Possibly Addams Family? I know it has the Quick Multi-Ball on the Mansion.

Also, The Thing Flips feature is the first CPU controlled flipper with dynamic calibration such that it 'learned' from the misses.

One of my fave games of all time.

Chicago Cubs "Triple Play", Premier, 1985. High Speed was the first Williams with this feature.

Centaur, 1981?

Spring Break, 1987?

Guessing again, but having fun looking for the answers and learning a lot in the process....

This list is great, but there seems to be a glaring omission from the lists of first, and that is 'first game'... i.e. first CPU controlled, production pinball machine. Can this be added to the list? I don't know the answer though, but would be interested to know what it is! Maybe the first Gottieb system1 (Cleopatra, Nov '77)?

What would also be very intersting (to me at least) is the addition of some key lasts... i.e. last non-speaking pinball, last non-alph-numeric display, last single ball game, last screen printed backglass (Champion Pub probably!)...

The three way and four way combo on TAF is one of the best out there.

Incorrect, Elektra sorru

Quoted from Blakesell:

DrAzzy said:Earliest non-steel ball - did anyone experiment with this before TZ?
I'm sure Hercules and Bigfoot would probably count as a non steel ball with that pool cue.

A lot of very early pinball games used marbles and non-steel balls.

First photografic, non drawing, backglass? Raven was 5 months before Genesis

First electro magnet affecting the ball in general? Gorgar had this before Black Knight

First CPU controlled pingame? I've also seen the Coffee-Mat “Wipe Out”, and one was sold locally here about a year ago. IIRC it was 1975

First mechanical sound source (non knocker)? WAY earlier than Gold Wings on this one. Hot Tip had a chime box, like EM games, back in 1977. Also had a blank score reel just for the purpose of sounds, it was hidden down in the cabinet.

I've got another one.

First "last chance" ball saver on drain.... Black Knight in 1980 had that.

First 2-ball multiball may have been Scorpion in 1980

First under playfield, playfield? According to IPDB, Black Hole was October '81, Elektra was December '81

First mechanical, non CPU controlled, lane alternator or similar? Bride of Pinbot had this in the head unit, for indexing the eye locks in the 2nd face. 1991

-Hans

Not just the magna-saves, black knight also has a "last chance" feature on the outlanes too. On the last ball if you get a ball locked in the upper trough, the "last chance" inserts on the outlanes turn on.

If a ball drains in the outlanes, it will give you back the locked ball(s) in the upper trough, but then you can no longer lock any balls for multiball unless you get an extra ball.

-Hans

Don't forget:

1st LCD on Backglass

Yep. That would be "New Canasta" by Marsaplay.

First 5 combo....

My best guess is Stargate, possibly?

Doublepost, whoops, I didn't see it on there but first drop targets I think were on Vagabond by Williams in 1962.

nope, Hyperball, 1981

Circus Voltair may be the first to use neon but it's not the "only." Don't forget, Star Wars Episode 1 had the neon light saber.

Sorry, but Bally Built 100 Bow and Arrow pins with a CPU in it before Spirit of '76.
But the boards were located under the playfield instead of the backbox (but basically the same hardware theyused in the other early CP driven games). But if I recall, the Flicker prototype (with electronics from Nutting)predated Bow and Arrow.

One first I noticed missing - First licensed theme - I beleive its Bally wizard!

This may be more by accident than design. Many early games - and particularly those without accumulated bonus - would simply re-eject the ball if there were no other switch triggered. The game essentially saw it as a bad eject, and would re-eject the ball. For games with a bonus accumulation, it generally was a matter of if the game provided a bonus with the ball in the shooter lane. If so, a trip over the pf without hitting a switch would net you the single bonus. Without the staring bonus, it was essentially a re-eject.

Interestingly, i have two wizard in the workshop. While both are old but working, they both have slightly different play. In this case, one of them starts with a single bonus while the other doesn't. They also differ slightly in the flag handling - one resets flags/bonus when going thru the lane while the other doesn't. The latter allows for accumulating more bonus as the player doesn't need to hit all the targets again to set the flags. i can't find anywhere where these are supposed to be adjustable behavior.

