talk about I think we're we're starting the podcast giggling about facial hair.
Dude, that's the way to go. That's how we do it around here. Hello everybody. Uh welcome to a surprise uh Thursday episode of the Dirty Pool podcast. Um I have a I have a bit to talk about which I'm sure many of you will know. Uh this week I'm doing kind of a homebrew themed week. Uh, I'm also going to open chat and see if that crashes everything. Um, this week I have been working on a project that I just put a YouTube up and uh, it's a video about homebrew and it's a video about the channel has grown a lot in the last year. And as a thank you to everybody, I have put together a large collection of sound effects for people to use in their pinball machines, homebrew, virtual, real, whatever, for free. Uh, and I've teamed up with Emoto over at Marco to help kind of launch this. There is a splash page set up for it. Uh, stream having issues on Twitch and YouTube. Yeah, that's probably because I launched uh the chat. Anyways, we just got to roll with it.
So, if you have uh a homebrew machine and you want some sound effects, I urge you to go check it out, send it around, tell your friends, all that good stuff.
Now, to continue our talk about homebrew, I have probably the most important person in the development of Homebrew. Don't shake your head like that, Aaron. The platform that many, many homebrew systems use, many companies use, including Pinball Brothers,
Barrels of Fun,
and some others maybe.
Maybe.
Yeah. Pretty gaming.
Pretty.
So, the the ill- fated Haggus pinball endeavor. Um, yeah.
But yeah, I think that I think that's all of them. There's some other ones cooking out there that aspire to be pinball companies someday. So,
which is good. More pinball. Good. Uh, so without further ado, I have with me Aaron Davis from Fast Pinball.
Fast pinball.
Hello.
Howdy.
Hello.
How's it going, man?
It's good. It's good. We've been talking about facial hair and uh and
we're getting to know each other in real time here right now. Like, this is uh this is this is super fun. Thank you so much for having me on here. Like,
thank you for taking the time.
Taking the time.
I have I literally turned a camera and mic on while I'm noodling around here in the workshop. So, it's it wasn't a huge stretch. So, I love this.
It works. It works. So, I have a bazillion questions for you.
Let's do it.
Fast pinball. It's not like you woke up one day and you were like, "Man, I love pinball and I need to make a platform for every single company and individual that is making homebrew systems to have." This fast pinball must have come from a problem that you were trying to solve.
What was that problem?
You know, I man, this is an awesome question right out of the gate. I think I think it was kind of like the uh let's say it was a perfect intersection between like you know I've been running a software company for a really long time. I got a bunch of kids at home. I need a new mental stimulus and I want to make some new friends and all that stuff twisted together into um the chance for uh Dave Beecher, my partner who we started Fast together with. We're We're involved in the local Northwest Pinball Arcade collector community. And so I think all of that coinciding with the maker movement was kind of like you know what like I I want to build and make something you know and I think that um you know pinball is uh it's like a STEM class in a box. It's like every discipline you can apply to building and making something. And uh I think that for me in my software career like I'm a platform builder. You know I build things to let people build things on. And so when we looked at like what we're gonna do in the pinball space, it was like first off it was I wanna I want to build pinball. And just like everything else I do, it ends up turning into like how can we turn this into something that everybody can use. And instead of building a pinball machine, you know, Dave and I built a pinball platform to build pinball machines on. And Dave's Dave's background is incredible. It's like he's he's one of those uh brilliant engineers who in my life has been rare where he's one of the engineers that wants you to know everything that he knows. So the idea that you have the spark of interest in something like wants you to you know take that interest and take it as far as you can go. So for someone like wanting to kind of do like a uh midlife crisis renaissance kind of thing it was like man how can I learn something new and fast pinball is a conduit for that for electronics and all sorts of stuff. I found and tell me tell me if tell me if I'm wrong here but I found that the engineers and the programmers are are creative in the pinball space whereas a lot of engineers and software programmers in other spaces are just like only technically minded and I I think that there's a hybrid of that world in in pinball
pinball. Yeah, I I agree with you. I mean, I think that like um you I was reading an article last night talking about like the idea of of programming as a creative work. And I think it's a a creative solution that comes in a way that you're going to find inspiration in other places in the same way we might have seen like a painting hung on the wall someplace and went home with a vision of something what we wanted to do. Um I mean when we were all learning to write code, it was we found some cool script on some website or you know and picked that up, tried it out and it sparked a new idea and we made something new. I think in pinball what is really interesting is it's like it's it's a box. You know, there's very specific requirements that say, you know, if you go too far from this, it isn't pinball anymore. So now you can say, okay, I need to, you know, and from I I guess I'd also say from a programming standpoint, like, you know, there's a lot, this is not to diminish like the amount of work it takes to program a pinball machine, but conceptually the complexity of what you're programming is not the, you know, you're not making these gigantic complicated, you know, web app software distribution systems.
I mean, they're they're logic gates to a certain degree. Switch goes off.
You're stringing a bunch of things together. Yeah. You're choreog choreographing a bunch of things into an experience, right? And And so I think from a programming standpoint, it is something that says like, okay, I want to do just this. You know, I want to box out this world. I want to bring it to life. But I'd say even on top of that too, what is really fascinating is that um you get a bunch of people together that have a lot of very specific skills and you get to know somebody building pinball and you realize like, hey, I'm very good at, I don't know, in your case, audio, right? So with your new audio package that you've put out for all the homebrew guys, you've said, hey, I've seen all these great projects. What can I do to make that better? That's where a lot of the pinball community or the homebrew pinball community especially is like looks at going hey what you're working on over there I would love to jump out of the problem I'm working on and hop in and help you and then get back out of it. So I've been able to help I've inspired but also made your project better creatively like that's that's a big part of it is like actually learning the ways that you can solve problems in a fun like distinct way
creative way. Yeah. So but that's what fascinates me about the homebrew world. Uh not saying that I guess there's a little bit of echo. I don't know if you can turn my my voice coming out on your end down a touch
turn down a little bit there.
Uh but what I want to say is like that's what I love about homebrew is that there's no fear, right? They don't need to worry about licensers being happy. They don't need to worry about hitting margins for sales. It's like it's literally like what weird wacky creative ideas, what IP do I just love that I want to make happen? And uh and they do it. And I think that's that's the innovation that pinball just needs right now in general. without those creative ideas, it doesn't push the platform at all. Um,
well, and I think that's also the impetus for a lot of people making homebrew pinball is they they've stood over all these pinball machines and they think like this is the thing I've never seen in pinball before or this is a mech I want to make or I've never seen a mode that does this, you know. And I think that that's the part that um I think that I'm very proud of for what fast does is, you know, we're always trying to get you to the fun part, the part that drew you to making pinball as quickly as possible, right? So, nobody comes into it and goes, "I want to build a rock solid, stable hardware system that's going to pass all the FCC UL testing required to make a commercial game." No, they're going, "I want to make like I I use the uh the example of Steve Condr's uh Led Zeppelin game that he made. He made a literal stairway to heaven in that game." And that was the mech that drove him into like building that game. And so, I think a lot of us get that idea and go, you know, I got a 3D printer over here and I'm I'm decent at writing some code. I can see stringing that stuff together. Um then it's what's all the other stuff you need to do and that's where like you know our platform plus like the mission pinball framework and other things are getting you to actually bringing your idea to life like much more quickly. It and it seems like designers in general a lot of the idea for the pinball machine comes from some impressive mech that then just expands itself kind of like a virus into a complete pinball machine.
Absolutely. just and when I was interviewing people at Stern, you know, also with Carl, you know, we're talking about the moving platter on on Winchester, you know, this was obviously in Gillings Island as a much smaller concept, but you know, when he talks about the game design, it's just it started with this cool mech and then all of a sudden the game evolved out of that and uh that sounds very similar to you. So, let's let's wind it back. You know, what talk me through what like the early days of Fast I like you have all this [ __ ] behind you now. Clearly Fast has grown to this like very large platform that it is now. But like what what did like the first week of Fast Pinball look like where you're sitting there, you know, soldering like generation one of the fast pinball board being like, "Who the [ __ ] going to put this in a game?" Yeah. You know what was funny? I I think that you ask my wife about the early days of fast pinball and her recollection is waking up in the middle of the night and hearing me and Dave out on on a Google Meet like video call giggling about some fun thing we're working on, you know? So, a lot of that really came out of like, you know, I, like I said, from the platform side of things, like, you know, it was a very fun project for me to be like, I want our boards to look good. You know, I want these boards to, you know, if you if if something looks good, you're less likely to wonder, is it designed well? And I know that's like, you know, to any engineer, they're out there cringing and rolling their eyes, but, you know, brains do like that,
right? But I would say that like the chance for me to get to work with Dave and dream up some wacky idea that I think made sense and then have it actually come to life and then actually be able to hold it. Um, I mean, there was one time we were over at Dave's house and um and and Tara, his wife, was like, "I think that you um or she she had captured like us out in a moment like with the photos and stuff where we were basically like plugging in fast hardware for the first time, like running some software through it and making some things move, you know?" And it's like I'm a proud father of three awesome kids. And that was on par with the birth of a child when it was like seeing, oh my god, the [ __ ] we did actually works. And And again, like I think that for me again, all of the electronics, everything we do was all brand new to me. So everything I've ever done in my life and learned has been out of like here's a cool problem to solve. I'm not a big go learn all these skills and then hope you can apply it. It's more of like I need to know how to do this. Yeah.
