UltraPin is a Multi-Game pinball arcade game that holds 12 digital recreations of Williams Electronics real pinball games in a single pinball cabinet. David R. Foley had the original idea for UltraPin and began research on the idea in the beginning of 2000. In 2004 he discovered a motion controller chip that enabled the idea of a player being able to nudge and bump the ball in play which is unique to any digital pinball game before its time. In 2005 David began development on the UltraPin project with Aaron Hightower under David´s company UltraCade Technologies. The development team at UltraCade Technologies created an updated Visual Pinball engine with a custom Physics Engine created by Buen Diseno, using DirectX 9 hardware and Visual PinMAME, to emulate various pinball games.

In 2006 UltraCade Technologies was sold to Global VR and the UltraPin project continued development under Global VR. A new development team was assigned to the UltraPin project along with a new producer Brian Matthews. Brian used the original software from UltraCade Technologies and lead his team to fine tune the physics engine and game play to adhere to the strict game play standards set forth by Roger Sharpe of Williams Electronics. Williams Electronics had final approval of the UltraPin project and how each of the games played in UltraPin before the game could be sold to the public.

In 2007 UltraPin was approved by Williams Electronics to be sold to the public. This could not have happened without the hard work and efforts by the teams at Global VR, UltraCade Technologies and Buen Diseno.

Global VR Development Team:
Producer/ Designer = Brian Matthews
Software Engineer = Jason Powell
Software Engineer = Rolle Cruz
Software Engineer = Aaron Hightower
Artist = Mike McMahon
Artist = Chris Hinton

UltraPin is built in a traditional style pinball cabinet to look and feel like a real pinball machine. It has two LCD screens, a 19 inch LCD for the back glass and DMD, and a 32 inch LCD for the playfield, and it uses Windows XP Embedded for its operating system.

Costs

On June 4, 2007 Global VR announced that they will offer UltraPin Video Pinball at a significantly lower price. Additionally, the base unit will include twelve of the most highly recognizable pinball games, as opposed to six previously. The 12 game package includes a flipper feedback board. This consists of one printed circuitboard and wires to connect to the main flipper buttons. The flipper feedback kit uses two solenoids on a new lockdown bar which strike the metal whenever the flipper buttons are pressed to give the impression that the flippers are real. The impact adds noise to the flipper presses, and the force causes a slight cabinet shake with each strike. Also the 12-game package revision includes "Tournament Mode" for the frontend.

On February 1, 2008 Global VR announced a special pricing package for UltraPin, offering all 12 games and the machine for US$

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

3500 + tax + $500 shipping for vpforums.com members.

On December 1, 2009 NanoTech Entertainment announced the Ultimate UltraPin Upgrade allowing owners to upgrade their machines to use both the original UltraPin software and adding to it additional support for other Pinball engines and games adding a new frontend package.

Features

• The game has a lock down bar and a pane of glass like a real game
• The tilt sensitivity can be set as well as how much the ball moves from nudging
• 2 coin slots, coin door, and bay areas for 2 types of expansion dollar bill acceptors (sold separately)

Prototype and early production machines

• Silkscreened cabinet art - newer machines have cabinet decals
• Different lockdown bar
• uShock board connector is connected backwards from key
• Might be missing serial numbers

Test game info, pinball expo 2006

• You must hook up a keyboard to get to the in game ROM settings.
• The coin door buttons at this time just add credits, change volume, and enter test / settings menu you then have to use the flipper buttons to use the menu.
• Some games were starting to get switch errors.

Retail game info, one year of use onsite

• Latest revision of game pack and software corrects switch errors and adds Tournament Mode.
• Auto Launch is improved over test game. Recommended recalibration should occur every ten days if in constant use.
• Mirror table play - hold down both flipper buttons when pressing start for a mirror image of the displayed game.

Tables available

• Attack From Mars
  Attack From Mars
  Attack from Mars is a 1995 pinball game designed by Brian Eddy, and released by Midway .In this game, Martians began to invade the Earth, and it's up to the player to destroy the Martian fleet, save all the major cities, and then head off to Mars to destroy the Martian empire and conquer Mars.Among...
  
  

• Black Knight 2000
  Black Knight (pinball)
  Black Knight is a 1980 pinball game designed by Steve Ritchie and released by Williams Electronics.This game is known for its two-level playfield , and introduced the patented "Magna-Save", in which a player-controlled magnet is used to prevent outlane drains. This was first of a series of four...
  
  

• Eight Ball Champ

• Fathom

• Firepower
  Firepower (pinball)
  Firepower is a 1980 pinball game designed by Steve Ritchie and released by Williams.Firepower was the first solid-state electronic pinball to feature 3-ball Multi-Ball, as well as "Lane Change", where the player uses the right flipper button to shift the lit lights in a set of lights on the...
  
  

• FunHouse
  FunHouse
  FunHouse is a pinball game designed by Pat Lawlor. It was released in 1990 by Williams Electronics. As its title suggests, the game is themed after the concept of a funhouse, a walk-through amusement park featuring many attractions....
  
  

• F-14 Tomcat

• Medieval Madness
  Medieval Madness
  Medieval Madness is a Williams pinball machine released in June 1997. Designed by Brian Eddy and programmed by Lyman Sheats, Medieval Madness had a production run of 4,016 units. It was an immediate critical and popular success, earning well on location and achieving widespread popularity among...
  
  

• Pin*Bot

• Sorcerer

• Strikes & Spares

• Xenon

External links

• http://globalvr.com/products_up.html Official UltraPin site
• http://www.pinmame.com Official website for Visual PinMAME - the pinball machine emulator on which UltraPin is based
• http://www.coinoptoday.com/newsflash/news/globalvr_2006-10-16_award.html - UltraPin wins AMOA Innovators Award
• http://www.ipdb.org/search.pl?any=UltraPin&search=Search+Database&searchtype=quick - UltraPin info from the Pinball Internet Database
• http://www.maxim.com/amg/gaming/articles/56895/howtomakeakillergameroom.html - UltraPin in Maxim magazine, Killer Game Room article