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Pinball Hackers

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EWU Computer Science students hack vintage pinball machine, win bonus points.

Each Fall quarter, energetic Computer Science professor Paul Schimpf shares his love for old pinball games in a course entitled “Embedded Real-Time Control,” aka “Pinball Class.”

Using a colorful “early digital” pinball machine called Mata Hara ( from 1978!), STEM students learn the basics of programming software and build skills in hacking retro games, “real-time control,” skills they can extend to other projects and products.

Prof. Paul Schimpf reveals CPU of EWU retro pinball machine
Prof. Schimpf explains EWU students’ modified retro pinball machine (Nick Thomas photo)

Students plug in laptops to update the CPU with their custom code. When the ball rolls around, switches are thrown; they figure out how the machine works on their own. They use the coin and credit buttons to scroll the playfield lamps, then create digital maps of how the game responds.

“The ‘80’s pinball games actually present the biggest challenges,” he says. “They have limited capabilities. For instance, it puts out only 190 volts, which is only enough to light up one digit at a time. Students write code that makes the numbers light up so fast it tricks the eye into thinking its seeing a full display.”if you take a photo, you will only see one digit.”

They also control game logic like scoring and Bonus Points. They trigger updated sound and music via the SD card slot and ATTiny microcontroller. Schimpf also upgraded the CPU. “I took out the original CPU and put in an Arduino Mega 2560,” which he says is easier to modify.

Pinball Class presents challenges they aren’t used to with modern computer games. The many software tasks, from the solenoid-fired bumpers to controlling the lights, make Pinball Class a popular class at EWU Computer Science. Schimpf hopes to increase the number of machines they use.

The professor has a bigger idea he’s toying with: he hopes to collaborate with the VCD Students (Visual Communication Design) to create an EWU branded game. “EWU Football,” he says, his eyes growing wide with excitement. “We could have the red-turf field.” They could sell the game to alumni and fund more student-made games like the pinball machine.

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Web Programmer by Day, Novelist by Night

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Burke Fitzpatrick on IT and Creativity

Burke Fitzpatrick has embraced the total dedication required to be a creative writer and work a full time day job as a web programmer. His nights are filled by furiously writing the next book in his series of “dark fantasy” novels called The Shedim Rebellion – building his world and the characters that inhabit it – and his weekends take up the business side of running Blade Books, the press he founded. He describes his books as a mix of “heroic fantasy and Dante’s Inferno.”

“It’s all creative,” says Fitzpatrick, “you are creating something out of nothing.”

Fantasy Author and EWU Programmer Burke Fitzpatrick
Fantasy Author and EWU Programmer Burke Fitzpatrick (photo Nick Thomas)

The trick to self-publishing is keeping the reader wanting more, and then actually delivering on that. Some writers are able to support themselves writing full time simply by churning out the content. “E-book publishing is mirroring the old pulp paperback business model,” he says. His fifth book in the series is in the works.

A lifelong reader, Fitzpatrick devours a wide range of subjects, from mythology to history. It helped that his mom was an English teacher and his dad an amateur historian. He grew up drawing and painting too, and earned his AA degree in graphic design in the mid 90s, surfing the wave of the dot com bubble.

Eventually he came to EWU and pursued a degree in Computer Science. He needed to be able to support his family, but desperately wanted to develop his creative writing, too. So he took as many literature courses as he could handle. Studying programming, calculus, along with ancient British Literature provided a stimulating, if challenging, counterpart to his STEM classes.

Throughout his undergrad experience he made the most of internship opportunities and work study at EWU, first as a graphic designer for Marketing and Communication, then as IT support, and then programming. Upon earning his degree, this experience led to a full time IT job at EWU, where he has been for 16 years.

Fitzpatrick loves learning, and that’s a good thing, with the tech industry changing rapidly with the move to the Cloud and mobile-based devices now making up half of all internet traffic. “In the IT world,” he says, “you are constantly learning new things.”

“A couple years ago I took JavaScript courses,” he says. He was impressed with the computer science department. “They are placing grads in good jobs right away.”

Wanting to further hone his literary chops, he then earned his Masters in Creative Writing over two and a half years of night classes at EWU’s highly regarded Creative Writing MFA Program.

When asked how coding and writing stories are related, he insists they are closely linked. “It’s all creative,” he says. “You are creating something out of nothing.”