FAST Friends Newsletter: July 2022¶

Hello FAST Friends! This month's newsletter is all about videos! In the past month, we've posted videos from our Northwest Pinball Show, a new tutorial, and we highlight the YouTube channels from the FAST Pinball community.

Happy Summer! Happy Pinballing!

Aaron, Dave, Eli & Brian

Videos from the Northwest Pinball Show¶

You may remember that last month's newsletter was all about our 70-foot booth with 16 pinball machines at the Northwest Pinball & Arcade Show this year. We shot lots of video during the show and just got it edited and posted in the past few weeks. All of the videos in this section are from the show.

The first "FAST Pinball powered" commercial machine: Fathom Revisited¶

FAST Pinball cofounders Aaron Davis and Dave Beecher discuss the Fathom Revisited pinball machine by Haggis Pinball which was in the FAST booth. This machine is built on the FAST Pinball Modern Platform, and this show was the first time it was available for the public to play.

How did the FAST Pinball Retro Platform come to exist?¶

This interview is with Aaron Davis and Dave Beecher talking about how and why they created the FAST Retro Platform.

FAST Pinball Conversion Kits: What's the hard part?¶

In this interview, Aaron and Dave talk about how and why they created the FAST Retro Platform. KISS 2.0 Homebrew Pinball Machine

Watch Brian Cox talk about his Bally KISS 2.0 homebrew machine. Brian created an interchangeable platform for classic Bally machines. The backglass is digital and the cabinet is generic, so in about 5 minutes you can swap out one playfield for another. It's multiple pinball machines in one! He wrote all new code for each game and used new and reproduction parts to create each playfield.

Fight Club Homebrew Pinball Machine¶

See one of the best-looking, jam-packed, and light-filled pinball machines of all time: Mike Becker's Fight Club! (Also watch the movie if you haven't seen it. It's great and is a fantastic pinball theme!)

Led Zeppelin Homebrew Pinball Machine¶

The "Stairway to Heaven" mech in Steve Kondris' Led Zeppelin homebrew pinball machine is one of the coolest mechs in all of pinball! Check it out in this interview with him.

FAST Pinball Origin Story¶

FAST Pinball was formed in 2014 when Aaron Davis and Dave Beecher met at a bar to discuss a shared vision of building a modern pinball control system. (Dorky but true!) In this short video, the two of them tell the story of how FAST came to be, and how they grew by adding Eli Curtz and Brian Madden to the team. Our Panel Discussion

We had an hour-long talk at the show where we walked through what we were up to. This is a great overview of who FAST Pinball is!

The Pinball Room Interview¶

Steve from The Pinball Room interviewed the four of us from FAST Pinball. This is a cool video because it's each of us one-on-one talking about our specific pinball passions and how we engage with the community.

FAST Nano Unboxing & First Steps: A Pinball Tutorial¶

This video walkthrough shows the unboxing of a FAST Pinball Nano starter bundle (both with the power options and without). It explains what's in the box, how to hook things up, how to connect from your computer, how to read switches and how to turn on LEDs.

How to Make a Pinball Machine, in 49 easy videos!¶

The most amazing pinball series on YouTube is Steve's "How to Make a Pinball Machine" videos where he walks step-by-step through the entire process of building the Led Zeppelin machine we linked to above.

Steve has almost 50 videos (and counting, new ones go up all the time) explaining and walking through topics like playfield design, cabinet building, prototyping, software, ball guides, and dozens of other topics.

These videos are awesome, and several people building homebrew machines now have specifically called out Steve's videos as the inspiration for their projects!

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