And so the early days it was like a fire hose of learning new things. And I'd say in the very regular days like you know Dave would design the boards and then write the firmware and then install the firmware and then I would test it out, you know. And then it became he designed the boards and write the firmware and then I would assemble the prototypes. You know, I would borrow his microscope and sit there and put them all together. And then eventually it got to the point to where then I'm building the boards all the time that are coming in. I'm doing the user testing and stuff like that, which is allowing him to do more designs, make new things, you know, do the stuff that you're specifically good at.
So, if you had to hold your hands up and show me like how big generation one of the fast board was versus
It was the same.
Oh, really? Dude, our stuff like actually we had um our controller has evolved into a different format, but all the IO and node boards are the same.
Do for people who don't know, do you have a do you have a fast board that you can hold up here just to show kind of like what the actual
Hold on.
Look, it's a shelf full of stuff. Man, that perspective looks amazing.
Um, again, I want to remind everybody that this is a live interview. If you have any questions that you would like to throw out here, I am monitoring both the YouTube and Twitch chat. Again, Instagram, I don't have an easy way to have that unified. So, if you're throwing questions on Instagram, you're going to have to double whammy it uh on a different platform. Uh Aaron Splicky Lit just says how much he loves the fast platform. It's incredible engineering and the future of pinball hardware. Look at that, man. The feels. So much feels. So many feels.
Okay, so like like this was like our our first controller. This is like the nano controller.
Nice.
And it just did like, you know, 256 RGB LEDs and it was the input to our node boards. So these are our our IO boards.
Can you visually that push it way into the camera?
Okay, let's get way up like that.
Look at that beauty.
Go down there.
So this one here, this is our 3208 board.
This is a 32 direct input switches and eight drivers. And a lot of variations of this. Like this one is overloaded for drivers. This is uh 16 drivers and 16 switches, you know.
Um and then there's another version. I don't have it handy. It's like an 084 which is like eight switches and four drivers. And the the idea was you mix these up on your game to add in all the components you need. So it scales up that way.
One of the one of the notes I have is that how how impressively modular the fast platform is in in general. So I have two questions for you regarding that. You have all these different boards that need to talk to each other, right? And then the end result needs to be an incredible quick user experience.
How do you address latency? Because if we're talking digital platforms, the biggest offender I think is, you know, me press button thing not happen immediately fast. And for high level players like Carl D'Python Anghelo that, you know, that's something that he has mentioned and noticed on on games that were early generations of digital platforms,
right? So the way we address that is like um you know the way the fast forwards happen is like anything that needs to happen that's timing critical that's like you know coils and switches responding to things that all happens in hardware. So, as opposed to going back to the CPU, the CPU saying fire that coil, then going back and telling that where you've got USB in the middle, all that kind of stuff, it's like, you know, these boards have, you know, ARM processors on them. So, when they're configured to this switch to fire this coil, it fires it right away. Then it tells the system it happened.
And so,
is there something specific about the ARM processor that is exceptionally good at quick, you know, code delivery for that or no?
Is there a reason you went with that then instead of [clears throat] Raspberry Pi or something? I would say it's like it's cheap and we have a lot of experience with it and so the idea of like bringing that um into our boards um gives us the ability to
really abstract away the hardware you know so like we we've talking more about we're going to be elaborating on this more this year but it's like we're looking at hardware platform for like 50 years like you know the the hardware that we make now we have full like hardware abstraction so like when you're talking to our boards you're using our fast serial protocol and you're configuring them um you don't know what processors are on here. So, say like, you know, 2 years from now like this ARM processor or this uh this ATM D20 processor that we use is not available. We just buy another one that fits, write the code to it, and you could take this board from 10 years ago and replace it with one 10 years from now, and it's totally different inside, but it's functionally identical.
That's good. So that level of future proofing is nice, especially in a hobby where I don't know if you know, but some people collect pinball machines that are pretty pretty old.
Yeah. And so I think that that's where like, you know, like Dave especially, I mean Dave thinks at the Electron level. How do we make these games feel as great as they can? There's no good enough.
Can we be honest? Is Dave a robot?
Robot.
Dave is incredible. Like in and as as a quick Dave side story, it's like you meet me and you're like, "Oh, he's clearly a sales guy. He can like talk about stuff and he loves all these things." You know,
you dodging my question. Is he a robot? Yes or no?
I
He doesn't drink coffee.
Are you trying to cover for the fact that you know that Dave is a robot and will not say it?
All I can say is like Dave has a room in his house I've never actually been to and I've been to his house dozens of times. Supposedly there's a stage and and I I don't even know what's going on there. But no, Dave's Dave's an incredible human being. Um, and he I can say he's like 99% sure not a robot. So,
he's not a robot. Come on, man.
I mean, you got nervous. This is getting weird. You are working with a real robot and No, Dave's incredible. Dave's Dave's a guy that like, you know, your your house is something's wrong electrically and you're facetiming with him being like, "Which one of these things do I plug in where?"
Sure. It's great to have a friend like that that is like the kind of like the cliffnotes for pretty much any any electrical problem. Uh but I am so fortunate to have so many brilliant friends. Like I mean I I stand on the shoulders of giants in everything that I do and so many of the things I try to take on um somebody will step up and be like dude do do that annoying human stuff you need to do and create the opportunities for us to build cool [ __ ] Let me solve that one thing for you. you know, and that's that's the life I get to live, and that's that's why I feel like this homebrew uh experience has just been
it's been an excuse to meet some of the most brilliant people I've ever met in my life.
Well, so in terms of collaboration, I have to ask. So, you talked about how the modular boards, you know, you added one that has 16 inputs, etc., etc. They're not there had to be a catalyst for that. So, I'm guessing that you receive feedback by the people that use your platform and you're like, "Okay, well, we should create a board that has this functionality or allows this many inputs or this many LED operations." Do you do you end up working kind of like with feedback in terms of designing different modular project products for it or
I mean we we love getting like challenged to bring something else into into pinball. So I think that like a lot of what's in our base platform is the stuff that's in every pinball machine. Even to the point of like you know um RGB LED lighting you know we've been doing that since it was available. Um, and so there's other form factors and other types of LEDs and other ways to control LEDs and stuff. So we're always like, you know, we've got, like I said, that hardware abstraction lets us like write some new firmware to do some new things with some LEDs and stuff like that that wasn't there before. But we also know kind of what that space is like and what flexibility you need to have. You've got, you know, power, data, ground, and sometimes a clock line. And between those, like we give you all the options.
It's not like you're creating these boards with absolutely zero pinball knowledge. like you very much love pinball and have been Can I when what got you into pinball early on?
Um, it was I think that for me it was mostly that uh it was around I mean I was into restoring classic Nintendo arcade games, Donkey Kongs and stuff like that which is very much like my first arcade game like learning to repair that stuff. It's very by numbers
but when the pinball stuff came around it was very like okay this is another cool kind of challenge and like I said it was all right in sync with the maker space or the maker movement. So, you know, you're you're hanging out at these places that have these big CNC machines and laser cutters and you're like, I could build a pinball machine, you know, and at the same time, like, you know, pinball was in my family like uh my dad and uncle owned a tavern up in Seattle when I was a baby. I spent my like first New Year's and Christmas in a basket in the back of a tavern. And it was like the the Royal Flesh game that they had when my uncle retired and moved to Costa Rica, like sent that to my dad and was like, "Here's this pinball machine." And of course my dad looks at it and goes, "Aaron, did [clears throat] you know that all it takes to work on pinball machines is available on the internet? I can go learn how to work on these things." You know, I was like, "Absolutely true." And so, and even even still, I think that like being around all that pinball stuff, um, it really kind of coincided with us starting this fast thing. Um, even to the point that like, you know, um, my dad's one of the guys that makes uh, reproduction ramps for pinball machines. And so, like it was, uh, the question was like, "How can I help support what you guys are doing?" And I said, "I need a ramp guy." And he was like, "I don't want to do that." And then disappeared for a couple months.
What do you mean? The glorious world of making ramps isn't for everyone.
Dude, it's it's now it's like he's got the the His first ramp was like a high-speed ramp. And um now he's one of the people in the world making replacement ramps for pinball machines, you know? And so, uh so I think a lot of that was just kind of around like us learning how to build and make things. And pinball just happened to be a really cool box of stuff to do, you know. And I wanted to like modernize some of it, too.
So, we've had we've had a few questions in chat uh asking about your space and a tour. Uh can I full screen you and can you can you pan that camera around safely to time to take a look at what you got in here or
Yes. Um full disclosure, I just got back from a twoe trip to expo. So, here right now,
it's the real deal, man.
All right, let's do it.
So, uh
here we go. You're going full frame. Let's see if this works.
All right. All right. So, if I go this way, this is the messiest side over here. So, uh I don't even know what we're seeing on the screen there. Get this mic out of the way. Um yeah, it's not helping.
Dude, I love the illuminated playfields over there.
Land over here. Oh, what's that?
Uh so, that's Project Land. Um rotating this way. Let's see if we can further this. This is like
We've lost We've lost your volume.
So, it's probably
Man, look at that lineup of games. Two of those games look extra awesome. Labyrinth and Dune. No, no shame selfie plug. [snorts] All right, going back to going back to full screen and hopefully we can fix your audio. I don't know why it dipped down really low. All right, what's Can you hear me now? Anything there? I don't know what I did to knock this out.
