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For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast

Detailing EM and Bingo pinball features, gameplay, and repair techniques.
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Now displaying: 2016
Mar 3, 2016

Galaxy and other Sega games used several interesting mechanisms:

Slings that work via pressure from the ball hitting a large piece of plastic instead of ganged switches, and pop bumpers that are a single piece of plastic rather than using a rod and ring assembly.  On top of that, Galaxy has an under-playfield magnet that will move the ball from left to right, similar to the Mist ball on Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Neat stuff!

http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=979

Gameplay video:

https://youtu.be/bBFtqw0rKpY

Mar 2, 2016

Freedom is a fun game from the bicentennial.  Bally's take has some more interesting artwork and a fun ruleset.

This was one of the changeover games that was made in both EM and solid state versions.

The early production had 1776 and 1976 on the backglass, but operators asked that this be removed as it would make the machine 'dated'.  Kind of funny for a game themed on the bicentennial.

http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=952

Mar 1, 2016

Spirit of '76 came in three flavors:

The four player was Spirit of '76.

The two player version was Pioneer

and the add-a-ball version was New York.

 

Spirit of '76 is all about increasing your bonus, but the player can double the bonus on each ball, earn extra balls or replays by completing the A-E sequence, hitting all 8 drop targets and landing in the kickout hole.

Fun game!

http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2293

 

Chicago Coin Rapid Transit Restoration:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/1935-chicago-coin-rapid-transit-early-ramp-game

 

Ryan Claytor's Latest Pinball Artwork:

Pinball at the Zoo:

http://www.elephanteater.com/11721/2016-pinball-at-the-zoo-poster-and-t-shirt

Stern pinball shirt:

http://costore.com/sternpinball/productenlarged.asp?ProductId=5516824

Feb 29, 2016

My interviewee tonight is Chris Dade, a man who has done quite a bit for the bingo hobby!

He has scanned, touched up, and reproduced many of the Bally bingo backglasses, as well as several of the bingo playfields.

He also started the Bally Bingos in Britain forums, located at http://ballybingo.fff.yuku.com/ - this is an excellent resource, with many clever people providing help and information.  It also gives a neat window into the UK bingo scene for us folks in the US!

Take a moment and look over Chris' collection at http://www.ballybingo.co.uk/index1.html - click 'My Machines' to see his beauties.

He also has some great stories and other information on his website.  He notes that whereas in the US, 20 replays would be a dollar, to earn a pound, you needed 80 replays!  That's quite a jump!

Thank you to Chris for his patience and time answering my questions.

Feb 28, 2016

My 1947 Mystery started blowing fuses - it was time to pull it out from the wall and troubleshoot.  Here's the story of how I corrected the issues and what went wrong.

Feb 27, 2016

Nags is a unique game from Williams with two interesting features - 

It is one of a small handful of horse racing themed games that Williams made with a horse racing unit with six horses that can move independently along a track, until one finishes.

This game is also the only game from the 'big three' manufacturers that had a rotating platter of six pop bumpers.  Each bumper hit would advance one horse toward the prize.

25 cents on 'Stinky' for me!

http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1654

Feb 26, 2016

Bally bingos made after 1960 had multiple tilt states - a 'hard' state, from which the game could not be revived without additional money or credits, and a 'soft' state or 'sleeping' state that would allow the player to revive the game by pressing the 'R' button, or playing for extra balls.

Feb 25, 2016

A unique mechanism in later Bally bingos, the auto-mission coin divider allowed operators to automatically set aside a portion of the game earnings in a special cashbox for the bar owner.

Feb 24, 2016

What if the game you purchased accepted nickels from the factory, but you want to put it on route and collect quarters to match other games that you may have in various locations?

You have to add extra switches or change adjustments to accept the new denomination.

If you wish to just do a one-for-one coin exchange, you just change out the coin mech, but if you want to provide some extra value for higher denominations, you have to add additional circuitry.  This gets more complex in Bally bingos, since you have multiple systems that are already working together in the start circuit.

Feb 23, 2016

Moon Shot is a neat game with a unique set of ball return gates (shaped like metal flipper bats) on the left and right outlanes.

The layout looks like a skilled player can really rack up points easily by running up the rocket values to 500 points and collecting.

Extra balls, two separate bonus steppers and cool Christian Marche artwork complete the package.

 

http://ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1628

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