With System 7, Larry DeMar made it easy for programmers at Williams to use multiple independent timers. As a result System 7 games, beginning with Black Knight, implement many timed features, such as timed shots, drop-target banks, lights with different blinking rates, etc.

I have two questions for those of you familiar with early SS and EM pinball games:

1) Can you think of any timed shots or other timed features in pinball games before Black Knight (1980)?

2) Can you think of any use of a "grace period" --- when an award is given after the corresponding indicator lamp has already gone off --- in any pinball game before Jungle Lord (1981)?

Any other comments appreciated as well.

Most excellent, thank you both.

By the sounds of it Travel Time has timed play like Safe Cracker. I'd like to play that game sometime.

I have not played Flash or Scorpion, either, but by the sounds of it, the timed shots in Flash are exactly what I am looking for. So now I am looking for a game with timed shots before Flash

But Scorpion is very interesting, too, as it is the game that Larry was programming before Black Knight. I wonder whether this is what inspired him to come up with System 7.

At the moment I am bobbing around on a research ship off Antarctica --- 60:38S and 34:55W to be exact --- but my home is in NYC.

You sure you want to spend 7 weeks at sea, working 12-hours plus a day, without pinball games, slow Internet and no bar? It used to be quite easy to bring enthusiastic volunteers along to help but, unfortunately, that is no longer the case.

Cool! I may well take you up on your offer once I have settled back into life on land. And I have a couple of early 80s machines should you ever find yourself in LIC with nothing better to do.