[mdicicco]

Wow, this just strikes me as a bad idea.

I would think it's still possible to program buttons on the existing UI to port through the controller, over the RS232, and into a waiting computer.

Once you can do that, there's nothing to stop teams from writing programs to monitor the playing field and calculate (in real time) the optimal location for placing a ringer or spoiler. Or, on the defensive side, calculating the location where your opponent could do the same.

I can envision a button box with 3 rows of 8 toggle switches to indicate which rack positions are red/blue/empty. That data gets routed through the dashboard port to a waiting computer that spits out a strategy.

Is this possible? I hope not.