First (exact) 4-ball multi-ball?

wouldn't that be the Williams Joust (1983)?

Bally's Strange Science (1987) had a neon light on top of the back box.

"First playfield display? Spirit, 1982"

Wrong! Black Hole 1981.

First up/down (big) flipper centre post preventing drain? Big Guns, 1987

I don't believe this is correct if you're talking about the plastic popup. Space Shuttle (Williams, 1984, System 9) has the same popup between the flippers.

Jive time had a center post thing that prevented the drain, and I think there was probably something earlier than that too.

Cabaret (1968) was the first Williams game to feature an up-post between the flippers.
http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=415

Apparently the very first game to use one was Rally's Playboy (1967).
http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2043

Those aren't CPU controlled games, however, so I don't know if they count for this list.

Very nice list. First use of UV light (actually black light) should be Big Bang Bar. Or does that not count as the game was not officially released until the IPB remake?
First female speech in a pinball: Xenon
First Solid State game with a 1.000.000 light: Sharpshooter
First headphone plug should probably be a Zaccaria game as they had those already. The reason that feature did not last is because often the female jack plug would be stuffed with chewing gum.
Zaccaria probably also has a first (as far as I know the only) for having different language speech roms. Pinball Champ was available with English and German speech (with a terrible italian accent). Other games could have had similar German / English speech roms.

I believe the first Solid State pin to have a pop-up post was Williams Contact (1978).

I'm thinking that Judge Dredd first comes to mind (with the Supergame multi-ball mode); 1993.

Star Wars Trilogy also has a timed novice mode as well as the regular game selection; 1997.

First official movie license ( I may be wrong but,) Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Apollo 13 wasn't the only more than 6 ball machine, IJ4 has 8 ball multiball.

If we're just doing SS / DMD era machines, I think the first colored legs and only colored legs before the LE stuff was Road Show, which had the blue legs. I might be wrong about that, but I can't think of anything else.

For first "Ambient (non-topper) light", I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but JP has lights and flashers on top of the head which simulate lightning. Unlike a machine like, say, Pinbot where the topper needs to be there for the lights to be there, JP has these built in and they will flash regardless of any topper being there. It looks awesome if you're playing in a dark, tall room. I'm not certain it was the first, but I believe it was.

For use of magnetic ramp or lane diverter, I feel like this was WCS94 with the ball lock. It has been used pretty sparingly in history, with the majority of it's uses on John P's machines, and that was the first one. Anyone know of anything differently?

First motorized target bank is PinBot, I believe. At least, in the way that we think of target banks in the "modern" era.

For first hinged backbox, I'm not positive, but this may have started with High Speed. I'm all but certain it was Williams who did it. High Speed is also (I stole this from the IPDB... the first pinball to play a complete song, first use of Auto Percentaging (for replay scores), first Jackpot available only during multiball, first use of broken switch compensation programming, first SS game with operator report, and the first use of credit dot (malfunction indicator).

And whomever suggested that Humpty Dumpty didn't have flippers but had bumpers that moved, no - it definitely had flippers. In fact, I own three or four machines that are before 1950 that all have flippers on them. Generally, they pivot on the opposite side to what we expect today, but they are the same as flippers.

Not sure if it is the first but Monte Carlo (Bally 1972) has a pop up centre post and 3’ flippers.
"First up/down (big) flipper centre post preventing drain? Contact, 1978" From your list

That’s cool! Surprising on how much stuff is reused from yesteryear. One thing I founded amazing was electric car out numbered petrol car in the early 1900, just a bit of trivia. (Source “Who Stole The Electric Car”)

If I'm not mistaken, then Judge Dredd would win this title (both Apollo 13 and WHO Dunnit? were made in 1995). Judge was made in '93.

Unless someone else can think of an earlier '90s game that would fit "First novice/regular game selection or similar?" category...

This is a cool thread, but I think it should be de-stickied and instead linked within the "for the history buffs" thread.

I don't think that JD fits that really though. The Novice / Regular mode thing was a choice you could make with the same amount of credits. The SuperGame in JD was an additional cost, and didn't make the rules any easier or harder, it just started every game with a multiball.

Makes sense to me.

Sounds good!