I just finished reading all 61 pages of this thread. Some great photos and advice and stories, thanks everyone who contributed.

Hopefully I can contribute to it before too long. Still sorting out what I'm looking for to get my feet wet, but right now Abra Ca Dabra and Centigrade 37 are probably at the top of my list. Have an offer for the ACD, I'm starting to realize I'm going to have to let go of my aversion to shipping games if I want to be picky about titles.

We should talk more about Abra.

I'm a total EM newb, and I haven't played one yet, so I see the really simple symmetrical playfield and it's hard to imagine it has enough to do. Then I see C37's layout and think there's more to it. I suspect that's my newbness speaking.

Oh that's perfect, thanks!

I just love the era-appropriate fantasy themed art. If everyone said "looks great, game sucks" I'd probably sadly reconsider, but that's the draw for me. There just aren't a lot of classic EM games with that kind of art, more the realm of the solid states that followed. And that's a whole different thing really.

Rob are those LEDs in that game?

My DMD games are 100% LED. Not sure I'd put them in an EM, I kind of dig the original feel. Part of the charm of the games to me is the clack of the reels, the chiming, and the flicker and glow of the incandescents.

But I'm no LED hater obviously. You should check out the sunlight bulbs from Comet, they're pretty sweet. Warm without being overly yellow, they'd be great in something like an EM, maybe in the fluted bulbs.

Nah, warm yellow LEDs don't look anything like incandescents to me. No LED does. So if I'm doing LEDs it's because I want the advantages of LEDs, not because I'm trying to mimic anything. The sunlight bulbs are great because they're going to pop the artwork and colors of plastics nicely, they're way more white and will brighten the game, but they're not quite so harsh white like cool bulbs (which I normally like in most DMD games) so it matches the tone of the EM better.

Anyways, if you make a Comet order get a handful, check them out, they're a pretty nice color.

Pretty sure vid has a thread on how to restore her.

I have a macro I use occasionally with my Ti3, but honestly they're tricky lenses to use because the depth of field is just so shallow. The Canon 50mm prime is one of the best bang for the buck lenses out there, no question.

I was born in '77, so this Abra Ca Dabra is my first pin I've owned that's actually older than me.

I'll take more pics of it after I get my replacement Webb backglass. Should have it all up and running smoother by then. Need to find the time to pull the apron and paint it so I can get this decal on it too, that with the Webb glass and the new plastics I still need to install should have it looking nice.

I put Comet Ice Blue LEDs in my coin inserts on Abra Ca Dabra. The subtle blue doesn't blow them out, looks natural. Less heat in the front area now too. I don't want to use LEDs in visible spots, like the GI, but I'm not a purist either.

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Not pictured, the Solar City we just removed from the left of Palooka.

Good to see you man, we had a great time!

Time to hunt down some 31" legs!

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Yup! Probably going to stay with two. If I find one of my more desirable wedgeheads I'll swap it in for Sky Jump. These are in my office next to my desk, solid states are in the garage, and it will probably stay solid state.

Yeah, exactly. It's a cool game, nice little ruleset, solid title, but not something I have any real emotional attachment to or anything.

I dunno, it seems like a bit of a sleeper, at least 2 people have already listed it in their top 5 single player EMs. I'm enjoying it.

I think there's a segment of time where Pinside lost some photos. Nothing to be done about it, just keep paging past them until you get back to where they're fixed.

They make EMs without drop targets?

I'm enjoying the one I picked up last week. Since Free Fall is the AAB I'm assuming that hours of play was a single game.

I loved the variety in your collection. A row of wedgeheads looks so nice, love that too, but I prefer being able to switch things up based on mood. My solid states are the same way, mix of eras.

Happy new year EM folk!

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Aww. 19 is a good run though. These aren't purebreds, we rescued them as 6-8 week old kittens from under our house.

Took them a while to adjust to the EMs in my office. Every time the dual drops on Abra Ca Dabra would reset they'd go running.

Welp you got the very vocal part right at least. They've both bonded to me pretty hard since I weaned them and work from home and am around all the time. When I go on business trips they wander around the house looking for me, they follow me from room to room meowing for attention.

The mother was all grey, the father I don't know, but I suspect he was a black masked/socked siamese a bit like the one on the left that I've seen around. She was a stray and we caught her moving her litter under our house. When we judged the kittens were old enough we trapped her (I took her to the vet and had her spayed before we released her again) and got the kittens. Which makes it sound easy, and not an all day ordeal involving breaking holes in our walls to pull them out!

Burmese can be all grey right? You could be totally dead on.

Hit the Deck is such an odd beast, it's so strange to see the score reels moving with their fake segmented LEDs.