TB pinball enthusiasts?

[noeinstein]

My family has operated coin-op machines throughout California, and later other Western states, since 1946. The business grew from a couple WWII vets driving hundreds of miles every week to service a far-flung route of cigarette machines, jukeboxes, and various coin-op games like bowlers and pinballs to a multimillion dollar business and back again.

Early pins had no flippers, so when Gottlieb came out with those (after the war) we called them "flippers." Personally, my favorites were the electro-mechanical pins, which later gave way to more popular digital pins. What you guys have reminded me of is what happened to pins after Pac-Man came out.

There were a few video games leading up to Pac-Man like Space Invaders, Asteroids, Galaxian, but when Pac-Man came out video games seemed to reach a sort of critical mass. All of our locations demanded video games, specifically Pac-Man. And rightfully so, they were making boatloads of money. Pinballs, on the other hand, never made as much as videogames and after Pac-Man, they were just taking up space.

We bought Pac-Man and other video games, not two or three, or even a dozen at a time, but by the train carload. Meanwhile in the early 80s we found ourselves with warehouses filled with, in some cases virtually new, digital pinball machines. None of our locations wanted them anymore and selling them one by one was just never going to work. So, we hired auctioneers to get rid of them. We needed the warehouse space.

Today, my wife and I still operate a very small local route of digital jukeboxes, which is currently dead in the water just like our bar locations. We don't have any pinballs left, but we do have a lot of parts. So, if you know anyone who needs them, I can make a killer deal

 

[2112]

I like pinball just fine... but I *love* the early arcade video games... anything from about 76 thru about 84 or so. Space Invaders, Galaxian, Galaga, Bezerk, Pole Position, Defender, Robotron, Joust, etc.

I'm especially fond of the vector games... Star Castle, Asteroids, Tempest, Star Wars, Gravitar, Lunar Lander, Omega Race, etc.

The newer stuff was neat and all, but it just didn't have that magic.

 

[noeinstein]

It's rare to find this Bally with an intact topper:

View attachment 3893388

Those usually got scrapped off going into or out of a location.

 

[Davbassdude]

The ones I played at the local sweet shop during high school in 1975-1976: Top Card and The Eight ball game (can't remember the name) possibly "Crazy Eights"?. Funny they were both Gottlieb machines, related to card games! By that time, I had already mastered the song "Pinball Wizard" on both bass and guitar.

 

[vid1900]

Speaking of bands that suck.... lol

It would be hard to imagine a more posery band than GnR.

I loved that Axl sued Google because every image of him was fat, so here is more search result fuel:

 

[vid1900]

Funny they were both Gottlieb machines, related to card games!

For years, Gottlieb was only Cards, Clowns and Cowboys

Often with tragic results...

 

[JimmyM]

My family has operated coin-op machines throughout California, and later other Western states, since 1946. The business grew from a couple WWII vets driving hundreds of miles every week to service a far-flung route of cigarette machines, jukeboxes, and various coin-op games like bowlers and pinballs to a multimillion dollar business and back again.

Early pins had no flippers, so when Gottlieb came out with those (after the war) we called them "flippers." Personally, my favorites were the electro-mechanical pins, which later gave way to more popular digital pins. What you guys have reminded me of is what happened to pins after Pac-Man came out.

There were a few video games leading up to Pac-Man like Space Invaders, Asteroids, Galaxian, but when Pac-Man came out video games seemed to reach a sort of critical mass. All of our locations demanded video games, specifically Pac-Man. And rightfully so, they were making boatloads of money. Pinballs, on the other hand, never made as much as videogames and after Pac-Man, they were just taking up space.

We bought Pac-Man and other video games, not two or three, or even a dozen at a time, but by the train carload. Meanwhile in the early 80s we found ourselves with warehouses filled with, in some cases virtually new, digital pinball machines.

Pinball makers got greedy and really screwed themselves if you ask me. They started charging a lot of money per game, only gave you 3 balls instead of 5, made the playing surfaces so fast that they were nearly impossible to play, and set the free game goals so high that nobody could win any. I guess they did that to try and compete with video games for cash rake-ins, but all it did was make me not want to play them anymore.

 

[allen_m]

View attachment 3893395

This one. I owned one just like it (even the topper) for several years. Actually the only pinball machine I ever owned. It was LOUD and in stereo! It had my name on it. Fun rock and roll theme with generic characters and fairly simple objectives. I still hear "I'm calling the police!" when I think about it. Made a very nice profit when I sold it but still regret doing so.

