[Alan Amon] posted a cool vintage hack on Instructables, adding GPS-based clock funcionalities to a Bally Wizard pinball.

Pinball machine will automatically power up at the preset time each day and then resets to display the current time, the year, the time the alarm is set for and the date month/day. Then as long as the GPS has a signal the time will update once a minute for the rest of the day.  At the time you would like to go to bed the Arduino will cut power to the game and it will remain off until the alarm time. Should you have a power failure in the night the machine will not lose it’s settings. If power is restored prior to the alarm time the machine will wake up as normal, otherwise the machine will wake up once power is restored.

If the game is powered on because it is not yet bed time and it is after the alarm time then at 12am, 1am or 1pm the game will do a full reset. This makes sure the clock hasn’t gotten off due to a stuck score reel, keeps the time in a 12 hour format and keeps the date display up to date.

Have a look at the “cool features” and “coolest features” in the instructables article

via [PCWorld] source [Instructables]