Video Apron Card Systems

03/20/2026

Our Generic Single- and Dual-Screen Apron is coming soon.

03/20/2026

Get ready, pinball fans! We're Thrilled to Announce that We're Hitting the Texas Pinball Festival 2026!

Come on down and visit us at the festival—it's the perfect place to see our brand-new product in action! Whether you're a seasoned pinball wizard or just love the excitement of the game, you won't want to miss this opportunity to experience it firsthand.

We're showcasing something truly special, and it's available for sale right here at the festival. Bring your friends, bring your energy, and be among the first to check out what's new and exciting in the world of pinball.
Don't miss out—come say hello, try our latest creation, and make some unforgettable memories with us at the Texas Pinball Festival 2026! See you there!

03/13/2026

👍🏼👍🏼

03/11/2026

Introducing our Pinball Video Apron Cards — the perfect accessory to enhance your pinball experience! Featured here is a vibrant, action-packed apron with colorful, detailed cards designed to add a fun, competitive edge to your game. These cards are ideal for pinball enthusiasts looking to

02/24/2026

Join us in the Classic Pinball Park, located in the south east corner of the main hall at Texas Pinball Festival 2026.

Join us at TPF 2026 for Special Formats play on Classic Williams and Bally titles!

11/28/2025

Sneak Peek of the VACS in action.

11/08/2025

2025 Pinball Expo was a Success!

We had an fantastic time connecting with industry professionals and gathering valuable feedback on our Video Apron Cards. A heartfelt thank you to everyone—manufacturers, operators, and end users—who made this experience memorable. We look forward to seeing you all in Texas at Pinball Fest 2026, where we'll be showcasing and selling our Video Apron Cards.

11/08/2025

We are at the Chicago Pinball Expo 2025

Come by and Say Hi!

Stop by to see our innovative Video Apron Card System in action. We’re also excited to showcase our Fish Tales pinball machine — come give it a try and enjoy a fun gaming experience with us!

11/08/2025

VACS Technical Information

Operating Controller - Raspberry Pi-5 with 4 GB of RAM and 64GB Micro SDRAM card

Power Supply - Raspberry Pi 27 watt USB-C power delivery brick, up gradable to 45 watt RPi or high current 12/5 volt supply

RPi-5 is mounted on a custom PCB with external GPIO inter-connectivity and RPi supplied 3.3 and 5 volt external connection for small current draw items like switches, LEDs and HAT motor controllers. Optional 12 volt power supply that can provide higher current 5 and 12 volt circuits if owner wishes to power stepper motors and other high draw mod functions.

Video Screens - (2 quantity) 6.5" MIPI displays, 800x480 resolution, with display mounted MIPI to HDMI converters

WPC game Interface - Warped Pinball Vector controller

Programmed with Python

11/08/2025

What does VACS do?

The Video Apron Card System is run by a computer (Raspberry Pi 5 or RPi-5) which has about the same power as a cheap desktop computer and is separate from the legacy CPU in the host game. They are connected through a Warped Pinball Vector controller that can output current game information to the RPi-5. VACS uses that data to control 3 modes of operation:

Attract mode - a dual screen slide show that displays both still images (.JPG) or short video clips (.MP4) and is user configurable. As an owner/operator, you can easily install photos and videos you want to see on the game. VACS does come with pre-installed images that compliment the game title the system is installed in. You don't have to change anything ig you don't want to.

Menu mode - a menu driven feature, controlled by the flipper buttons, that gives information about the game, high score tables and tutorial pages on modes within the game. It is invaluable for learning how the myriad of shots and targets create the modes that drive modern pinball.

Active Game mode - an up-to-the-second display of scores, ball in play and where to shoot now! The active players score is constantly updated, in big bold numerals, on the right screen. Ball-in-play is also prominently displayed. Up to 4 player scores are displayed in each corner. The left screen dynamically tells the player, in big, bold text, what mode is active and what to shoot next.

Once a game ends, the active game data stays on the screens for 30 seconds, then the system reverts back to Attract Mode. You can access the Menu mode by pressing either flipper button while in Attract Mode. If there is no flipper button activity for 60 seconds while in Menu mode, the system reverts back to Attract Mode. Active Game starts automatically with the start button.

11/08/2025

Getting Started

The idea to replace paper apron cards with video displays came to me in 2020. I've always thought the apron area in a pinball machine was "dead real estate" and printing attractive paper cards for my games was a big hassle. I also like to see what my score is while I'm playing and finding it on a back box often resulted in drained balls. Putting video displays in place of those cheap cards seemed like a good idea. Right by the flippers, something easy to look at.

Making it happen proved to be a lot more difficult than I expected. They have been done before, on at least a couple occasions, but the content was always lacking. I figured for a display system to be useful it would have to provide active data, like scores, and tie into the host game system.

I was at the Texas Pinball Festival in 2021 and met a couple guys from Fast Pinball. They gave me hope that extracting data from old processors could be done, but didn't seem interested in providing much support. They probably knew it would be a tall mountain to climb. I spent the next couple years learning more about assembly code (written mostly by dinosaurs) and poking at chips on WPC CPU boards.

I had sourced the raw video displays, created an on-top-of-the-apron 3D printed holder and tied them to a Raspberry Pi-4, but getting into the legacy game system (WPC) was probably the biggest hurdle. By chance, I ran across Paul and Max with Warped Pinball. They were developing a module that could read data from a Motorola 6809 processor, which powers most 1985-2005 pinball machines. With their expertise, we've been able to bring this concept alive and create a system that has a lot of potential.

I had a basic apron display cobbled out of parts, running a dual slide show at the Texas Pinball Festival in 2024, just to see if anybody would stop by and check it out. It was funny to watch people. Since it wasn't in a game, they really didn't know what to make of it. We'll be at Pinball Expo 2025 with a fully functioning system in a Fishtales. It'll be fun to see what people think now. Hope to see you there!