Oh no, I screwed I screwed up my own interview by by trying to get a a [ __ ] tour. Anything there? There we go. Yeah, we're good. We're good. We're good.
So, we had a cord run into some. Okay. So, I don't know what you even heard from that. So, we have the messy side over there. Um, then I'll switch over this direction. This is like all the games that are like live games. So, it's like the the Predator, the Dune, the Labyrinth, and then my buddy Brian moved to Paris and was like, I'm going to put a bunch of games in storage. And I was like, no, you're not. They're going to go in my garage.
So, how how many of those are fast platform games? I know the answer to some of that.
So, the three on the right. So, Predator, do you myself. Super cool. Um, let's see what else we can show here. Um, without making a huge mess. Uh, this is like my workbench area. So, the microscope and all that stuff. Um, it's where I'll end up hand building a bunch of things.
Awesome.
Um, and then, uh, okay, I'm going to go off mic. I'm going to run around the corner. H, that's going to be a pain.
No, let's do it. I'll talk about I'll talk about how awesome Predator is while you're doing that. I loved Predator. I played Predator at Expo. I thought Predator was an absolute blast. Uh Uh
I was standing behind uh uh not Zmac. God, who was it? Andy Bagwell and he was uh setting up bonker scores on it.
Cool. I'm getting It's like the double We're getting the delay effect.
Yeah. Andy Bagwell. Bagwell.
Wow. Look at this. All right. So, we're getting the full the full tour down the line here.
It's a mess,
dude. You know, you and uh uh Dave uh Dave from Stumbler just and what Rob all of you like makers have these just like lanes and aisles of just like infinite parts.
Yeah, we're the echo is gone because we went mobile on the laptop. So now we're transferring back to
uh yield dynamic microphone somewhere here.
All right. All right. Do we have the mic back here? Let's see.
Let's see. I'm going to talk.
Let's see. I'm going to talk.
No, we are still on iPad. [snorts]
All right. What's that here? Does that sound better? Let me go to
There we go.
Yeah, you're good.
Piece of cake.
Good. [snorts]
So, that's amazing. This is your absolute creative space. And uh there's just you have a lot of stuff.
So, that that aisle that we ran down there when I was away from Mike or maybe on Mike, I don't know. It was uh it's basically set up as like three programming bays. And so that's where like when we're programming game or programming boards right now. Um it's the kind of thing that like I was hiring my kids to come program, you know, they'll go put headphones on YouTube and like program boards. But it's also become kind of this fun tradition that I'll I'll throw up on Facebook like, "Hey, anybody super bored and want to come over and help program boards, which is code for like I'm going to order in lunch for us and you can come over and we've got all the the uh bunch of friends like, you know, we're all NDA and stuff like that." So like they come into the shop and like play test the hell out of things for us. And so there is a uh
I wish I live near you,
dude. It's like a regular lunch date. Like it's super fun. And uh so those those bays are set up to be able to just walk in and program boards and stuff. Um and then on the far wall is ready to ship inventory. Um up above us here in these boxes, this is just like, you know, deep inventory. And you were talking about the space management. Like I had to go up because like we ran out of space, you know, so we went vertically. Um and uh and then all the stuff on these racks behind me here. Side note, if anybody has like, you know, builds stuff at home and things like that, the Uline bakers racks are incredible. Like I have a bunch of these like ESD like trays and stuff in there.
But the idea is that like I can take a tray off for like say I'm working on like some new board or some new mech or something like that. I can have it all on a tray, bring it out on the table, work on it, and then when I need that space, just stick it back on the rack.
For those who don't know, I'm guessing ESD is like electrostatic like resistance material. Yeah. I think that a lot of the things we try to do around here are very like small scale but not sloppy, not not a mess, you know. In fact, like I've gotten more involved in the local like manufacturing communities. I go to these different meetups and talks and stuff like that. And um I meet people who are like, "Hey, you know, I'm with so- and so with whatever company, like I'd love to come tour your facility." I'm like, "Hey, man. It's like at my house, like out of the oversized threec car garage." They're like, "Yeah, I know. I've heard about it. I want to see it." Like that's awesome.
This whole this this uh I don't know what you would call it, but this fallacy that you need to have some sort of professional space to do professional work is is silly. Any space is a professional space if you have both the brains and the and the tools to do whatever the job is. So, [ __ ] yeah. I I grow very I like like the idea of increasing overhead. Um, even with my software careers, it's like I was working out of a hallway in a house with a bunch of random people when I started my first company and we it was this huge plunge when we moved into this tiny little 800 foot office space, you know, but that was because we had three other people working with us at the time.
So, the idea of like, you know, fast operates out of my space, Dave's space, and Eli's space down in uh in Olympia, you know, and u you know, we get together as needed and stuff like that, but I mean we're usually on video calls all day long just kind of hanging out, working on things. And the idea of not having to build um and have a long-term overhead expense um kind of takes some of the different pressures off.
Yeah, I'm sure really open like the obvious world that you don't I said co obviously opened the world that you don't need to be in an office space for most jobs and especially if you're running your own business. It's like you're going to you're going to self make sure that you're as productive as you need to be to keep the doors running. Like nothing is more incentive than working for yourself.
Um I have a few questions from chat that I want I want to throw at you. We got we got Colin from Kineticist is here uh living with Albert on YouTube. They're both asking similar questions about what's next for Fast and do you have any interest or are you expanding outside of the world of pinball with the Fast platform?
Okay, so wait, first question is what's next?
What's next for Fast? I mean, they're kind of in the same vein. What's next for Fast and is it potentially expanding outside of pinball? Okay. So, first one, what's what's next right now is and I love like when we do these interview talks at shows. Like one of the times like I Dave was on with me and I interviewed him like he was some random home brewer. We got our new inductive switches which are super fun. But honestly, one of the things that I'm super excited about and I'm sorry I'm looking around for it cuz I don't know where I put it. Um, we're building uh new test fixtures and things. And so these are fixtures that are designed uh you just take a board, throw it in it, clamp it down, and then it it programs the boards, tests the boards, all that kind of stuff. And And finishes that. And so a lot of what we're trying to do right now for our commercial customers primarily is like get to where, you know, there's ways that we can do business that we make the same amount of money, but it saves them a ton of money. And so, so we were finding that, you know, our customers are going through, you know, we go through and QC program and test all our boards. Then we ship them to our customers and they go through and QC and test all our boards. So the idea of like, well, if it would only take you an extra 15 seconds, like would that mean that you could do this piece if we gave you the tools for it? Um, and therefore we're not shipping, you know, extra shipping steps from manufacturers to us, us to them. I mean, so I think that's the kind of the obsessiveness from my side is like how can we make this work that we're doing not be redundant, but also like, you know, the the more the more money our commercial customers make, the more viable their businesses, the more pinball they're going to make. And I mean, in the end, the more fast boards they buy. You know,
the workflow doesn't stop just at, you know, as it leaves your your workspace. Like it continues, too, when it arrives at whether it be a homebrew or manufacturer like you're saying. So, you're really just optimizing the whole path, which is smart.
Um, the question of people uh consumers using your board, GTP Prog is asking, "Is Spooky considered using your boards?"
Um, I I know Spooky knows who we are. Like, I think that, um, I I would I would absolutely love to help anybody make games. Um, I know that they tend to do a lot of that stuff inhouse themselves. Um, but, uh, you know, we we uh we make it easy for people to write software against our system. And so like you mentioned like the pinball brothers with Predator. Um this was a game that um we it's the first game where they ported their system over to run on our hardware. So the idea and they did that inve I've told the story places now but I I I've known Brian Domin who does their low-level like software interface and OS level stuff um for a long time and runs the framework that they use. And um a long long time ago um in the Highway Pinball days I don't even know if you know who Highway Pinball is. I had heard the name, but
yeah, they're the ones that originally did the alien game. Okay. Okay.
So, they were having
that was purchased by Pinball Brothers and manufactured, right?
Yeah. So, they Pinball Brothers evolved into that, but back in that day, like they'd sent us an alien to try and port to Fast. Um, this was just before they went bankrupt and stuff. So, that kind of was a hiatus there. But, we spent a lot of time with their software guys. Um, same software guys that moved along to the uh the Pinball Brothers stuff. And when the opportunity to work on Predator came up, um, concern was like timing and things like that. And And I I said like, I think it's going to take your guy like two weeks to do this. And it was like, uh, we'll see. And so when the decision was made, I I told Brian, I said, I hope I didn't like get you in trouble, man. I said it would take two weeks. And he's like,
you know, we'll have to do some finetuning, but yeah. Like, and I think one of the proudest things I got out of that conversation, too, was he said like I said, well, we can go over our documentation with you and stuff. He goes, "Dude, I've been following along your documentation since we talked years ago like a fan, you know, and he's like, I love your approach. You don't change things radically. You add to things, you know, so there's new features that maybe didn't exist before, but um but I think that like when it gets down to like new companies using our system, like we know what it takes to have a proper, you know, game logic and code and hardware abstraction layer. And so we designed it like any any software framework that can make make a high-speed serial connection can talk to fast and these concepts and stuff like that are very um intuitive. So um while uh Spooky hasn't talked to us directly um I'd take the call anytime. There you go. Uh until ppin if that's a if that's a total recall joke I totally dig it. Um so obviously you've worked a lot with these bigger companies. Shout out to games like you were just talking about with Predator and June and other companies that use the fast platform.
But is there is there like a homebrew or a passion project that somebody put Fast in that you were just like, "Man, that is so [ __ ] cool." Like just something that Fast has ended up in that you were just like infinitely proud of.
