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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: June, 2015
Jun 30, 2015

Dancing Dolls was a game produced by Gottlieb in 1960.  It is a woodrail, has lighted scoring, and has a unique backglass animation.

Beyond the cool animation, the game has multiple pop bumpers, slings, rollovers, 2" flippers and some standup targets.  Quite a bit to do, and the animation is incredibly neat.

Jun 29, 2015

Brent Amrhein is a friend of mine, younger than me, and I have successfully convinced him to play as much pinball as possible.

Based in Atlanta, he went to the Southern Fried Gameroom Expo, and I ask him what he thinks of the various machines and the show in general.

There is some Solid State talk in this one, as Brent is rather new to pinball.  

He was able to play some classic EMs at the show, so I ask him questions about the various machines.

One day you'll beat that Egghead!

Jun 28, 2015

Need to know how to take basic care of your coils, listen here!

If you need to replace a coil - contact the Pinball Resource or John's Jukes to get the appropriate replacement.

They both carry various sizes of coils, stops, sleeves, etc.

Jun 27, 2015

Short one tonight - a bit of feedback had me check out a song available on Youtube - Lonnie Irving's 1960 song Pinball Machine discusses the evils of bingo pinball playing.

Jun 26, 2015

Replacing a broken switch is something that you'll have to do sooner or later.  It's relatively simple, but keep track of the spacers and the order in case you have to reassemble from scratch.

Jun 25, 2015

Phil Bogema attended the Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown earlier this month, and he reports on some of the games he played and enjoyed, and the overall EM availability.

He also responded to my show on slot machines a few days after that, and I've taken the liberty of posting both anecdotes here.

Vic Camp also posted a correction about my episode on Exhibit's Treasure Chest.

Jun 24, 2015

If you are curious on how my backglasses were created to replace the broken/messed up backglasses for my 1947 Exhibit Mystery and my 1937 Genco Junior, keep reading!

The files are made using the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), a free and open source raster image editor.

These are the source images, and may not have been the final that were sent to the printer.  

The main thing about my process is that I reprint the viewable image again in reverse for the masking side.  I also worked with the printer to find a way to print on a single piece of vinyl, which should resist fading and wear.  

Each of these backglasses was color corrected from photos on IPDB and my own remaining glasses by taking an average sample of each color from various areas on the glass and reviewing the images on IPDB.

They are not perfect, by any means, but they turned out quite well compared to the bare sheets of broken glass that were in each game previously.

 

Mystery Files: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3y5aqhk3j5k4idf/AAA2RaEm2h96Yd4K2jG04yPJa?dl=0

 

Junior Files: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/20lzdhyn08noyhl/AAAU6CkAaqBamiWqIm56qSw6a?dl=0

 

I don't know if this will help anyone, but here you go!

Jun 24, 2015

Here's an interesting game: Chicago Coin, a manufacturer with a terrible reputation (that I have not been able to fathom), created this game that automatically sensed a special 'golden ball' for double scoring.

This is fascinating for a couple of reasons:

1) There are no special mechanisms that I can see to sense the gold ball from the IPDB photos

2) It used a credit projection unit, which, though common for the time in Gottlieb games, was unusual to find in other games.

The game has gorgeous Roy Parker artwork as well.

Jun 23, 2015

1947 was an interesting year for innovation in pinball. America was out of World War II, manufacturing was brought back to bear on amusement devices.

Exhibit came out with an interesting game called Treasure Chest, which contianed a player-controlled magnet!  This used a flipper button on the side of the cab to turn the magnet off an on to (potentially) achieve higher scores.

Years and years before such magnets would make a resurgence in solid state games in the 80s, Exhibit put one at the bottom middle of the playfield.

Interesting artwork, good use of the theme (dive down and back with the treasure to score up to 30 replays!), and of course, the magnet make this a really neat game.

Jun 22, 2015

I worked on a Satin Doll the other day, which is a 2 player EM, built in 1975.

I've never played one previously, and had never thought much of the layout.  Once I saw the way the ball interacted with the various elements, I was sold.  What a fun game! 

A lesson that appearances can be deceiving!

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