As a hobbies and for my arcade games I do some programing for I/O boards. Mostly off the shelf Arduino's. I wanted to see how easy it would be for me to write some firmware to control a marker. Then I had a forehead slap moment and realized that the basic functionality does not require an micro-controller at all. It would be super simply to just wire up a battery, micro switch, phototransistor (to function as ACE), solenoid, and a couple of resistors, and a capacitor (for analog de-bounce).

There would be no modes, no ramping, no dwell, bells, whistles etc.

I have no intention of building these. I just want to know if anybody want that? Why? Why not?