I mean this you're asking a dad to answer a question like which kid is your favorite? Like that's that's
Take a favorite kid. Oh, we all have a favorite kid. Don't lie.
It depends on the day, but certainly, you know, oftentimes it's the one that brings me a cup of coffee in the morning. Like, like I'm like, I love you. Um, let me say this, like there there was a time where we knew every homebrew project going on in the world. And there was a time where we knew every fast homebrew project that existed in the world, right?
And now we just can't. And so,
it's a good problem to have.
Oh, I'm fortunate, blessed, all that good stuff. Like and I think that what's very exciting for me is, you know, we have a very active like private uh fast pinball Slack channel and we have people who buy boards from us jump right in there and introduce themselves, say hi. Others that buy boards, I never hear from them again until like I walk into a show and see a fullfeatured playable game I've never seen before. And that's, you know, it almost sounds like a a Gary Stern answer of like which game's your favorite. It's like it's the one on the line. It's like which game is my favorite? It's the one that I'm standing in front of playing at that moment and that's that is I know it's a total like you know throw the answer off kind of answer but it's it's a truth and I love the excitement of seeing what people do.
Does David run on the fast platform?
Who?
David.
David
your partner the robot
robot
does he run on the fast platform?
I think he just kind of like shaved off some of them and then it became
became the fast platform. Okay. Okay. Uh handful of new questions. Also to all the new first messengers and first Reuters and new subscribers. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Um, Roller Coaster is asking, "How are tariffs affecting fast?" I mean, we can't really avoid talking about importing components if components are imported. I I'm assuming that the answer is probably yes, but
yeah, it's it's frustrating. I think that like, you know, we spent
like our goal with fast is like any project that we're a part of, we never want to be the blocker. We never want to be the reason games are not shipping, you know? So we take the risks to say like okay well shoot like I know the maximum capacity of each one of my commercial customers at any time. So I try to make sure that like you know we we do our pricing based on volume purchasing and stuff like that but I want to as a backup have enough like around so that there's a couple few months of runway because I know that like even locally here state side manufacturing I can get hundreds of any board in like 5 days if I need it. assuming I have the PCBs already here for it.
Sure. Sure. So, so I think that like we went through the whole madness of COVID, which was a parts availability madness where we were buying up all the components because we needed to. Um, we get through all that, we refactor some board designs and stuff like that to address availability of new parts and stuff and then we go into this tariff situation which was a huge bummer. And I think that like the hardest part about the tariff situation is like literally every morning I mean it's I think it's tapering off now, but it was like every morning you wake up and see what's happened today, right?
And so I think the hard part is um you know while I I appreciate the effort to bring back more stateside manufacturing. It's not just a matter of people buying things overseas for the price of it. It's the ability to actually make them and to to source the components for them efficiently and stuff. And a lot of these tariff scenarios are changing, like you said, fluctuating. And it's like pinball manufacturers are not trying to make the games harder to make and harder to ship out for people. And I understand as a consumer how frustrating it might be that now all of a sudden like the game's going to take longer or this that or whatever the case is. But, you know, your enemy isn't the manufacturer at that point. like as as a small business like yourself and I'm sure that I could speak for Pinball Brothers and probably barrels is that like you know they want they want you to have your game
and they don't and they don't want to have to [ __ ] around with trying to find you know new sources for components and suddenly have to can purchasing components that were already bought in bulk overseas. So and and you you lock up that cash and you you change momentum and all that stuff because even still like you know the idea is like we'll just manufacture on the state side. It's like well
the transition isn't an on and off switch.
I mean like I'll say this that like fast manufacturers at a bunch of different facilities and we're adding new facilities in Europe and things like that again just in this effort to make you know it cheaper or more affordable for our customers to build boards remove shipping factors all that stuff.
But the biggest thing that happens on on for the state side manufacturing is when you realize that 70% of the components that go into the boards you're building are also factored uh and hit by tariffs. So even if you're building them here, it's it I think I did the math at one point. I think even at the worst at the 145% tariff that was going on with imports from China, it was still less costly to manufacture in China than it equated to manufacturing locally, which is mind-blowing. It's just
I mean, it's a global economy, you know. It's not about it's not about favoritism or building your local whatever. It's just the world operates as a one giant unity thing and that getting components overseas is just going to be cheaper for certain things no matter how many tariffs there are.
Uh we still do a lot here state side. I mean I think that's one of the things too that like when we're doing initial new production runs of boards and things. I mean during during COVID like when we were working with uh some of the European companies on the 2.0 projects, it was like I was trying to cut down every time step I could, you know. So it got down to like well they'll go through and build the boards, wrap them up, box them up. if I go get them, take them home, unbox them, test them out, program them, and carry on. I needed to buy an extra week and a half. And so I said, "Look, can I set up a fort at the end of your manufacturing line?" And as they come off the line, I take them, test them, program them, and hand them to your wrapping people, and they wrap them up. And they're like, "Sure."
That's cool. One company's like,
"Bre, did you have ramp parts on it and stuff?" Like, "How cool a fort was this?"
I mean, it was like a little like bivowwak little cave thing that was set up. But it was funny like the uh my account guy forgot I was even there and I'm hanging out with the night crew and I said how do I get out of your building? He's like [ __ ] Where are you? And I take a picture with their like floor manager. I'm like he doesn't know if he can securely let me out of the building cuz he doesn't know who I am, you know? So these are just the fun things. I mean I love problem solving and sometimes it's literally driving someplace setting up a base camp and like getting some work done. So
I'm not trying to wave at you. The camera thinks that Vo Mortonson is more attractive than me.
I thought I was having a stroke there like everything went blurry.
I mean maybe both. baby bones. Um, all right. So, I gota I got to ask a little questions. Here we go. Uh, Joe the dragon's asking, "Are there are there no fuses in it like spike boards?"
No fuses in it. So, the fuses come through um and downline through our smart power filter board. So, we've designed like the whole power system to be like a commercial grade product. So, you know, all of our connectors are all rated at the amount of current that we're expecting them to draw um in what ways and then give fuse guidance based on like what we think should be needed. Um but we uh so everything goes back to our smart power filter board. We also separate our um how we power things like where in our in our nodes like you know like the boards like these who um they the processor on there is powered by the RJ45 cables coming through the 12 volts that power them run through that isolating it from the the we call it the toxic ground the high current or the high voltage stuff and everything else. That's we designed it in a way to be safe and stable. And so really um you know down to all the way we key our connectors, the connectors we choose, all that kind of stuff is like you know if the connector fits there, it either goes there or if it's the wrong place, it's not going to damage something. And so that's why we really tried to focus back to the platform approach being like, you know, some people look at our hardware and go, "This is way overkill. You could do this so much easier." And we're like, "Cool. Yeah, you can you can get on a log and call it a boat, but do you want to ride it over the ocean? Like, no. Like, you need the right the right um resource for the job. So, we really try to design things in a way they're going to be stable and reliable. So, fuse protection lives on the power filter board, but we also have on board, we use what are called polyfuses. And so, in the cases, a polyfuse is basically like a fuse in plastic. And when that draws too much current, it basically heats up and melts and and separates. And then when it cools off, it it reheals.
Oh, wow. And so we have a lot of that kind of protection on board also for really like stray edge cases.
That's pretty impressive.
Uh I'm going to hit you with back to the whole idea of like
Oh, go for it. Do it.
Yeah. We got we got a backlog of questions. So I want to I want to I want to not miss these as they keep falling off. Uh all right. You ready? Quick Quick and dirty, right?
Do you uh do you assemble the boards locally?
Do I say what?
Assemble the boards locally.
Um some of them. Yeah. So between like up in rent and Washington and then um but then others are done over in China and then some are going to be done in Italy here shortly.
Two tips for getting into home brewing.
Uh make friends and get some accountability.
Like and that comes from the people that are building home with you.
Those are steep asks, man.
Dude, have you ever met a home brewer though? I mean like if you walked around the homerew booth at Expo this year, it's like basically just a big hangout. Bunch of like the coolest nerds I've ever met. And like we we want you there selfishly. We want you to get into homebrew so we have more games to play.
Pinball really is a community thing and it's Yeah, you're going to learn a lot. You're going to buy some new tools. Like it's it's freaking rad.
Joe says I'm echoing again, so you got to turn your volume down.
All right.
Um uh Era Erica says hello. Your uh your your [ __ ] road trip buddy. How was the road trip experience? For those who don't know, Erica uh Aaron and who there was I thought there was only one other person.
I mean I've gone with a different person every year. So this year it was just Eric and I. Well, you loaded you loaded Predator up and and gave it the the [ __ ] 3,000 mile trip around the United States all the way from Seattle down to uh Electric Bat and then all the way back up to Expo if I'm not mistaken. Right.
Yep. Yeah. We went down uh from Gig Harbor, Washington down through PaloAlto through Riverside, California, uh through Tempe, Arizona. I think we hit Oklahoma City at one point and then ended up at uh Chicago. So, it was it was it was the longest route we've taken in the six years I've been doing this.
That's wild. Uh roller coaster is asking, are you using power over Ethernet for your voltage delivery on the uh on the Ethernet cable?
Uh we're using the wires, you know, so we've got our own like way of mapping that kind of stuff, but yeah, it's it's not a specific power over Ethernet concept, but it's using the same uh the same power draw expectations you would see in something like that.
