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Episode 434 - Audio Issues, Robo-Frenzy Wiring, Contest Reminder, 1952 Gottlieb Quartette

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·23m 13s·analyzed·Nov 8, 2018
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.020

TL;DR

EM podcast host discusses Chromebook audio issues and RoboFrenzy wiring progress.

Summary

Nicholas Backbone discusses recent audio quality issues caused by switching to a Chromebook for development work, explains the technical challenges with audio recording in the new setup, and provides updates on his RoboFrenzy restoration project including wiring the timer unit and prototyping the backlit animation system. The episode also covers a contest reminder and features a detailed breakdown of the 1952 Gottlieb Quartet trap-hole game.

Key Claims

  • Nicholas Backbone switched from a Linux computer to a Chromebook as his primary development machine and finished multis code on it

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone, directly stated in opening technical discussion about his equipment change

  • Google's Crostini update removed audio hardware access in Linux containers on Chromebooks, breaking podcast recording capability

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone explaining the technical failure of the Crostini implementation for his use case

  • RoboFrenzy's octopus tentacles are controlled by tripbanks that trip relays to light segments via a backlit back glass

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone detailing the RoboFrenzy wiring and animation system

  • The 1952 Gottlieb Quartet has four trap holes arranged vertically near the top center of the playfield

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone describing Quartet's trap-hole mechanism and layout

  • Quartet's bonus unit advances one position for each ball trapped in the four trap holes

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone explaining Quartet's bonus mechanism

  • Nicholas Backbone is using cardboard to prototype the RoboFrenzy backlit back glass area for quick iteration

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone describing his prototyping approach after custom pinball community recommendation

  • RoboFrenzy currently has approximately 90 bulbs in the backlit animation system with plans to add more

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone stating bulb count during wiring discussion

  • Nicholas Backbone commissioned Ryan Claytor to create bingo row artwork prints for the York show with extras available

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone announcing contest reminder about commissioning and available prints

Notable Quotes

  • “I had a computer bite the dust, the main one that I use for recording over the past few years and replaced it with a Chromebook.”

    Nicholas Backbone @ early in episode — Explains the root cause of audio quality degradation noted by listeners

  • “the downside is that there is no longer access to the audio hardware whatsoever and there is no access to 2d or 3d acceleration”

    Nicholas Backbone @ during technical explanation — Identifies the specific Crostini limitation that broke his podcast workflow

  • “I reached out to the custom pinball community and somebody responded and said, well, yeah, just use cardboard. And cardboard I thought was ingenious”

    Nicholas Backbone @ during RoboFrenzy discussion — Demonstrates collaborative problem-solving within the custom pinball community

  • “I feel like a bingo player has a bit of an advantage on these trap hole games where nudging the game into or out of a particular hole is part of the skill set”

    Nicholas Backbone @ during Quartet game discussion — Reflects his expertise in EM games and how bingo player skills transfer to trap-hole games

  • “you are mostly fighting yourself because there's so many different ways to win that you need to be paying attention in order to succeed”

    Nicholas Backbone @ during Quartet analysis — Captures the strategic depth and complexity of 1950s Gottlieb games

Entities

Nicholas BackbonepersonRyan ClaytorpersonRoboFrenzygameQuartetgameFor Amusement OnlyorganizationGottliebcompanyGooglecompanyChromebookproduct

Signals

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Nicholas Backbone providing detailed updates on RoboFrenzy's timer unit wiring, tripbank configuration for tentacle animation, and backlit lamp circuit prototyping using cardboard mock-ups

    high · Multiple sections describing desoldering switches, wiring timer unit to trip relays, prototyping backlit back glass with ~90 bulbs

  • ?

    design_innovation: Use of cardboard as a rapid prototyping material for backlit animation systems in EM restoration, recommended by custom pinball community

    high · Nicholas Backbone's discussion of switching from foam core to cardboard for lamp socket mounting and wiring flexibility

  • ?

