Back in the arcade we queued for our ‘turn’ on that Pinball machine, we all had one, a favourite, one we watched to make sure our name stay at the top, knowing the arcade owner switched the machine off nightly, scaring us that our names would not still be there, but they were, and there they stayed until someone came along and knocked you off the spot – no problems, another reason to beat them…. <INSERTS COINS>
I remember looking at those little orange lights, clustered together to form pictures and text, I remember being taught about DOT MATRIX in science, and I remember thinking “its a shame we dont do flat small TVs to put in there” (wait did I invent LCD TVs before they were invented??!!!??) , lets fast forward a million years from my childhood to my adulthood, now I see an arcade machine (Even some of the originals) and they have the awesome colour displays now, what I originally thought only an LCD programmed I learn that this is a colour dot matrix display (A pixel-addressable display used to display the score and other status during the game. Almost always placed in the backbox (exception: Cirqus Voltaire). Every machine released from 1992, starting withData East‘s Checkpoint, released in 1991, features this display. The only exceptions are the two VGA-driven “Pinball 2000” series machines.)
So lets have a look at some of these Color DMDs in action (courtessy of Color DMD)
There are so many more, check out their YOUTUBE channel.