And then Joe asked a question that's making fun of Stern. I'm not going to say that nobody Stern's not making their boards with the intention of causing problems. Um so that's you've really built this. When did Fast launch? Like what year? Cuz I mean what you you know if you look at where you are now.
It's just impressive.
I think it was I I tell myself every time I do this I would look it up. I think it's about like 10 plus years ago or so now. But to be clear it really started as like this side thing we were doing you know and it wasn't until you know was working with a lot of home brewers and projects and stuff like that. Um, and then not long before COVID, it was like, let's let's take a serious run at this. You know, I was kind of like sun setting with my software company and I want to move on to other things and make me happier. And uh, for some reason, making pinball electronics makes me super happy.
I get it, man. As someone who has transitioned from a different industry that is arguably bigger, it's just more gratifying work.
I mean, but at the same time, it's like, you know, what the hell else are we gonna do? I mean like we need something, you know, that's exciting, something that inspires us to go learn and connect with new people and all that kind of stuff. And I definitely think that like um all the stuff we've been able to do with the fast things like you know the the natural byproduct is like for me in my happy place I'm happiest with an endless supply of cool problems to solve
and I and I was on a on a call the other day and we were talking about how like you know I'm happiest like with like I said these problems to solve but like what a cool way to look at like how we do this pinball stuff is like I get a cool chance to drop in and help people make stuff you know and it's from all vectors from homerew users commercial customers and it's it's pretty awesome.
It's funny that your answer to that is so similar. I interviewed Eric as part of my Winchester behind the scenes. Eric is the programmer over at Win at Barrels and he said the same thing that the his interest in working in pinball was that he likes to solve puzzles like problems and that pinball machines are basically a never-ending little network of of problems to solve. So,
well, that interview with Eric was awesome. Like, I mean, I've known of Eric for a long time. I've gotten to know him, you know, as a, you know, as a a cohort for like making things through the barrel stuff, but like hearing his hearing your interview with him to realize that like he's talking about like DNS files and network configs and I was like, "Oh my god, that's my old career." Like, so I mean, it's just it's a cool way to like get to know people better. And so what you do with these interviews is super fun. Like I I love this kind of stuff.
Thank you. Just trying to put faces faces to interesting stuff in a hobby that doesn't exactly have a lot of media attention,
dude. And then you hang out with me and I just tell you how cool you are all the time. So that's that's got to be good, right?
No. No.
Come on.
Uh do you if a home brewer makes a theme, do you think it's harder for a manufacturer to step into that? I mean, that's happened with uh you know, Harry Potter. It's happened with I mean, I guess it's potentially happening with Pokemon if that's actually going to happen from Stern. Again, rumors, but you know, we'll see soon enough. I would say that like it it it's a it's an interesting situation right now because I think that you know while there is um you know the fan art idea making this just for myself I'm not selling it all that kind of stuff. Okay, that's that's fine and that works well for cosplay stuff or artwork or things like that. But where I think it's becoming challenging for a lot of these commercial pinball companies is if they're licensing a property within a specific industry for a specific type of product, like they have a responsibility to protect their IP that they're using. So, and defend it and stuff like that. So, it does bring up challenges that I would say were not a problem until the homebrews got too damn good. You know, the fact that um the opportunity for market confusion exists for you to walk up to a game and go, "Yeah, I I played the Harry Potter game." It's like which one?
That's the problem, you know? And so I think that like what is the I'd say the other side of it too is um it depends on the license holder cuz some license holders are like, "Oh my god, this is amazing. You did this great thing." And others are going like, "Don't touch my shit." You know,
someone in mentioning Nintendo. That's a good example of that.
What was that?
That someone in chat's mentioning Nintendo and Nintendo is obviously a company that's very well known for kind of stifling its consumer base that is making like fan related projects. But I I do think that it's definitely something that um you know like I said depending on the IP holder like if you truly aspire to make that IP based game you've got like you know the advice that we hear a lot is like keep it to yourself you know cuz you put it on the public now they're going oh you're the guy that's using my IP without permission who keeps streaming it gets complicated and I think that it's tough cuz you want as someone who puts passion into a project like you've made the decision to pick an IP that someone else owns like you've already taken the risk factor for that and there's just un there's risk evolve to that is just unavoidable.
I think when you're when you're truly making it for yourself, I mean, it's at home, you're playing it, your kids are playing it cuz they they like, you know, Pokemon or they like, you know, Harry Potter or something like that. If you're making it for yourself, like I mean, I'm not I'm not a lawyer. I'm not telling you what to do here. But, um, when it turns into things that are like, you know, it's it's ending up like on live streams and, you know, algorithms are picking stuff up, it gets it gets complicated. I think it's just purely the complication around IPs and stuff like that. in my opinion is just down to the fact that one the homebrews are too good and two like everybody is trying to find efficient ways to protect their IPs. But I will also say too that there are really great IP holders out there that think pinball is an incredible thing. And um you know whenever possible I always suggest like reaching out to them and
when everybody's on board to make a cool project the end result is better. If If you have someone who just doesn't get the product and is just like checking boxes it just it doesn't help. Uh I will address something on in terms of that question though talking about manufacturers and and not versus homebrew but yeah I have an episode on Joe India Arcade Waves uh podcast coming out soon where we talk about he he asked a question about uh you know that do you think that's like Stern and some of the other major companies are going to be changing their ways based on what some of the smaller companies are doing and it's just I answer it in the way that the smaller companies are like indie filmmakers and I think that pinball in a lot of ways is very synergistic with that world. Whereas like you know Stern and JGP are taking on big IPs doing their own thing. They're not trying to like you know they're manufacturing large scale projects for like you know like the Marvel films essentially of like the industry. Whereas like companies like Pinball Brothers and Barrels of Fun and Spooky and stuff like that are like the indie filmmakers where they're making they're not trying to you know [ __ ] generate a bazillion dollars worth of revenue. They're taking on interesting ideas to execute projects that other people are not afraid of but it's just it's not their market. it's not what they're trying to do. So, and I think in a similar way that homebrew space versus, you know, uh indie films is the same thing as like a fan film being made. Is that really taking away from an indie film or from one of the larger manufacturers? And And the answer is no. It's just they're all little separate markets to me. And And in the end, competition is always better for everybody. So, yeah. I mean, I I my background before like getting into even starting my first company was like, you know, I I dropped out of college. I say dropped out now. used to just be I left college for
saying you got picked up out of college picked up to go do something.
There you go.
Yeah. I mean, so I I left college to and I was putting on concerts, putting on records and stuff like that in Seattle with my little indie record label, you know. I love the idea of like supporting artists and and people creating and making things, you know. So my fantasy view of pinball was like, you know, looking at like like an indie record label model where it's like you're catching the new thing on their way up, you know, and they and you get the good fortune of working with them through their career at certain points and then eventually they go on to something bigger and better, you know. Sure. But I think that like what is um what I love to see or sorry what I'd love to see is that culture of like you know like I said we used to work a lot of bands and stuff like that and it was always cool to see the bands going on tour together when it was like they're not trying to like win the tour but they're trying to like rock a little harder or a little more memorable as they go and it creates this oneupmanship in a good like inspiring kind of way. And so I look at
yeah I I think in the pinball space um you know I you never hear in the homebrew space specifically people go like man screw that guy his game is cooler than mine. It's like man what he's doing over there's kind of cool you know I think I I got to stay up tonight and finish my mech I want to make you know so I think that that oneupmanship and a good like I want I want to I want to rock harder than the rest of you kind of way is like I would love to see that develop. Now, when you get into like like you were talking about with the uh the games being built, I feel like the future of pinball is smaller runs of like cool games. You know, make a game that doesn't necessarily have to sell multiples of thousands to make because really when you look at it, you're building a game, you're focusing on this for a period of time. You're taking it to market like then you got this gap of like now you're making this game forever, you And again, from a business sense, that can make sense. But I think that like when the promotion and marketing of what it is your company does, it's a I I have a friend who runs a marketing agency and like I I coined a term with them. I said like the way Fast likes to market is what I call invention marketing. Like we made this cool new thing. Check it out. You know, and now you trust that like the the foundation's solid and they're building new things on it. If pinball companies are able to do things like freaking Winchester, like coming out of nowhere there, like I mean I'm driving out there going, I can't wait to play. sucks though. Nobody gives a [ __ ] about Winchester.
Dude, I
I think that like, you know, I've known Carl in our fast Slack for a while, but never had spent any time with him in person. And we were at Expo and I think my my introduction with him was like, "Hey, Carl,
f you. Winchester's awesome." And because it's like I I can't I can't take it home with me. Like I've never been mad not to take a game home with me before. And I had that experience for the first time.
Well, so it's funny you say that, right? cuz like pinball people in as a group like I don't give a [ __ ] whether Stern sells 5,000 or 10,000 of a game, right? Quantity is irrelevant as a as a pinball person, at least to me, right? To your point about smaller runs being more interesting to people because it allows for more interesting ideas to be made.
But uh you know, we found out people do give a [ __ ] if you don't make enough. So there is there is a number where too small generates some animosity and like that's frustrating cuz it's not like you know as an example with Winchester it's like the small number was picked because of the fear of the risk of the game not selling not because it was some sort of puppeteered master plan to create some super rare game that people wanted. It's just like you know take those conspiracy theories and look at the ship from with some a little perspective. You know what I mean?