 

[pcake]

i used to own a swinger machine back in the day. i LOVED pinball in the '70s, played all the machines up and down hollywood blvd, then they put in an arcade in west l.a. and i was a happy camper!

anyone remember bad cats with the broom that hits the cat and spins it?

 

[L Anthony]

Three of my favorites:
Bally Lost World
Williams Big Guns
Stern Wild Fyre (first machine I was good at)

 

[noeinstein]

Pinball makers got greedy and really screwed themselves if you ask me. They started charging a lot of money per game, only gave you 3 balls instead of 5, made the playing surfaces so fast that they were nearly impossible to play, and set the free game goals so high that nobody could win any. I guess they did that to try and compete with video games for cash rake-ins, but all it did was make me not want to play them anymore.

Operators set most of those parameters game by game... we were desperate. IMO the fatal truth of pinballs was cost of repair/maintenance was greater than revenue.

 

[vid1900]

Pinball makers got greedy and really screwed themselves if you ask me. They started charging a lot of money per game

I know, when games went up to a quarter from a dime in 1970, I thought to myself "I'm out"

only gave you 3 balls instead of 5

You can still to this day, set any pinball game to 3 or 5 balls in the menus.

made the playing surfaces so fast that they were nearly impossible to play,

Playfields changed topcoats from lacquer to 2PAC in 1990, because the lacquer (silkscreened on, not even sprayed) was not holding up to modern **fast** gameplay. It is generally acknowledged that Silverball Mania (1980) was the first fast game.

and set the free game goals so high that nobody could win any.

again, in the menus, you can set Free Games in any score increment amount, or in any percentage pay-out in the **match** at the end of the game. Neither is locked in by the factory.

Generally, you used to set Free Game to a very liberal amount when the game was new at a location, then up the amount slightly each month to keep up with the players increasing skills.

I guess they did that to try and compete with video games for cash rake-ins,

Video games COMPLETELY overtook pinball, and nothing could save it.

In fact, Williams was going to close the Pinball Division in 1984, but Space Shuttle pinball was a surprise hit. It is commonly known as "the game that saved Pinball"

Take any video game like Pac-man with 400,000 units sold and compare it to the best selling Pins like Adams Family with 20,000 sold or Playboy with 18,000 sold, and you can see that pins were never even close to the success of video games.

 

[DDXdesign]

anyone remember bad cats with the broom that hits the cat and spins it?

Oh yes! I can still hear the voice clip now (invariably muffled by bad sound hardware and/or loud arcade) where the woman goes 'Baaad Cats!' with what sounded to me like a tiny bit of a drawl.

 

[noeinstein]

i used to own a swinger machine back in the day. i LOVED pinball in the '70s, played all the machines up and down hollywood blvd, then they put in an arcade in west l.a. and i was a happy camper!

anyone remember bad cats with the broom that hits the cat and spins it?

Pinball Purr-Fection

 

[StayLow]

Awesome thread!

My fave tables:

Flash Gordon
High Speed
Black Knight

Incalculable amount of hours and quarters spent before I got to the point of playing hours on a quarter. Woe to any of the gawkers I'd attract if they stood in the wrong spot while watching. Physical players will understand that.

Once venues started putting tables too close together to properly slap them, and set the "tilt" too sensitive, much less charged 50c or $1.00, I was on to other things.

Plus the newer tables didn't respond well to the classic physical style of play I was into, and great at. Seems to me that the more modern designs took physicality, and virtually even the player, out of the mix.

IMO on a well-designed and adjusted table it should be impossible to lose a ball if you hit it hard enough, grasping the physics which can be counter intuitive (you're knocking the table out from under the ball not trying to influence the ball), and with proper timing.

 

[FerK]

My all-time favourite is without a doubt "No Fear: dangerous sports":

At 5 grand a pop, I don't know if I'll ever decide to get one. But it's still there in my bucket list.

 

[AndyPanda]

I bought a used Playboy machine back in about 1985 and repaired it (I'm an electronics geek). It was a great machine but when I moved to California in 2000 I didn't want to drag it across the country so I sold it to my neighbor for cheap! Now I'm kicking myself as it's probably pretty collectible now. This picture isn't mine - but mine was exactly like this one - my house is nothing like this though

 

[Yonni]

I’ve posted before about going into Andertons (Hayden Place shop) and playing pinball. It was either Joker Poker or a Bally caes based game, I can’t remember which. The my friends dads pub had Xenon, with a sexy voice saying “Try a tube shot”. That would have been in the mid 80s. Later it was the Terminator pinball in the 90s.

 

[BadJazz]

Here's some of my better scores:

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Got this last week:

 

[CarpeBasso]

Joker Poker and Gorgar in the late 70's early 80's when I was in college. Played every day.