The Ultimate Guide to Pinball

http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/now/pop-stuff/213447-the-ultimate-guide-to-pinball

by Mclhuman • 11 years ago

47 22 11 years ago

rajatrocks• 11 years ago

There's a great documentary by Greg Maletic called "Tilt: The Battle to Save Pinball" - http://www.tilt-movie.com/ - highly recommended, and it blows my mind that he made the whole thing himself.

majke• 11 years ago

If you want to see a fun game: https://youtu.be/9GGbCLWZIfk?t=21735

raintrees• 11 years ago

I feel fortunate, in that I traded 8 hours of software authoring for a 1971 Bally Sea Ray machine. The client was using it as a paper goods storage surface.

I brought it home, repaired the power cord, and played. It was so-so. I then started researching, found a trove of data on restoring/repairing, learned to be careful of the back panel art as well as the right kind of wax for the playing surface, and much more.

I also found companies offering replacement rubber kits, as well as spare bulbs, springs, etc. Armed with that and a repair manual, I went through the machine, taking all of the play field apart (after photos), waxed the play field surface, carefully cleaned the parts, put them all back together, replacing burnt bulbs, broken springs, and so on. There was also a lot of cleaning of copper contact points, as well as removal of oxide from the solenoid shafts and housings (some 20 or 30 of them).

New rubber _completely_ changed the dynamics - What a blast! The ball was suddenly flying around, sometimes even hitting the glass top.

It is all solenoids and relays, with one main motor that controls timing. When the ball contacts a target, it has a conducting back surface that comes into contact with another vertical contact situated right behind each target - This completed circuit energizes a specific relay, "saving" the state that the target was hit for the next subsequent rotation of the controlling motor. Without this "save" the target hitting occurs far too rapidly to be caught by the electro-mechanical machine to be scored.

The motor steps/rotates one step with each registered score (or multiple scores, again due to timing), with the appropriate "score" going to either a 10 point mechanical wheel or a 100 point wheel and each energized relay de-energized (re-armed, as it were). The motor shaft also has several (6?) discs with raised tabs at strategic places on the edge that are "read" by micro-switch followers to control various parts of the scoring electronics. The score wheel rims are labeled with the score digits, rotating like an older odometer (or gasoline pump display) with the current status (points, games remaining).

All the smaller targets hit also serve to rotate an axle that has some 20 or so copper wipers that may or may not come into contact with a random assortment of contacts laid out on a circuit board - This completes the circuit and lights up the next "randomly" lit target(s) (imagine your hand with fingers out-stretched rotating around the center of your palm with the tips of the fingers touching on a surface that may have contact points and you get the idea).

I also re-enabled the tilt-mechanism - A plumb-bob-type affair suspended within a conducting frame - Move the machine too much and another circuit is completed from the plumb-bob touching the frame, through to the tilt-circuit.

After all of that work, rather than fit an opaque back to the back box (the original was missing), I used a sheet of Plexiglas - You can see electricity arcing during operation with the room lights turned down.

Lots of fun, time to clean it again.

joshschreuder• 11 years ago

It's mentioned in the article, but if you're in NYC, take a trip down to Modern Pinball (http://www.modernpinballnyc.com/).

I'm no aficionado, but paying $12 for unlimited play on around 20-30 machines for an hour was a no brainer, even just to see the difference in mechanics and design between modern day and old machines.

pstuart• 11 years ago

And if you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, check out the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda (http://pacificpinball.org/). Even more machines for a couple bucks more, and as a museum it has machines that go all the way back to the beginning of the game.

mmetzger2• 11 years ago

If in Austin, check out Pinballz Arcade - easily more high end pinball machines than you'll find most anywhere.

bane• 11 years ago

Kind of surprised it didn't really talk about the modern pinball "emulation" scene.

Here's an example of a custom build https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4hP9RipKg0

And some software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Pinball

CocaKoala2• 11 years ago

What are the physics like for that? Does it feel like the real thing? I've tried some pinball games on steam and they always feel "floaty", for lack of a better term. Building a pinball emulator sounds like a fun project, but only if the experience is pretty faithful to the original.

mmetzger2• 11 years ago

The article isn't really covering the modern pinball scene. While Stern is definitely the major manufacturer in play, Jersey Jack is growing and there are several more boutique manufacturers including:

Multimorphic - Offers the P3 pinball system integrating a full LCD panel with motion tracking into the playfield (as opposed to the backbox like JJ.) They also offer the P-ROC which allows replacing the CPU (a 6809/ASIC combo!) with a Spartan3 system allowing you to reprogram the rules on most 90's+ games.