    community_signal: Custom pinball community actively providing technical solutions to restoration challenges

    high · Nicholas Backbone stating 'I reached out to the custom pinball community and somebody responded and said, well, yeah, just use cardboard'

  • ?

    content_signal: Audio quality degradation in recent episodes due to equipment transition, now resolved with return to previous development computer

    high · Host directly addressing audio quality drop in opening and explaining root cause and solution

  • ?

    historical_signal: Detailed analysis of 1952 Gottlieb Quartet's trap-hole mechanics, scoring systems, and design reflecting EM-era game philosophy

    high · Comprehensive game breakdown including trap holes, bonus mechanics, rollover systems, and playfield design

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.070

0:00
What's that sound? It's 4 Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to 4 Amusement Only. This is Nick Baldridge. If you've been listening for the past couple of episodes, you may have noticed a dramatic drop in the audio quality compared to the recording tonight. And just thought I'd give you a little heads up on What's going on behind the scenes here? I had a computer, Bite the Dust, the main one that I use for recording over the past few years and replaced it with a Chromebook. And you might say, why would you replace it with a Chromebook if you're a computer person? But honestly, I've switched primary development over to the Chromebook. I finished up the multis code on the Chromebook. It's an extremely comfortable and versatile computer to use for that. Unfortunately, the thing that it lacks is audio recording capabilities that are consistent as they are in Linux. So for those of a technical mind or a technical bent here, let me just fill you in on some stuff. One of the cool things about the Chromebook is that you can run full Linux inside a small
1:26
cheroot environment and in that way I was running Audacity and OBS, the streaming software that I use and a few other things as well as programming the multi so really I had this one machine that was doing everything. Well, Google came out with an update which I've been looking forward to called crostini and crostini's big promise was that Linux apps would get top level billing, meaning the Chromebook applications would be able to exchange data with and handle dealing with pass through of audio and so forth. The system used to get extremely confused if you had multiple audio sources like a Linux application and then a top-level Google application that were both trying to use the audio hardware. So because I kind of had to rig stuff to make it work, you know, with everything that I wanted it to do, I thought this would be an excellent thing. So I switched over to that, you know, just to see how it worked and it works beautifully and I really, really, really like it from a development standpoint. It makes life extremely easy. Your Linux applications run in a container and you can blow that container away or keep it and you can exchange files between the two very easily although you could do that with the previous setup. But as with most things there's a downside the downside is that there is no longer access to the audio hardware whatsoever and There is no access to 2d or 3d acceleration so depending on the applications that you're using and what you're trying to do this can pose a problem so for example if I am attempting to record a podcast I am out of luck so thankfully the Chromebook, you know universe Knapp Arcade, Apple distill The the android and the android offerings are not necessarily fantastic so com now it's kinda stuck with browser based and keeping in mind that i need something that can edit as well so what i ended up doing uh... was using the software this web-based software called uh... sound trap and it's a multi track audio recording software that can be used by Knapp Arcade is a podcast that is available for download by multiple people at once. Its primary purpose is education, but you can record things like podcasts on it as well. So, tried that out. The super unfortunate thing is that there is no editing capability whatsoever, and there is typically a long wait between when you finish recording and the system makes it available to download, which then I could import into an editor. Um, the difficult thing is if I was doing it on the one computer to the Chromebook there, then I wouldn't be able to hear anything as I was editing it. So I'm kind of back to the original problem. Uh, and that's, that's why things have sounded kind of rough over the past couple episodes, But going forward, I fixed up a different computer and this is my previous development computer and that also ran into problems where it wouldn't boot. But I just took a minute and fixed that up because I knew I needed to record tonight and I wasn't really thrilled about having to make that sacrifice again of audio quality. I appreciate everybody who listens to the show and you know I wanted to make it at least listenable for you if nothing else So all that said, let's move on to some non-solid state tech here and talk about RoboFrenzy. So since I got back from New York, I've been working on RoboFrenzy, just kind of chipping away at it, Doing things like desoldering all the switches that were on the tripbanks that I just installed into the RoboFrenzy cab. These tripbanks will control the octopus tentacle positions. So each tentacle on each side of the octopus is going to move via these tripbanks. So it'll trip any of four different relays in order to make the appropriate segments light for the octopus. Keepingping in mind that the game is backlit animated, so all the action is happening on the back glass through light bulbs. So I took that and started wiring and wired up the timer unit. Now the timer unit previously was going to handle doing those animations. So it was going to actually pass through the lamp feeds for each of the lamps. But I quickly realized that there just weren't enough rivets in order to do what I wanted to do. Even with 40 positions, there just wasn't enough. So what I ended up doing was wiring up that timer unit to trip those individual trip relays and the final one that trips will allow a motor switch to cause that bank to reset. One thing which is still unclear is whether or not there is enough time for that bank to reset after the motor makes a particular rotation because Timing is critical. As the timer unit steps, the score Motor is running. And as the motor turns, it's going to continue to step up the timer. And each step of the timer unit is going to cause those tentacles to move. So what I may have to do is reconfigure that timer unit so that there is a dead rivet in between the two. The last trip and the first trip of the next bank, if that makes sense. I'm unsure if it will take that long because resetting a trip bank happens fairly quickly and we'll just have to see. But I'm pretty excited about that. ού
?

