Not wanting to resurrect an old thread just to ask this, but does anyone else’s memory not jive with dates in IPDB? Not that I am disputing one over another, however, there are titles when I look at the dates, and my memory puts these pinball machines in establishments around my childhood home at times that are months ahead of the IPDB date of manufacture and are more between the project start date and manufacturing date.

So my question is, how soon after a project start date did sample games start shipping out? I can give you an example of a date and the reason I remember the machine BEFORE the Date of manufacture. Bally Xenon. Date of Manufacture November of 80. This pin was in Beaver-Vu Bowling alley during my senior high school bowling league in 1979-1980, and we used to play it before, during, and after league. I joined the US Navy in August of 1980 and shipped out to Chicago. So I know I was playing it before November, in Beavercreek, Ohio, and for some time too, like months before.

I think I lived in a pinball nirvana growing up near Dayton, Ohio. We probably played a lot of pinball on new sample games and didn’t even know it at the time. Truth be told, I think the operator for some of our old arcade hangouts was Mike Pacak, but I have never asked him to be certain. One thing was for cetain, at the time in 77-80, Dayton was a great flipping place to live.

This is a lot of remembering to consider it at fault if it is. One does not easily forget the weekly barage of “Ooos” and “Ahhs” and “Welcome to Xenon” or “Try tube shot” or your first multiball experience on a modern SS Bally, especially a hyper sexualized 17 year old high school student who saw people having sex in everything except a mirror.