This question again - I thought we covered this already?

The first thread I saw:
http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-many-balls-do-you-play-with

...and the second one:
http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/3-ballsgame-vs-5-ballsgame-for-1980s-era

I'm old enough to remember when the standard was 5 balls (up to the early 80's). When they started to switch to 3 balls PLUS charging $0.50 instead of $.0.25 - well I thought that was highway robbery. I'm old-school and play with 5. Keep in mind, I have two machines from '79, one from '80 and one from '86....I think these older machines were intended to play as 5 ball games.