Well...that's a LOT more than I had intended to say...
WTF? You lost me on that one.
I can't really disagree with you that computers do indeed make a lot of stuff that was traditionally done with electronic circuits, cheaper and more practical. And, for a lot of people, more enjoyable.
But, there is something satisfying about looking at a real live opponent sitting across the other side of a chess board and the tactile feel of the material and shape of the men. Even turning them into photo-realistic medieval warriors and pretending to pick them up and move them with a finger on a screen just isn't the same. Even the wii concept is a poor second best to actually doing most of the simulations people do with the wii (although admittedly, some of the actions that simply have no real-life counterpart are better because...well, because they just can't be done any other way).
I don't know what game was envisioned for the resistive sheet project or how needed a processor would be to accomplish it but, there have been a lot of electronic games that preceed the advent of the microchip. How about,
Operation? Something as simple as a magnet that would pick out "organs" but, without touching the sides of the "incision" lest making a simple electrical contact would light a light or buzz a buzzer? Even today, it's still a fairly popular game in it's original 1960s form.
I, myself, don't have anything against modernizing and simplifying with a processor of some sort but, I do balk at learning a high level language and then compiling it to the processor's native lingo. I tend to deal with the processor in a simpler, more direct way, through it's instruction set. Fortunately, I'm not into sophisticated gaming systems and programming automated
Preditor strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan or NASA missions, etc.
For people who enjoy the programming aspects of the business, I say, "great". For those (like myself) who prefer the electronics circuitry aspects of the business I also say, "great". For those few who can actually do both (and, trust me, for every 1000 who
talk about it, I'd guess there's less than 1 who can actually successfully
do it), I say, "gee, I'm envious".
For this thread, I was most interested in the electro-mechanics of it rather than the pie-in-the-sky promise of how it might all fit into some sophisticated, computerized gaming system. I get a sense that the trivial, ennui details of how to place pieces on a board are of little interest to you but, the big, fancy stuff has caught your fancy. Maybe not but, it just feels that way.