Hi JM owners! Happy to say I can join the club now! I just spent the weekend disassembling the glove and getting it all back together, and making numerous other adjustments to my JM. I'm enjoying the gameplay, but haven't made it to powerdown yet. I like how you can line up the balls for the jackpots according to what shots you are best at hitting if you want to play it that way.

My only complaint is that the playfield is dark. I'm really liking all the images here with the blue GI, so maybe I will be able to experiment a bit in that direction soon. I have added "make plastic robotic dolphin mod" to my list as well.

Oh, and if anyone finds the cab decal motherlode, I need them too.

Video mode grows on you. It's like Pacman's mentally disabled little brother. Too bad wave 4 seems impossible.

I made illustrator files of the three jet lane inserts for him, so for future reference, I've got them. CG, did you get them put on?

I hate to be the Debbie Downer on Midnight Madness, but I've started avoiding it! It almost always happens when I have multiball already going (though to be fair, the game does remember if you've got a ball or two in the matrix when madness starts, so it won't screw you out of multiball when it comes up later). It never helps my score and doesn't progress the modes either. I don't hate fun but I guess JM just makes me impatient to get the modes going and not die in the process!

My JM is still offline - should just be a day or two more. Repainted and redecaled, gearbox taken apart and lubed, LEDs in the matrix...ready to rip.

Not directly. However, completing a mode will light Crazy Bob's, and at then Crazy Bob's will give you an item (the first being Pemex Doubler). If you hit Crazy Bob's during powerdown you can "use" the items you've collected for more time in the powerdown meter on the DMD. That's how I understand it anyway, but powerdown is usually so fast and furious it's hard to tell sometimes.

If all you guys are missing that part maybe hit up Cliffy and see if he can make a run. I think he was planning on doing a Cliffy protector set for JM so maybe he could include it as an optional part. Just a thought.

But yeah, that part doesn't seem to be anywhere. Not even sure what to call it.

It's stock and mine has it as well. I agree that they probably just got lost when someone careless took off the center ramp. Which equates to quite a few careless folks, but it is an easy piece to forget to put back on and it's not super obvious where it goes unless you looked at it before you took it off.

Nah. Racking up ridiculous spinner millions is FUN, man!

Couple pics. Measures 2 5/8 inches (length of metal without the curve) by 15/16. Bracket on the back is 1/2 inch wide by 5/8 deep. The metal is noticeably thicker and more solid than what I've seen Cliffy use. Slightly rounded edges. Hope this helps. Good luck.

diverter1.jpg
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diverter4.jpg

Yeah, the diverter is somewhat important when you have the balls stacked up the left side because like you said, you're going to get at least a jackpot or two when those balls start bouncing around in the jet lanes...

Their construction should be exceedingly simple, I think.

Nightmare_Before_Christmas_Dr_F.jpg

Guess I'm sort of guilty of the "blue" look but I've been happy with it! I moved both the red domes down the bottom and did the slings and most of right side in red. Ramps and left side in blue. Pops in bright green.

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I've got a spare translite. It's not great, but it might be better than what you've got. It has quite a few areas of loss that someone repaired with a sharpie (which doesn't work so great, by the way), but it displays OK save for a mark up near the title. I can throw some pics up if you want to compare.

Hey other JM owners,

I was tired of my JM not having a promo plastic for the key and since they seem to be somewhat scarce I made some of my own. Apron logo on one side, Keanu's fat head on the other. Nothing fancy, but better than nothing. I've got four extras. PM me with your street address and I'll send you one!

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All keychains spoken for. Thanks guys and I hope they come in useful for you.

Damn.

Cool, glad they made it guys!

I don't know that it's a design flaw, just the way it comes out of the chute beneath the pops. It is sort of clumsy though. Mine acts predictably off the right sling 99% of the time, but the other 1% of the time the sling doesn't trigger and it will drain down the middle if you're not watching. You could tinker with the sling sensitivity a bit and it might make it feel better for you.

I'd also like to know what the light blinking in the matrix means. I always assumed that the blinking space was the last space that Crazy Bob's just "revealed," but could be wrong on that.

Yupe, it's an acquired skill, but one you do eventually acquire! If you're planning on having a good game you really do have to watch those and play the matrix well. If I'm just playing a quick game or not feeling patient that day I'll just drop it in where ever. The 50 gigabyte award is a pretty good one too as you'll need those extra gigabytes to make it to powerdown if you suck up the modes.

Cool! Will try this soon. I haven't gotten to powerdown for quite awhile. I think I'm loosing my skillz!

My glove's been acting up a bit. It's occasionally sluggish to move forward or backward when in matrix mode and failed the hand self test once when I checked it (though doesn't throw a credit dot), but moves fine in all automatic functions. Most of the time it's totally fine, just sometimes seems off which is annoying. I've checked everything I could think of it and it all seems OK, including the opto spinner on the screw. Johnny Demonic...