So I absolutely do. We got we got a bunch of questions though I want to dive into and uh there's some people here. Carrie Hardy is here. King BJ himself has arrived. What's up Carrie? Good to see you.
Um Kyle asks uh what are some big opportunities to improve homebrew? What are the biggest opportunities? I guess uh what is something that's lacking in the homebrew space I guess was is a better way of phrasing that question. Yeah. I mean, I that's h you know, I I always think that like, you know, the the problems everyone's solving, like you think you've got it all covered and then there's another set and another set. And so, I think that like with what we've done on the electronic side was like we're shipping boards, right? Cool. You've got boards to build option of adding connectors, pins, and wires. It's like cool. Now, there's a new kind of home brewer coming along that these are the same people that spend like $3,000 on a drone that they have to build themselves, right? So, they'll send me an email that's got like 60 questions in it. And I say, "Cool. Um, how about we just get on a on a Google Meet and we can talk while I'm soldering and we'll just shoot the ship for half an hour, what 45 minutes or something like that, and answer all those questions." And so, it turns into them filling their card up and then they go, "Cool, where do I get the wires?" It's like, Jesus. Okay. So, we have a very specific set of wire colors, wire gauges, all that stuff to make it paint by numbers, right?
And so, I said, "Well, every game is different." And And this one guy goes, I challenge you on that. Like, I've looked at your documentation. Like most of this stuff you can pre-make for me and then the few things that I need that are game playfield specific. Make it about 3 feet long and I'll figure out where it goes. And so, okay, fine. That's I for those of you that came by the homebrew space at Expo, we actually brought out our new wire crimping and wire stripping machines. You know, it's like it was awesome, but it we had people come by to use them. It was great. So, we're eventually going to start making the cables and stuff that go into that. Okay, fine. So, we've got cables, boards, like all that stuff. It's good. It keeps going further. Like a lot of the conversations right now are like how do we make very easy to manage and maintain Linux OS images that make it easy for you to deploy software on some new PC device or Raspberry Pi or something like that. Um so I I' I'd say that like the long-winded answer to that is like the things that can make homebrew better.
It's more people coming in with different skills and abilities that look at a situation and go, you know what, I can help with this or have you ever thought of this? Or I'm really good at GitHub. Can I make a tutorial that shows people who've never used GitHub how to use GitHub? And I'm like, yes. So, education,
make it better just more people in the future for homebrew.
Making [clears throat] education is the is the is the biggest homebrew tool that could be pro that could be whatever improved on.
Always be learning. Always be learning.
AB L.
Always be.
Anyways, can you hold Can you hold both your arms up, please?
Mine. Can I see both of them real quick? Do you feel that you had a nice tan on one arm from your drive?
You know what? Um, not necessarily. U, side note on that trip, by the way, like um my my running joke at Expo was uh you know, people like come up to me and they're like, "We followed along. How was your trip with Erica?" And I would say, "Oh my god, she's so annoying." And you'd watch their face sink like, "No." I'm like, "Dude, I'm just kidding, man. She's awesome." Anybody who's met Erica knows that that is like obviously not true.
I mean, we didn't turn on the radio or a podcast the whole 3,000 plus miles. And it was
real human interaction. What is wrong with you,
dude? We just we just chatted the whole way through, you know? And I think that's one of the things I'm very fortunate is that like now, you know, I've done the trip six times. Five times I went with somebody and like, you know, each time like someone's willing to drive cross country with me and I I love the chance to have that time spent and make new friends and stuff like that. So it's it's fantastic.
So Barl's a fun CEO. Actually, David Van Es is here in the flesh and was asking how your driving arm is. Not to be uh nerfed by pinball nerd podcast asking if your arm was tanned, which is why we went down that road. Um late night driving in the rain maybe. I don't know. That's I mean driving in the rain is awesome and bad as some as an area that barely gets any rain at all. Uh, Carrie doesn't like King BJ. Well, you could be King ED instead if you would like. That's a pretty good choice, right? Which one do you like better?
Me? Shoot. I I'm not getting involved, man. That's a Sounds like a personal problem.
I thought that video was hilarious. Everyone's I love how serious people are when they can hide behind a computer. Uh, staying staying hates loads small runs. Well, what do you consider a small run? You know, this is like these are relative things.
I don't know. I mean, I'd say that like smaller runs are like I I would say your sub thousand runs kind of thing, you know? I mean, this is the stuff where it's like, you know, I think with the right kind of planning and purchasing pre-planning, um, you know, you can make doing a run of, you know, 300 to 500 games make sense, you know. Yeah.
Um, when you get into like, you know, these thresholds come into like how many sets of parts do I build at a time? You know, you look at like some of these games like like they've got the Dune over here where it's like the big sculpts in there. It's like, okay, how many, you know, volume matters? How many do you buy? And then you get to the point to where it's like, do we, you know, I don't know what their numbers are in that game specifically, but it might be like you've got, you know, this threshold here and it's like, is there enough demand for a whole other batch of these things, you know? And um, and I think that there's something special about the idea of like, you know what, these games are done being made. And And I and I think that's something that like you know because David's here in the chat like I asked him with the Winchester I'm like so you going to make some more or rethe this? He's like, "You know what? This is a gift to the collectors." You know, yeah, it's going to be tight and demand's going to be there, but we all know that like pinball changes hands. And I mean, who knows when some kids college tuition's due and someone's like, "Ah, it's time to You don't have to pinball machine that comes out, too." Like, I I mean, I understand that the,
you know, when there is a theme that you do want, you feel like you should have the opportunity of more than 24 hours to acquire it before even people get to touch it. That's a little bit of a gray area. But uh
but let me add this though too. When we all got into pinball originally it's like you know I I looked at like when I was going to be a grown-up I was going to be able to own my own arcade machine. You know and we got into this trying to find stuff that you can't find. You know chances are you might find a game that you kind of remember but it's not the one you actually wanted. And when you do find the one you actually want it's beat to hell and you got to learn how to fix it. So the idea inherently of the things being hard to get where part of it is the chase to get it. Some of us still think that's fun and nostalgic, you know. So, I don't think it's like a deal. I think it's frustrating for new people. Well, it's frustrating for new people getting into pinball to be like, I want this and can't get it, right?
Um, but then you learn
and it it helps. But, you know, I think that is a direct uh kind of side effect of like Amazon culture, being able to go on the internet, type in whatever you want, hit a button, it shows up two days later. And pinball doesn't come from that world. Pinball comes from a long history of inaccessible, expensive boxes that are art pieces. You know, you're essentially buying an antique at at the moment you purchase it. So, you know, the collector vibe is still strong, though. I mean, look at all the trading card stuff. I mean, the flipping out guys love magic. And, you know, I mentioned these goddamn laboo things. You know, like people do like the idea of a collector piece, but uh there just can't be infinite of something. If we could manufacture the exact number of things that needed to be done to the number to not waste any parts, to make sure everybody that wanted one had one, of course that would happen. But that's just not how building a product works. Yeah. Well, I mean I I think that's also too like where like you know we as fast are really focused on like you know these companies designing these games like focus on designing cool games that people want to buy. Don't worry about the low-level electronic stuff. I'm thinking 50 years down the line, don't worry about that. You know, and and to our customers uh to the people that buy those products is like like it was super fun going down to electric bat with Predator down there to be like let's let's take this down there and we're taking it from an engineering side of things. It's like I want to see people beat the crap out of this game like play it for endless time on and on and on. And I think that meeting the operators and stuff like that and getting feedback on like you know what it's like to use games built on our system and stuff like that. you know, these are things that they may bring stuff up to us that you might not bring up to the game designer themselves to be like, "Hey, it's kind of hard for me to reach this connector when I go into this or something like that." Like maybe that's some advice you can put into documentation somewhere, you know? So, I I think that like, you know, the goal for getting people to build the most amazing games is like you only have so much time, energy, and resources to aim at something. Aim at things creatively and like lean on us for like that that support behind the scenes. I mean, we're not out there like, you know, telling people which games are the greatest us. We're telling ones that we think are most stable and reliable. So that's we want to focus on
which a lot of people the stability and reliability is really is really important. Again, as I can't speak for other companies, but as somebody who is fairly new to the creative side of the pinball world, I can say that when we were working on Winchester, not once did this conversation come up about talking about how many units to make in order to like to meet costs or whatever. Like everybody was creatively focused to make the best goddamn game that they could. And I'm sure David was in his head being like, "I should probably make this many or that many." But like that's David's problem. And for the people that are on the production side creatively, like I don't give a [ __ ] I want to make the coolest game cuz I want it in my home. I want people to play it and enjoy it, be proud of it. Like it's just I don't know. This like weird dark fantasy that lives in a lot of people's heads that, you know, pinball companies are trying to like sabotage certain people's feelings and stuff like that. It's just like it's madness. It's they're manufacturing scarcity and stuff like that. I'm like, you know what? They're not thinking that deep. They're going like, "Okay, I know I can get this many parts from this company in this period of time before this tariff rate increases and I've got this much left over from this other thing we did. Like, how can we make this all come together?" That's what they're going to do. Do I want poo or Kanye in my burrito for lunch? And that this sound effect sounds pretty dope. I'm going to send it to Eric. That's That's what it [ __ ] happens, you know?
Yeah.
