I know I've seen this talked about, and I've seen links to a page on BMI Gaming's web site about pinball milestones, but there were three in particular that I didn't see on their list, that I believe to be seminal moments in pinball history. These are:

- The Extra Ball - And more specifically that amber color that seems to be associated with Extra ball across pinball manufacturers.

- Wire Flipper Return lanes - almost ALL games now-a-days have these standard return lanes on either side of the flippers. This created a whole sub-game almost, where when the ball gets there, the player has to be careful to nudge the ball hard enough to get in the return lane, but not hard enough to bounce to the outlane. Or Tilt!!

- End of Ball Bonus - I'm not sure which game had the first End of Ball Bonus, complete with multipliers - some early EM games had Double Bonus, creating that distinct noise that EM games make when they count down Double Bonus, the "Ding-Ding, Ding-Ding, Ding-Ding.."

I've a couple others, but I cannot think of them at the moment.

Another question, which I guess is a first, but more like a one and only probably! How many pinball games were made that had a mirror reflecting the playfield back to the user? I've seen the mirror used in several other types of games, Rifle shooting Games, and baseball type "bat" games, and maybe a crane game or something, but I remember playing a williams game when I was a kid that had the mirror setup. It felt very odd playing this game in this way. It's a similar feeling to when you are playing Haunted House (and black hole too I guess) and you go down to the lower level, it just feels backwards. Maybe because it is! But I also think the angle of that table might be a little different. I had set Honey up with the back end jacked WAAY up, so the inclination on the table was MUCH steeper than normal. I found the gameplay very similar to the Haunted House second level.

Maybe YOU can think of some unusual pinball firsts? Things that are taken for granted now on pins, that before it's introduction, people lived happily without!

Thanks all you Pinheads out there!!!

Peace.

-dp

Cactus, that was awesome!!

I'm curious if you had to look any of that up, or if it just came from the top of your head.

I looked up the Italian Bottom thing, and found a blurb talking about how guys would hold the ball on the flipper, take a drink of beer, and explain the skill shot they were about to make.

Heh.

-Brian