I'll try that. I haven't put any lube on the Y screw. Seems like it just ends up in the loop where it's impossible to clean! JM can build up an amazing amount of dirt everywhere.

Mine have some wear. But I've also got some wear on the drop into the glove kicker, so I figured when Cliffy comes up with some protectors maybe I'll bother messing with the diverters!

Nice work! Now about that melting Dolph Lundgren mod...

Once you start a mode the mode should light no matter how poorly you play it, even if you were to drain immediately after starting it (that's never happened to anyone, right? hah). So you don't have to complete it for it to light. It is important to play well on at least a few of the modes, however, since the better you play the more gigabytes will be awarded (320 required to get to powerdown). Completing a mode also lights Crazy Bob's for one of the special items which also can help you in powerdown.

So once you get all the modes lit AND provided you have 320 gigabytes, Powerdown is started the same way all the other modes are: hit Crazy Bob's and then up the middle. If you don't have 320 gigabytes, powerdown won't even be an option - it just won't let the mode start. At that point, you're kind of screwed as there are only a few ways to get more gigabytes (on the matrix, skill shots, throwing spikes, etc.) and none of them are easy in the heat of the moment.

I still find JM really difficult. After a dry spell I got to powerdown again last week but only after setting the replay to an extra ball and boosting the ball save to 10 seconds.

It's definitely a thrilling wizard mode to achieve without cheating. In the beginning I didn't have a tilt bob in my machine and that made things considerably easier With a new tilt bob back in it and the nudges set to 5, it's more of a challenge, but more rewarding. Still, days go by when I get absolutely no where on JM and just give up until it feels "right."

Ouch on the glass. The movie will not make it all better unless you combine it with copious amounts of alcohol. We expect a complete report on your newfound love for Keanu in the morning.

You gotta play video mode to get its extra ball. You just have to convince yourself that it's fun!

I'd be curious to know if anyone has gotten to level 4. I've been to level 3 plenty of times but it seems almost designed to be impossible.

It happens. A glitch, I guess.

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/jm-midnight-madness-glitch-12r

I think it looks fine inside. Your switch is intact and looks well aligned.

You could try taking the switch out entirely and see what happens. It might fix your problem (but will give you a credit dot). You can disconnect it completely or just mount it somewhere on the back of the glove assembly where it won't get nudged while you try it without it.

!!! Yeah, how many levels?

That's a loftier achievement than power down! Level 4 seems designed to not be beaten, but I can see that if everything was grouped together it might be possible. The best I've ever had in video mode is somewhere around 435 million.

The one addition to the backbox lighting that looks freaking rad is a color-changing LED in the slot right behind Keanu's head. It flashes, changes color and makes it looks like his brain might explode from that gigantic amount of data in there (uh, 320 gigabytes).

I had to dig my spinner out of there once because it broke, and had been broken before. All I remember is that it was a huge pita getting it in and out and I'm praying it never breaks again! You might try just fixing your's with some epoxy. They probably all break in similar places.

I've noticed drastic differences in the speed of the circle, but I always assumed that the DMD doing other things affected it. For example, the circle seems very slow if you get video mode during the mode where Johnny is wading through the crowd (spinner/right loop to pops, sorry I forget the mode name), and other modes seem to slow it down a bit too. I pretty much play the video mode moving only in diagonals though, so maybe that's slowing it down like you say.

Great work! I think maybe we used the same dolphin?

I've still got a spare dolphin if anyone else wants to try their hand at making their own Jones. It looks like I'm never going to get around to it.

This is REALLY good to know about. Thanks.

Thanks for doing the write-up. I know a lot of people will find it useful in the future and it's something several of us talked about doing, but of course were too lazy. I also learned the hard way on overtightening the lever nuts on the matrix. Ha.

Very interesting article on Johnny. I'd heard about the editing and directing mash-up before, but there's some other good stuff in there. In an odd way, the creators of the pinball machine also edited the movie to their liking... unless they were told very specifically not to include Dolph Lundgren's Jesus character (which is absent entirely from the pin) - an even more intriguing possibility. I've always thought they did an amazing job on the pin--almost made a terrible movie palatable. A for effort.

I laugh outloud EVERY time I hear that. "I don't know, fake Keanu! Who ARE all those people?"

They're not very extensive, but do show that the janky looking magnet clip on the glove is actually factory...

http://mirror2.ipdb.org/files/3683/Williams_1995_Johnny_Mnemonic_Manual_Addendum_1.pdf

http://mirror2.ipdb.org/files/3683/Williams_1995_Johnny_Mnemonic_Manual_Addendum_2.pdf