Uh, Erica says, "Uh, oh my god, this this chat's moving so fast. My slow lizard brain can't read quick enough." uh sign out had it in his cart and it went to hit sold out and it was checked out. Sorry, dude. It's [snorts] just, you know, it's a heartbreaker. You know, pinball nerds podcast says, "I think play before you pay just like we do with cars should be a thing." Drew, I preach that, but in this particular case, it just didn't happen because of
I would say whenever possible. Yeah. Whenever possible, do that. But I think that like I mean, here's the other side of it, too. Okay. And this is very, this has come from a very selfish place is like it was always my fantasy view of if somebody looks at a game and goes like, man, I think I kind of want this game that they could go, "Oh, it's got fast hardware in it. Okay, I know it's going to be stable. I don't need to worry about that end of things. Do you like the theme? Do you like the people making it? Buy the game." And again, like it's I know that's contrary to like wait till you can play it thing. But it's like minimize that risk. You know, there's there's bands that we've known over the years where like you might buy their album before you've heard it because you know the band, you like what they do, and it might be something you play less, but like you're you're still willing to take the risk. Now, buying an album versus like buying a pinball machine is very different. True. So, it's not saying I I think that like I would definitely put into that equation of buying before you can play is like, are you taking is this is this diaper and grocery money that you're shifting over? Like maybe don't buy a pinball machine period. you know, if this is a if this is a company that you like and that you want to support or you want to take a risk with, give it a shot. I mean, more often than not, you're going to get to, you know, I'd say you can probably get the money out that you put into a game or close to it, you know, like if you buy something, you'll find someone else that's interested in it and stuff like that. But like, but again, like, yes, anytime you can play it before you you buy it, but I would also say to learn to be fans of the works of these companies that are making great things. And if you trust the company that they can deliver, you trust the platforms that they're built on are designed to last a long time, like that's a measured risk in my opinion. And to trust the, as you said, the internal workings, like if you know that you have a game that has a fast platform in it, that you're going to get the reputation that the fast platform has built over the years. And I would say unanimously that that is an incredibly positive one. I never wanted the example specifically, but like you know, as a lot of people know, we were we were the electronics inside the Haggus Pinball Fathom remake that was done years ago. And you know, when they were unsuccessful and ultimately like failed, um the I called the distributors that I knew that were distributing that game and said, "Listen, like I'm not on the front lines supporting all the games, but for any support needs that escalate to you, like here's my number. Like reach out. Like we're there for you." Nobody's called. I had one guy who had a display that had a segment out which is on us. Like we'll replace that. They shipped it to me. I shipped it back to them. But like the idea that like you know a game with a company that imploded is still running fine. Um you know from the electronic standpoint that's something that we want to be able to give that peace of mind to the ultimately to the end consumer.
Assuming we're talking about haggus here but yeah.
Oh for sure. Yeah.
Um hey emot's here. Marco pinball in the house. Uh that's amazing. Hello. Thank you again. I mentioned this at the beginning and now that there's a bunch of people here and and Marco uh itself is here I guess I'll plug it again but uh we are celebrating homebrew we are talking about the behind workings that are in a lot of homebrew pinball machines here with Aaron Davis uh and this week in celebration of homebrew and the expo experience I have put out a 100 sound effect kit for homebrew people to use in their pinball machines for free virtual physical whatever and uh Emoto took the time together to put together the splash page and host the entire thing on Marco. I extremely appreciate it. Thank you so much. Um, but there's a YouTube video out on it and there there will be more news posted around as I spam the internet with it. But, uh, yeah, if you got a homebrew friend, send them the kit,
make some cool stuff, and then send a gift to the community, man. It's like like we were talking about before, it's like, you know, what does homebrew need? People with like a specific set of skills that want to find a way to participate and that's I mean, you're you're literally doing that. So, I mean, as as a member of this community, like, thank you for the effort. That's super solid.
You said it perfectly though. The most important skill that you can have as a homebrew person is meeting people, right? Making friends. When you know people, you get access to facil just skills that you might need in your homerew.
I'm I'm being your friend for free by giving this sound kit. If you need sounds, consider me your temporary dirty pool pinball buddy. There you go,
dude. I love [snorts] that. You know what else I love too is like when people come up like to to meet us at these shows and stuff like that and they come in and they're kind of just going, "What is all this?" like how do I be a part of you know and there was uh one guy that we met at the Northwest show um who did sound and stuff like that and he was like you know is there any way that I can help and there was tattoo artists that were coming in going I make I make art like how can I get involved in pinball and stuff and just the fact that like they're strolling around the homebrew vibe of everything and going I'm not even 100% sure what this is yet but I I want to be around this more is very very cool for people that weren't at pinball expo can you can you talk a little bit about what this ring of fire kind of with you and center uh experience was like and then kind of your perspective of what it was like to interact with, you know, cuz like Manu and and Emoto were kind of like streaming all these different homebrew games. You were in the center of it. So you take it away.
Okay. So one of the hardest things about being me is like this is super cheesy. I always say it's cheesy, but it's like as a visionary thinker like I can see it like it's real, right? The thing that I want to see happen someday like that's the delta between where I am now and how I get there. And I will say that I've got the good fortune of working with Emoto and the whole Marco's crew to bring this inerson show experience to life. Um, it's getting closer and closer to that perfect like in my head scenario. And like I walked around at at Pinble Expo, I think it was Saturday night. They like dim the lights down finally. And I took a video walking around this place and it was like I was at like a this like maker space meets a rave meets meets a nightclub. I mean, it was crazy. But to be able to see um
No. Yeah. I mean to be able to see like like I love like you know Emoto like picks different backdrops for the different games, figures out where they go so that like you know it takes so much work to get to these shows. So the idea that you show up and your stuff is presented well. Um it just kind of helps it it makes it worth the effort and stuff too. So the booth was like I mean it was funny like on the original renderings that Emoto made it was like you know this walled you know those 10 x10 tarp or tents with the the tops on them and back walls. Um it was this whole outer campus wall for this and like when I first saw the rendering I'm like this is gigantic. Like this is not this is going to be way more space than we need. And oh my god very quickly it was not enough.
No the lines for every game were backing up into the walk space you know that you need to kind of navigate around.
It was like packed. Yeah.
Um and then in the middle of it um we had um you know we always kind of bring as fast kind of a version of our shop like and because it is very like moth to a flame where it's like a look a soldering iron. What are you guys doing over here? You know is that a 3D printer like so being able to walk into that was really cool and we had like projects we were working on in real time you know like Jack Danger brought his um his dead flip homebrew game originally. He Emoto talked him into bring it to the show and he had some electronics problems in it and wasn't going to do it. And I said, "Dude, just bring it like we'll rip the guts out of it and like we'll rewire it up at the show." Of course, I recorded like a two-minute video of him going through how the entire thing functions. Joe the Dragon was there and we I posted that. It was just great seeing him kind of dive into the history of like what brought him into working in the pinball industry.
No, and I think that was fun. And then um uh the the crew that made the uh uh coming to America pen um you know Ricardo and and Duron and and Junior like came up and I think that Ricardo knew what the homebrew scene was like before. So the idea that you were bringing a game that was not finished. He's like ah we'll work on it here. And you could tell the other guys were like a little like I wish we were not working on this at the show. But in like 10 minutes we're all like you know arms ar you know rolling up our sleeves like yeah crimping soldering all that kind of stuff. And that became just this camaraderie experience there on the ground. And again, for people to see that in real time, cuz I can tell you, oh, it's a great community and we're all going to help you make your game. And you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You also want to sell me boards. But if you walk Yeah. Well, you're at a manufacturer and their game goes down, everyone's just like, what's going on over here, right? But if somebody's game goes down in the homebrew section, it's like part of the experience. Like this is what the thing is for, you know?
Yeah. So, I definitely think that like for people to walk up and see in real time the stuff that's getting built um is really fun. And I think I you probably saw too like um Jack Danger brought his like 15 spinner little tabletop project.
We were we made an excellent gambling game on that. By the way, I lost $10 on that. But let me tell you, if he manufactures that thing, have I got the gambling game for you? Cuz that's what pinball is all about, gambling.
Yeah. So when we got there, I said like, "Dave, this is your project." He's like, "Okay, we'll get I'm like, "No, this is the project I want you to focus on. Make this thing flippable like as quickly as possible." I said, "The internet's waiting for this, you know." And it was crazy. People were coming over to me like, "Is it done yet?" And I just love
Wait, wait. So when Jack brought it to you, the the electronics for making it function weren't weren't there yet? No. No shade on Jack. I'm just curious. So
zero.
So he turned it around in how long?
It It was I think it was middle of the next day, I think, was like it was all flipping and ready to go. Cuz again, like with our fastboards, it doesn't need to be a computer controlling the game. We can make it dumb and play like an EM where we're just configuring all the switches and coils to play with each other. Now the game is what an insane flexibility [clears throat] that it can act like literally there doesn't need to be a brain behind it. It can just function as a bunch of like solenoid matrix triggers.