Spooky Pinball - Ben Heck designed the America's Most Haunted machine, an "unlicensed" theme that is quite fun to play. I believe the first run was for 150 machines, with the next title to be announced in the near future.

Heighway Pinball - Manufacturer out of England with one title in production (Full Throttle, a motorbike theme) and are working on a licensed Alien themed pin.

There are a couple others including current and former game designers working on their own or with one of the manufacturers. This also says nothing of the pinball modding community, custom one-off games, etc.

EDIT: Completely forgot Planetary Pinball who is remaking late 90's pinball machines with modern electronics. First machine is Medieval Madness and is shipping now.

joezydeco2• 11 years ago

I'm curious if Planetary ever resolved their licensing issues and how they did it.

The prototypes they once showed were using MAME running on a Beaglebone Black to emulate the old Williams hardware.

jgeorge2• 11 years ago

Planetary's Medieval Madness remake does indeed use a BBB as a core CPU, connected to a driver board. I don't know exactly what it emulates, if it's emulating the original CPU or it's new code (I presume some emulation layer).

nasalgoat• 11 years ago

I've been collecting pinball machines for nearly 20 years now and the recent resurgence in popularity has really breathed new life into the industry.

It was a dark time for pinball after WMS closed their pinball division in 1999, leaving second place Stern alone in the market, at a time when their quality was nowhere near what WMS was doing at the time.

Now there's a new breed of collectors who exclusively buy brand new Sterns and add all kinds of modifications to "bling" them out, and the cost of the nearly-20-year-old WMS games has skyrocketed.

Pinball has never been stronger.

dasil003• 11 years ago

The only thing is that you have to seek out good machines these days, and there are relatively few in public unless you know where to look. I got into pinball in junior high right when TAF came out. At that time I could randomly walk into any movie theater, bar, or video arcade and find new pinball machines. These days when you find a random pinball machine, it's either a new Stern (rare) or it's run down to the point that you can't even play it seriously.

I wish I had space to start a collection, but even if I did I would the casual competitiveness of the golden age. No one gives a shit about your high score on your home machine, but the time I got Lost in the Zone twice and scored 6B on the TZ in a bar in London (The Pipeline FWIW), that turned a few heads.

jaredhansen• 11 years ago

Slightly offtopic since not really about the article, but if you're even a little bit into pinball and you live anywhere near the Bay Area, you owe it to yourself to check out the Pacific Pinball Museum[1] in Alameda.

$15 for an all-access pass to over 100 machines, all on free play -- you can get lost in there (and I have). It's awesome.

[1] http://pacificpinball.org/visit

pkaye• 11 years ago

Does it get crowded playing?

pkteison2• 11 years ago

Sure, it can get crowded on the weekends. Still totally worth it, worst case you wait for the guy in front of you to finish the game you want to play.

pkteison2• 11 years ago

Also if you like Pinball and are near the bay area, come to California Extreme July 18-19th. It's fantastic, hundreds of pinball games and classic arcade games for one glorious weekend each year in Santa Clara. http://www.caextreme.org

CocaKoala2• 11 years ago

California Extreme is awesome; my wife and I went last year, and were heartbroken when we realized we wouldn't be able to attend this year. We're going to mark it in our calendars to make sure we don't book a trip for that weekend in the future because it's a really great experience.

sparkzilla• 11 years ago

I highly recommend buying an old pinball machine and refurbishing it yourself. You'll learn a ton about how these great machines work. I got an old Creature From the Black Lagoon (1993) [1] and stripped down and rebuilt all of the playfield and the cabinet. There's lots of info on the web about how to fix them, and many companies sell spare parts.

[1]http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=588

circuitslave• 11 years ago

I second this - and am happy to see an ipdb.org link - there is a ton of information there. I picked up an old Xenon - http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?gid=2821 - worked it over with guides online and it still runs great 10 years later. If I had the room I'd have more!

jgeorge2• 11 years ago

Thirded. One of the most satisfying restorations we've ever done was a sand-it-down-to-the-wood repaint/restore of a Space Shuttle. There's an extra level of satisfaction to play a machine where every screw, bolt, wire, and switch is something that you personally put in place.

The Ultimate Guide to Pinball

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