to interface to (i'm still looking at this as an option).
 
In Switzerland we always write numbers as 123'456.78 -- I think "Europeans" is far from a uniform concept!
 
They look awesome mate! Really clever 90 degree board join there too (I love that stuff) 👏 Be great to get that SD module lying flat.

Let me know if you need any help with the web config side of things for that ESP32
 
stumblor said:
They look awesome mate! Really clever 90 degree board join there too (I love that stuff) 👏 Be great to get that SD module lying flat.

Let me know if you need any help with the web config side of things for that ESP32
Click to expand...
Cheers. Yes, the SD card board - I wanted it flat, but then it's either facing the wrong way or upside down because of the way the pins are pre-soldered, , so went vertical. :-)

ESp32s: Ive been using IOTWebconf library to get web connection and to serve up simple web pages. I should really look for a newer better library, especially for the web server / web pages side of things.

Lots more to do in this project:
1. Get it reading and displaying the scores from the game
2. Add in web stuff , so a user can connect to the device and configure what type of display they want
3. get the 5 displays all talking to each other, so whenever you config the main display, the other 4 are synchronised with the same settings.

plenty to keep me out of trouble for a while.
 
Check out ESPAsyncWebServer, it seems to be the defacto standard. Lots a features around chunking large responses, gzipping etc.

I run a tiny nodejs server so I can debug the web app locally, but then compile everything down into a big PROGMEM array when it get served from the board (checkout the WLED project for an example of how to do this). Doing it this way means you can separate everything like a true web app, and also have some fairly chunky libraries to help out client side also (like jquery, bootstrap etc).
 
Loving this project. I particularly like the idea of supporting the original font (with comma!) as plug'n'play replacements that can be switched to different colours (without having to buy a fixed colour).

With regards the graphics, I was wondering if they could support basic "DMD" animations, for example a Gold Ball rolling across each display in turn.

Saying that, I pretty much have a life time supply of plasma spares, so don't base your business plan on my custom :rofl:
 
stumblor said:
Check out ESPAsyncWebServer, it seems to be the defacto standard. Lots a features around chunking large responses, gzipping etc.

I run a tiny nodejs server so I can debug the web app locally, but then compile everything down into a big PROGMEM array when it get served from the board (checkout the WLED project for an example of how to do this). Doing it this way means you can separate everything like a true web app, and also have some fairly chunky libraries to help out client side also (like jquery, bootstrap etc).
Click to expand...
cheers will do. i had a look at wled a while ago but it wouldn’t compile up under arduino ide, which is what i use. not ready yet to jump to platformio!
 
astyy said:
Loving this project. I particularly like the idea of supporting the original font (with comma!) as plug'n'play replacements that can be switched to different colours (without having to buy a fixed colour).

With regards the graphics, I was wondering if they could support basic "DMD" animations, for example a Gold Ball rolling across each display in turn.

Saying that, I pretty much have a life time supply of plasma spares, so don't base your business plan on my custom :rofl:
Click to expand...
yes great idea. i can do a variety of animations and it’s pretty fast.

i’d really like to have one large display, but the only hardware currently available that is the correct size is almost impossible to drive via an esp32s processor. you can drive them via a raspberry pi but that is too expensive to use one of those per display.

i’m hoping new hardware availability will allow me to go single big screen in future

i
 
AlanJ said:
cheers will do. i had a look at wled a while ago but it wouldn’t compile up under arduino ide, which is what i use. not ready yet to jump to platformio!
Click to expand...
You can compile & upload WLED from the cmdline using pio run -t upload then use any editor of your choice (except emacs of course :p)
 
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