It's great for being able to like I mean some of the people building the games are not the same ones writing the game code. So I can go with some text files and some serial commands configure this game to be flipping and know that the coil strength and the shots are all right. Then give it to the programmer and let him write code and he's not wondering is the wiring good or is things plugged in right. So it was really looking at like what the natural in my opinion what the natural design process of a pinball machine looks like. So we try to match that. Well
yeah that's amazing. Um so we are not only are we running longer than normal but this has been amazing and fascinating. No I truly appreciate it. You are an excellent speaker which is uh a welcome a welcome thing. Uh I am we're rapidly approaching my eye doctor appointment. Before I go I want to I want to ask you another question. I want to field a few more questions from the audience and then send it to you for any anything you want to plug uh before we sign off. Uh but the last question I have for you is there is there anything a lesson you've learned looking back at this entire journey that might make it easier for somebody else that's in a similar position trying to start up a company that may be pinball related or something else. Uh, [sighs] you know, I think like one of the best compliments I got was from a friend in the pinball community who said that our focus on community is what really gave us the foundation and and the strength to do all that we've done. So, I think anytime like you're starting a company like you you've got an idea and you want to go start something and this sounds fantastic, but it's kind of like you against the world. And I think a lot of the most successful project stuff you can be a part of is when you've got a partner and some counterparts and some support and some enthusiasm and stuff because you know at some point you're going to be exhausted and having somebody else be able to kind of like rah and cheerlead um is really helpful. And I find that myself personally like there's a lot of accountability that comes into like making cool things and giving it to people to experience. So when you can find a community that is in a place that can be supportive to what you're doing and I think that's where the homebrew community was so instrumental in the development of fast stuff because we have all these you know these these faces and names out there that are just dying to build some cool thing and I think that that is that is the thing that really helped us. So, I would say the the community end like find a community, find find a a recipient party to like share what it is you created with. And um and I think that like in our case, the homerew community was a huge part of that.
Would you say like don't be afraid to be vulnerable and or you know, humble in terms of reaching out for help or even showing something off that you think is extra cool.
I think that like being able to share the vulnerability is like a superpower. You like very rarely do we have like board problems, right? And the the board problems we've had have been manufacturer mistakes. They put the wrong part on or something is crooked or put on backwards. And you know, we're not going to like, oh, it's not our fault. It's more of like, holy [ __ ] what's happening here? And there was a time where like we had one set of boards that went out that had a diode that was installed backwards. And this is something we've made thousands of these boards already. It was a fluke.
But I told everybody once we nailed it down and we determined it was on backwards, I we found there was like seven or eight people that this applied to that we'd already shipped these to. And I said, "Listen, this is your first surface mount board repair. Give it some heat, pick it up, turn it around, put it back on." And I said, "And if you mess it up, I can fix it anyways, so give it a shot." And seven of the eight people did it themselves, and they were like, "Yes, I just did my first surface mount board repair." Um, but the one guy that didn't want to do it sent it to me. We took care of it.
Oh god, I thought you were going to say that he tried to and didn't do it successfully. I was like, "Man, I feel so bad for that guy if he's watching right now."
Oh, dude. I But the thing is is like, you cannot mess it up beyond my ability to repair it. But I would say this that like the um the thing that people like seeing is us working the problem. You know, in real time in our Slack channel, I'm asking this guy over, I think it was in Netherlands, was going, "Okay, here's what it is. My dad's an electrical engineer. He thinks it's something like this." And I'm like, "Look at D10. Where's the line?" They're like, "Here it is." I'm like, "It's backwards. This is what you do."
That's nice when it's something that's simple that can be spotted like that, especially visually. Put lines on your chips. Nice.
Nobody Nobody thinks it's cool to be like, "No, it's not our fault." And then be proven wrong. I'm going to be the first one to be like, "Well, maybe we messed up on something." Now, I'm really confident we didn't, but it's not to say that it's impossible that something down the supply chain and manufacturing line did happen, but who cares if it is our fault. Like, we're going to fix it and you're going to be good to go. So, I think that being vulnerable, it's a cheesy term to use these days, but like it is something that like is is true. Like, if you're really open and honest, like people will rally behind you and help you solve the problem. It's I hear you. It's a good way to go.
Uh, all right. So, I have a quick question for you. Uh, yeah. I feel like the fast pinball platform, you might even be able to renovate older systems with it in order to put it in since it can be, right? So, I'm just curious like out of if I was to give you these three kind of vintage games, which one of these would you be interested in kind of putting the the fast platform in to kind of like reinvigorate it to the modern times? Uh that first game, uh let's go with Raven.
Okay. Um and then the second one, if you could put this uh the fast platform into it, uh it's Raven. Raven.
Okay.
And if you have a third like vintage game that you could put this fast platform into that would really just benefit it. I just like it's a it's another Raven,
you know. Um funny side note, like uh the code name for the Predator project was Raven. I think that's public already now, which is kind of hilarious. Um but uh no, uh I go I'd go with Raven. Okay, let's let's bring it to life, man. Find me, somebody find me a burned out Raven that's got no electronics, no wiring in it, whatever. Like, let's hook it all up. You can write the rules for it, make the soundscape for it, and we bring it to life. If somebody wants to redo Raven, I will do the sound for it. I'm putting it out there right now. If you're a homebrew person and you have a Raven and you want to make a Raven that's got a lot of character, I will I will help make that happen. Uh, I will also say I'm sad because the raven that was converted to be a predator that was right near us at the pinball expo, uh, that was like right next to the barrels of fun. We went to go to a tournament on there for the cult of pinball. All the people that showed up wanted to hang out with me, by the way. Thank you. And the damn thing wasn't working.
No, [sighs] you know, if it had a fast board in it, it probably would have been okay, right?
Oh, it 100% would have been. And if it wasn't, we would drag it over to the workbench and figure out what the hell's wrong with it.
There you go. It's good stuff.
Uh, last two questions for you. Roller Coasters is asking, "Do you have any advice for engineering students mechanically specifically?"
Um, find a cool thing that you want to solve and and get on it. I mean, I think never in our lifespan has there been so many tools available to do cool stuff. Like, if you can think of it, you can make it. I mean, whether it's like with a 3D printer or using services like send, cut, send, you can design a metal thing that will show up at your house that is to your design, you know? I mean, these are these are things that like didn't exist when I was a kid, you know? So, I'd say that like just start doing it. Like, I mean, there is no reason not to do it. My My son Henry learned engineering out of Fast HQ and now he's he's off studying engineering at the Naval Academy.
He's got a cool dad and infinite access to programming. Get out of here with that.
You know what? Like all to be a good parent, you need to be one Google search ahead of your kid, you know? And so, we can all we can all step up and be that support that's needed. Plus, there's people in the community, maker spaces, tech tech classes at school. Like, everybody wants people to learn how to do this stuff and they're out there.
That's great. That's great uh educational student advice. And it's just great dad advice, too.
Wholesome. Mark's here, everybody. Marc Silk.
Marc Silk ran into me at uh Expo, and let me tell you, just what a what a friendly and very talented multi-mouthed guy. This dude makes all sorts of different voices. He was uh he was the goblins and gremlins in a labyrinth. You may know him from Star Wars. So, thank you for hopping in. Um, all right. That's it. Take the floor. Do you got anything to plug? I got to go get my eyes checked.
Yeah. I'll give you two things. Like, so fastpinball.com. Go there and check out all that kind of stuff. Um, super rad. We want we want you to make pinball. Um, also there was another project um, uh, Pinforge, which some buddies of mine um, are just pushing out there now. And the idea is to create a whole open- source pinball machine that you can build. It's all built on Fast Electronics. It's got starter code and everything like that to do it. Files. they're starting like uh regular streams and stuff like that to show the process. But the idea is like one of the things we hear a lot is people want the idea of like maybe I want to build a pinball machine. I don't necessarily want to design a pinball machine. So if there was a game I could go and buy all the components, get the files, go and build a game. Um that is that is a new project. So that I think they um I think it was just my days are running together just announced like last night. Um, but a lot of really brilliant, talented people are involved in this project um that want you to get in and make pinball and um it's it's going to be a great thing. So, Pinforge Pinball, like check that out. Um,
all of these links will be Erin, please send me any of this info that you'd like in the description. I'll make sure that it's in below when this goes on as a VOD. That way you can check out all the stuff that's going on at Fast Pinball or any other projects that you think are relevant. Uh, let me know.
Y pinball.
Marco just gifted 10 subs. Uh, I have it muted just so that it won't cause a distraction, but if there was ever a time to unmute the rewards, please everybody send a shout out, a thank you to Marco Pinball, and go ahead and let those rewards fly. If you know, we we do bath time here whenever there's new subs. So, uh, if you want to spam the hell out of it with rewards, I have undone it. Let's ruin the audio for the stream. Send it, ladies and gentlemen. There we go. Um, while that's going on and people cannot hear me, I want to give another thank you so much to Aaron for showing up and taking the time to give us an extremely deep dive into the Fast Pinball platform. Uh, thank you to all the new subs and people that came to ask questions on a day that we don't normally do this. Uh,
this is awesome, man. Thank you so much for this opportunity and like I said, like it's great to get to know you two, man. I I love what you're doing for homebrew in your own super special way and I think it should be an inspiration to a lot of people. Uh, but thank you. I really I do honestly appreciate that. I'm just not very good at taking compliments. Uh
oh, dude. I'm right there with you, man. Somebody at Expo finally told me just say thank you.
Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. So,
thank you.
There you go, man.
Someone gone to All right. With that, this is what we do. We wrap up the stream. We go and we find someone to raid. Uh we show a bunch of lovers over there. Oh my god, you little trolls. All right, we're killing the rewards now. Anyways, thank you so much. Uh stick around. Let's go find someone to raid. Go check out all the fast pinball stuff and check this out on VOD later. Uh, let's wave and say goodbye. Oh, we got to do the Great Pyramid thing. Aaron, will you
This is my version right here. I got to get the whole pyramid. That's a heavy metal great pyramid if there ever was one.
Oh, praise the great pyramid every man.
Have a great day.
Bye.