Olympia, WA
I'd rather have a Fireball XL5 or Supercar pinball. I hated Thunderbirds when I grew up in the sixties.
(Topic ID: 55216)
Linked Games
Thunderbirds
Homepin, 2018
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Quoted from Pinchroma:We will probably end up seeing a knockoff version of it on alibaba.
LOL. It's probably in production right now.
Quoted from Homepin:I have almost decided that I will not make this machine available to the USA market. I may not even include an option for 110V.
The USA was never an intended market. There are 200 other countries..............
Have fun in the USA living in your sheltered world.
I'm busy now - taking the "post to the USA" option off my website for boards I make because I don't think I will sell them to anyone in the US anymore - ByeBye.
Yes, I am taking my bat and ball and going home (if any of you actually understand that).
This sounds more like Wayno.
Quoted from frolic:I don't understand this at all... all of this could have been avoided with:
"Whether or not you know the license, the pinball is going to be amazing. Can't wait to show you!"
Except for one thing: we are lowly Americans.
Quoted from AkumaZeto:His latest rant.
Boy he's really turning into a real piece of work.
Quoted from DCFAN:Patents expiring could lead to better pinball machines.
Innovation and originality could lead to better pinball machines too. 
Quoted from Sunfox:Yeah, looks like it expired a couple weeks ago.
I wonder if there's like a 30 day grace period for renewal?
Quoted from DCFAN:Most of the Williams patents either have expired or are going to expire in the next 12 months or so.
PPS has very little in terms of the 90's pinball patents to hang their hats on anymore.
If that is the case, then perhaps someone should make a list of what has expired and is now public domain. This would help those who could develop new products/hardware for pinball machines.
Naturally any new products would be sure NOT to include any Williams logos, trademarks, or copyrighted works.
Quoted from PPS:Hans ... as far as Patents go, the patents that are assigned to us are OURS, not WMS, that is how patents work. IPB has a few patents and we have a bunch of patents. It is our responsibility to take care of our patents and usually try to work something out, flipper opto board are an active patent that costs thousands of $ to maintain ... I believe it's US Patent #5357104 that is the flipper opto patent. It's always helpful to put stuff in the public record ... lol
Anyways for those who have dealt with us, it's usually pretty easy to get things going (usually) unless it's something we are making or requires 3rd party license, etc ... there is alot of stuff that has been coming out from many different suppliers ... doesn't matter even whether there has been some 'bad' blood before as well as there are several where things did not start out so good and now are helping bring out parts approved thru the license.
rick
According to this website, the flipper opto patent is still in force:
1 week later
Quoted from Crash:Post the forum links please, and can you get that thread from AussiePinball? Can't see it without having an account. The entertainment continues.
Yes, please do so. I think we all would like to see what was said.
6 months later
1 year later
Well let's see now, two years have elapsed and not a single Thunderbirds machine has rolled off a production line. Seems they are still designing parts like spoon switches, leaf switches, pop bumper assemblies, side rails, legs, etc.
Why do they feel they need to re-invent the wheel when they can buy most all of their parts off the shelf from the main pinball parts distributors? Why do they a carbon copy of a Data East pop bumper assembly? Why do they need to make their own metal pop bumper yokes? Why don't they just buy plain old Williams pinball legs?
If they would have purchased off the shelf parts, the machine would have probably already been rolling off the production line.
Quoted from dmbjunky:Where would you buy off the shelf parts?
Pinball Life, Marco Specialties, Planetary, Pinball Resource, Bay Area, etc.
Quoted from extraballingtmc:I wonder if this thing will ever see the light of day?
I'm gonna say no.
I agree. Even a comment on his facebook page got a "Who Knows?" response.
Quoted from solarvalue:Ok, so he's late. Pretty much everyone who's started a pinball company recently has given an expected release date and they have all been way off - JJP, Heighway, Dutch Pinball, Multimorphic are all well behind schedule. I'm pretty sure several of these companies have also claimed that they would be different. I guess it's very hard to know how difficult it is going to be to start a pinball company before you do it.
I'm still very excited to see what Homepin comes up with, whenever it happens. It's a new pinball company after all and Mike certainly is doing a lot differently, such as basing his operations in China and making all his own parts. It's great to have diversity in the pinball market, it means that consumers have options and pinball is more likely to survive.
Jersey Jack, Heighway, Spooky, etc did not feel the need to manufacture everything in China. They used domestically available parts and labor to build their machines.
Why did HomePin decide to move all operations and production to China? He's depriving local Australian workers of jobs within Australia of building the machines.
3 months later
The homepin website has been giving me this error message the past several days:
509
Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to bandwidth limit has been reached for this site. Please try again later.
Quoted from wiredoug:Curious what made you post it publicly? fun setting the peanut gallery off ?
wouldnt it be more decent to just send the bloke a message to tell him?
I had been experiencing the 509 error for several days. I do not have any contact information for that company. I thought that somebody would relay the message to him that his website was down. That is why I posted.
Quoted from hawkmoon:When I was a youngster, this was called Super Car!!Thunderbirds came later I think! O-DIN do you remember SuperCar??
Super Car came out in 1961 and was filmed in black & white. Next came Fireball XL5 in 1962 (also in black & white). Both distributed by ITC (Independent Television Corporation). I loved both of those shows. ITC also distributed such famous British shows such as The Saint (starring Roger Moore) and The Avengers (starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg).
Quoted from rosh:It did air in the US, I remember watching it as a kid back in the late 60s, early 70s. Probably only aired in cities with more than three TV stations, since it was likely only on independent stations not network affiliates. The new series is available on amazon prime but it does not quite have the same feel, since it is animated and not puppets like it was back in the day. It also looks like the first episode of the original series is on amazon prime (with commercials).
Yes it was a British tv series, but it definitely was distributed in the USA, mostly to independent tv stations. In those days, this program, even though filmed in 35mm, was distributed to most stations on the smaller, easier to store & project 16mm film. A lot of those stations used Bell & Howell or Eastman Kodak or RCA telecine 16mm projectors. The last time I can remember any of the Gerry Anderson puppet shows being run in my area was 1975. Then, all of a sudden, those shows seemed to vanish from the airwaves here.
4 months later
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