Trachy's Pinball Story

It was during the summer of 1986 that I developed a love of pinball. I was 16 and a ride operator at an amusement park in Utah called, Lagoon. They had a massive arcade filled with virtually every pinball machine made from the '70s to 1986. I would spend my breaks in the arcade playing these machines, and I would almost always find a few machines with credits that either the previous player didn't wish to play or escaped their notice. I don't know why, but the Bally's Space Invaders machine always seemed to have one or more credits, so I played that machine ad nauseam. This machine is now in my collection for nostalgia reasons.

A couple of years later I worked at an Aladdin's Castle in Layton, Utah, and it had two pinball machines, Williams' F-14 Tomcat and Pinbot. God, I loved those machines! This is where I learned how to repair pinball machines (e.g., rebuilting flippers, replacing coils and leaky diodes, and basic repairs on the System 11 circuit boards). Both of these games are now in my collection, and I love repairing/restoring them as much as I do playing them!

Finally, during my college days, I would play the Williams' Cyclone almost daily at Weber State's campus arcade. I would walk by and see what the jackpot was for the day. Heck, if it was at 3 million or higher, I would play the machine immediately even though I would be late for class because of it. The Cyclone is fourth and last machine in my collection.