27 replies to this topic

[sleepy]

I became interested in looking up a few things after reading Marcos'/pakupakuman's "Old original game request" thread and...I remembered something.

I used to visit Jose Q's Emuviews. The site is long closed, but still up for reading, however, the following pages are in regards to the release of WPCMame. You may know WPCMame as PinMame/VPMame. There is some speculation on the first page about a possible creative linkup between the WPCMame project and another program known as "Visual Pinball".
From the year 2001:

http://www.emuviews....php?SERIAL=2719

http://www.emuviews....php?SERIAL=3031

And this "Steve Guy". He must be a genius!

http://www.nycpinbal...lators-main.htm

So how did you find out about Visual Pinball/VPinMame?

[Itchigo]

I was looking for pinball games to buy on a cd when I came across vp. All I had at the time was Space Cadet. I barely knew how to use a computer at the time, but I'm sure glad I taught myself!

[blur]

Hard

At first i asked on local newgroups is there some game for windows like scramble and other arcade games I played as kid. They told me - there is no LIKE - there are exact same games, all of them - search for mame man I thought wtf what mama, whose mama So i found mame, played many of them and liked them a lot. And kids loved them.

After some time I decided - hey I found MAME on the net - maybe there is something similar for pinball (since pinball and scramble were the main arcade games in my time). So i searched the net and found vpinmame or wpcmame don't remember - just a rom emulator and i thought geee this is funny what am i gonna do with just a rom emulator. I searched all documentation and didn't find anything about visual pinball - so i thought shit - there is no real pinball emulator for this and i forgot about it for few years.

Then few years later i had quicker internet, used to download some torrents for mame so i searched pinball on torrents and found some gigaset torrent with thousands of pinballs and visual pinball - so finally i was able to play - yeeee
this happened in ~2010. Soon after that i found pinball nirvana, irpinball, vp forums, hyperspin, hyperpin, ... and the rest is history

Edited by blur, 25 July 2012 - 10:14 AM.

[rob046]

I was looking for pinball games to buy on a cd when I came across vp. All I had at the time was Space Cadet. I barely knew how to use a computer at the time, but I'm sure glad I taught myself!

I think I found VP in a similar way. At the time I was really loving the Pro Pinball games, & even the old Williams & Microsoft Arcade games, though of course Pro Pinball was way better. At least I got a real pinball fix though with those later 2 games, even if the physics weren't great. They were good looking games.
Only thing I didn't like about those games was that those were all tables I didn't grow up playing. Tables I grew up playing a lot were Funhouse, AFM, ToM. So I think I was doing a search probably for ToM to see if, by chance, it existed in some other commercial game I didn't know about. I didn't have my hopes up, of course.

But then the table did turn up, talking about some Visual Pinball nonsense. It might of even taken coming across the name a few different times before I tried to get it installed. I was not a computer person at the time. I literally didn't even know how to download something. I came very late to the world of computers for various reasons. So you can imagine VP wasn't real easy to install. I think it did take me coming onto AJ's forums & asking a few questions. I probably sounded like the lamest noob, but we all have to start somewhere I guess.

I finally got it fired up. Of course ToM back in early '04 didn't look as good as what we have today or as good as what I had on CD, but certainly it was just cool to be able to fire up the ROM again & see the animations & hear the sounds after years of not getting to play it, so it was pretty damn cool. Then I started coming across all the originals as well, which might of got me sucked in at the time even more than recreations.

[pazuzu55]

I was on a mission to be able to play the game Funhouse. In 2005 when i saw it, it seemed too hard to configure for my skills. fastforward to 2012 I have built a Pinmame cabinet in a converted Road Kings machine.

The Pinmame is the best machine I have in my home arcade room!

It has become a hobby and an obsession.....hahahahahahahahaha

[Itchigo]

I literally didn't even know how to download something.

That was me in early 2009!

[TheMcD]

I was looking for a way to play TAF on my computer and stumbled accross the old VPForums. I found VPinMAME but didn't understand how it connected to Visual Pinball, so for a while I was just playing around with the ROMs, thinking that was really cool. I steadfastly refused to ask for help during this early time because I'd just sound like an about 14-year-old idiot (which I was at the time) and I knew better than that. So I taught myself the hard way and eventually figured it all out. After that, I actually got involved with the forum.

[FDSystems]

2006.
I got fed up playing Space Cadet, & googled for digital pinball ,.
First found FP, did not liked it cause I could not play it. then found VPF.old !
Never read the install guide, But have installed, uninstalled, re-installed VP inumerous times on many PC's & laptops.
I still play VP8 stretched ! & enjoy it !

