My first question would be why? A properly setup BK with good flipper components, rubber, and proper leveling should not need such extreme measures. While there are some games that are, by bad design, underpowered and require some extra oomph, BK is not really one of them.

But this doesn't mean that the game was designed for 50v and not built into it. Had 50v flippers been made available, the game design would have changed.

Lets start with the easy Spudman

its Ritchie

Uh, no. Black Knight never had 50v flippers from Williams. While later System 7 games had 50v flippers, Williams didn't develop 50v flippers into a game until a year or two after Hyperball. BK was the first System 7 pin game (earlier BKs had Sys6 PS). After the failure of HB, Williams used the HB driver board and a secondary transformer to integrate 50v flippers. I beleive the first appearance in a production pin game was FirePower II (the board and transformer are listed in the manual) - but I'm not sure if these were introduced mid-run or not. No sys7 pin games between HB and FPII had the 50v flipper parts integrated from Williams.

BK was released at the end of 1980 - and finished its run by mid-1981. Hyperball was released at the end of 1981, and it wasn't until FPII in late 1983 that 50v flippers appeared.

Perhaps you can provide a source for this. While Steve RiTchie was coming up with great innovation, I have never heard of a gripe from either SR (who was at Williams about a year at this point) or Williams about lacking 50v flippers in BK - though there may have been a difference about getting them included in later sys7 as they weren't originally designed into the system. You seem to subscribe to a theory that the game was designed around them and they were somehow changed at the last minute...that the game was designed for 50V flippers and that Williams cut them leaving the design lacking. I can assure you this isn't how pins are developed - and it would be a really unnecessary fight for them to be in BK with the smaller pfs.

BTW, Williams intentionally made the flipper driver (c-9939) and transformer (C-9905) backwards compatible for sys 7 games - although there are some modifications supposedly required for older games. So congratulations for figuring out something that Williams designed.

I know the flipper mechs also changed at sometime during this period (coil stops breaking causing coils to move/short/torch), but didn't bother to do the research on these. It was at this time in your post that the paranoid rants appeared and I lost all interest.

yes, my bad - I should have figured in the lack of attentiveness along with lack of knowledge and common sense. Here goes - try to keep up

You have no idea what you're talking about (pins)
Your game may well go up in flames (along with babies)
you've lost touch with reality (bk for $3K)

There - and couple words to spare. You didn't lose focus during that, did you?

Now I feel like I have to go sell a pin to go buy a gun to protect against an armed spudman and his babies

yeah, I know

Now that you mention it, I can make all the ramps every time by simply rebuilding the flippers, adding new rubber, and leveling the machine so it plays as its intended. You've simply made the game less challenging. Think of it as training wheels - using mechanics to do what your lack of skill prohibits.

wow! really? I can simply refer you back to the 30 words in my last post for this one.