technology_signal: Google's Crostini update inadvertently removed audio hardware pass-through to Linux containers, breaking podcast recording workflow

high · Technical explanation of how Crostini's promised improvements actually eliminated audio access needed for recording

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Bingo player skills (nudging into/out of holes) provide advantage on trap-hole games like Quartet

    medium · Nicholas Backbone's observation about bingo players' advantage based on single play session at show

    • 9:14
    ministration.com I alone contractor so cost over and so on The trip banks that are handling the tentacle animations are wired up for coil voltage, but I haven't yet wired up the lamps. And that's where lamps come in. Now, as I mentioned, because the game uses backlit animation in order to handle everything that's going on that's visible to the player, I needed to, first of all, run a bunch of wire up to the back glass area, but secondly, I had to have I'm a way to prototype that back glass area in a way that would allow me to make changes very quickly if I screw something up, which I undoubtedly will. So I reached out to the custom pinball community because I was thinking, you know, I would just route out a little board and it didn't have to be perfect and I could just label it, you know, this is tentacle one, position one or whatever. I realized that that would probably be less helpful than being able to see the basic construct, you know, when I'm looking at it. So I thought of foam core and the problem with foam core is that you make a giant mess when you're cutting into that, especially dependent upon the thickness of the foam core. So it's also pretty fragile and you can break it. It's just generally kind of hard to work with as far as doing something like this. So I reached out to the custom pinball community and said, hey, this is what I'm doing, and I'm wondering if there's an easier way to do it. And somebody responded and said, well, yeah, just use cardboard. And cardboard I thought was ingenious because you can very quickly mock it up You know you just need a sharp knife but a relatively small one and uh then you can stab screws through it to hold the sockets in place uh... you can solder directly on it uh... it really uh... is a good material for this type of prototyping so uh... what i've done is i have made a mock-up of the cardboard and i am I'm now mounting the lamp sockets and wiring them with lamp commons and the next thing that I'll do is wire in the actual activation wires for each lamp. So some of those are fed from the player unit, for example the player up lights as well as the game over light which is fed from the tilt relay and the positional relays for the tentacle The and finally uh... there's a little bit of G.I. that I've put in here so uh... all that's gonna be run from the same transformer I do have two transformers that are generating uh... six volts though so I could actually split the load if I need to uh... that's kinda the handy thing about having two transformers in there I have approximately I'm 90 some bulbs at the moment and I think I'll be adding some more so
    13:05
    There's quite a quite a bit That needs to be wired in But it's looking pretty cool, and I'm excited about it I am hopeful I was hopeful last weekend that I would get it to a state where I could plug it in and just see What it does? You know just watch it catch on fire basically, but unfortunately I didn't get quite that far Don't forget to keep huge Just waiting for a few more entries before I start shipping out the beautiful prints. These prints are the bingo row artwork that I commissioned Ryan Claytor to do for me for the York show and I happen to have some extra ones, so I thought if anybody could send me
    14:12
    photos of their five and aligns that were done recently, I'll be happy to mail you and he passes policemen at the end of the playbelievably live show. So I'm checking that on to Daddy Tatively, addict and single upcychpacce, documentary nonsense. 않아요ta BTS, unconscious Мне, Mainst eater, N constants on the pavement on here.
    14:39