Edited by FDSystems, 22 July 2012 - 11:30 PM.

[Practicedummy]

I can't quite remember but I believe it was either searching for pinball or it was on PCWorld magazine that I first heard about VP. I wasn't able to get PinMAME to work until I found a site I think was called pinsim.org and it had an installer that showed where everything went.

[GSGregg]

Three years ago I inherited my first PC from a gamer who had gutted it with nLite and removed MS's Games folder; I came across VPF.org while looking to replace 3D Pinball Space Cadet. I later discovered FullTilt! Pinball, which included the original Space Cadet, which I prefer. VP/VPM and PacDude's Centaur sealed the deal, however, and I joined in Feb. 2010.

To sleepy, rob046, TheMcD, et al; the history lessons are a kick. Keep'em coming!

[unclewilly]

Early 2003 i was building a mame cabinet for a friend. He had purchased a complete set of roms from a romburning site.
When i was installing everthing i found mame, daphne, and vp and pinmame

He didnt want the pinball so i brought those disks home with me.
Been playing ever since.
Did really start making tables till much later around the time fp was released

[Liteuser]

It was late in 2002 and I was looking for more info on T2 pinball because I used to play T2 pinball every day at work.

I was already into MAME and many other types of game emulation.

I found VPinMAME while searching for new types of game emulation "I cant remember the name of the emulation site" and VPinMAME led me to Randy's Visual Pinball site. Then I found Shivasite, IRPinball, VPForums, Pinball Originals and Pinball Nirvana.

I have been playing VP/VPM tables on my PC since 2003.

[sleepy]

Ike Savage started an archive thread awhile ago, "The History of Visual Pinball", but now I'm not sure where that thread went to, the old site or at PN. It is/was quite large and complete with many similar links.

But if I find it...

Edited by sleepy, 23 July 2012 - 02:29 AM.

[toxie]

been around since the early wpcmame days.. i think it started when i was searching/lurking around some mame sites that i stumbled across this.. so "playing" twilight zone and indiana jones and ??? via the dmd only (if my medium old mind remembers correctly ) and guess how i excited i was when there was actually something that would accompany the plain display in form of an actually working pinball simulation later-on!
since then i was hooked again to playing pinball.. THANKS!!

[Arcade4]

I have no idea what the year was but I was searching for Addams Family sound clips and came across Pinmame.
All I could do was punch keys on my keyboard to hit certain switches on the game but it was so cool I called my brother instantly and had him listen over the phone.
Once people started matching this up with a graphic interface I was hooked for life.

[Shooby Doo]

5 or 6 years ago I was looking for free pinball games for another person and I stumbled across the old VPF. I signed up to get tables for this other person who quickly lost interest, but I got hooked fast.

[Rick2006]

[quote name='sleepy' date='Jul 22 2012, 09:59 AM' post='186036']
I became interested in looking up a few things after reading Marcos'/pakupakuman's "Old original game request" thread and...I remembered something.

I used to visit Jose Q's Emuviews.


Sleepy, You have reminded me of my earliest favorite pinball site. Jose Q's Emuviews was my "GO TO SITE" back in the early days,
around 2002 for me . Thanks for the memory jog.

Rick

[sleepy]

Oh Yeah! Jose Q's Emuviews was definitely the greatest emulator, rom, and review site the Internet has ever seen.

But not to mislead anyone. Most of the ROMs were hosted onsite, but other emulators and ROMs were linked. Notice that if you click the WPCMame download link in the first article, it opens an error page stating that hippienet/shivasite is not available.
In those days Shiva's website hosted WPCMame, hence the gratitude by some of us for him.

Edited by sleepy, 24 July 2012 - 03:57 AM.

[dazzadasha]

Must have been well over ten years ago- maybe more. I remember AJ's well. Some names that ring a bell from back then- Pacdude, Mr Staypuffed, Jp Salas, Ela Dubh Sidhe, Scapino, Bob5453, Hans a plast, Mr Hide, Steve Oz, Tilt jlp, Yogiholzer, just to name a few. Most are still around here. we could only dream of cabs back then.

[TuNk77]

For me, it found VP when I was looking for an updated version of MAME, I'm not too sure about the year, but it was after I bought the Pro Pinball series, so it must have been between 1997 and 2000.
I remember playing one of the first releases of Whitewater, if someone can remember what year that was, please let me know