    So, it is a massive history and some knowledge Today's game is 1952's Quartet by Gottlieb. Quartet is one of Gottlieb's trap hole games from the 1950s where your primary goal is to trap one or more balls and enable playfield features elsewhere. So in Quartet's case, there are four trap holes which are arranged right in the center of the playfield up near the top and each trap hole will light a course of light. The Pinball Podcast is a production of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders, There, as with most games of this era, are three different goals with which you can achieve replays. So there is that trap hole mechanism. There is score, and based on various score thresholds you can achieve replays. And then Points. Now, when the pop bumpers are lit, they start awarding points and values starting typically at about 31 points. a the you are replayed uh... so that would be thirty-one pop-up the hits uh... pretty tough thing to do also a raid on the signs of the play field there are angled switches which are behind progress they're kind of stuff behind sections which are reminiscent of slings let's say slingshots Where there might be two switches behind one plastic. They're more vertically oriented than slingshots. But the same idea is present. You hit those and you bounce away. They're not coil activated. There's nothing behind them that's going to shoot your ball away. It's just a way to differentiate the top and the bottom so that you know if you're hitting the number that you're attempting to hit. So, these things which are arrayed on the sides are numbers and they're one through eight. That a sequence that you can complete and when you complete the sequence it will also light the special rollover down at the bottom center Now if you manage to trap all four This session is presented by Tamente and is paying for le Haven Sports website arriba abra Honor Content from checkout crib The development of When Extra Special is lit, it awards five replays.
    17:44
    The other thing which is interesting about this game is that it has a bonus down at the bottom and for each hole that is filled with the ball in the trap holes, it will move that bonus unit one position until you max it out, and then it will award you the final step automatically. There are also two rollover buttons, each of which is worth 50,000 in score when it's lit. In order to light it, you have to drain either on the left or right hand side. Now, the reason I didn't say in the outlanes is because this game doesn't have any outlanes. It's got three drains, basically. A center drain, which is that special rollover, and then a left and right drain, which are the left and right lık Predît oy și The Pinball Podcast is a production of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders, I'm quite fun. So, one other note about the point system. There are four rollovers, white, red, green, and yellow, which are also enabled when you trap a ball in the corresponding colored trap hole. And those rollovers award you one point every time you roll over them. They are arranged near the trap holes up at the top. Now, I've only played this game one time at the Orc Show last year, I believe, 2017, and I really, really enjoyed it. I feel like a bingo player has a bit of an advantage on these trap hole games where nudging the game into or out of a particular hole is part of the skill set that you have to develop for the bingos. And so, the difference being that you can kinda flip flail your way into a pretty decent game on Quartet just by the virtue of all the trapples being arrayed vertically. But as with most games of this era, you are mostly fighting yourself because there's so many different ways to win that you need to be paying attention The one or more in order to succeed uh... very fun game uh... really enjoyed it and i certainly hope to play one again the artwork is of a stage show uh... and there are dancers four of them on the playfield two up close and two far away on the back glass the same line dancers are there and uh... then there's a barbershop quartet in the foreground the score is arrayed around the dancers and millions are to the upper left Score is also displayed in small quarter notes at the bottom very cool design i like the uh... the fact that the musical staff kinda rotates around the points As with most cabinets of this era, the design, the stencil, is very busy. There's a blue base coat and the head is striped like a barber's pole. The body has alternating a white stripe with a blue stripe in the center, I should say, and then five squares, each with a circle inside and covering a larger circle. The Pinball Podcast is a production of the Center for Cinematography and the Center for Cinematography and the Center for Cinematography. Thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time.