(Topic ID: 142374)

Solid State smackdown: what's your favorite "sub-era"?

By swampfire

8 years ago


Topic Heartbeat

Topic Stats

  • 26 posts
  • 14 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 8 years ago by swampfire
  • Topic is favorited by 1 Pinsider

You

Linked Games

You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider swampfire.
Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.

#1 8 years ago

EM displays ruled the earth until the mid-70's, and DMDs have had a 24-year run since Checkpoint appeared in 1991. But from 1975 ("Dyn O' Mite") to 1991 ("Bride of Pinbot"), the new "Solid State" games with numeric and alphanumeric displays carried the torch for 16 years. Yes, DMDs are solid state too, but there's a long tradition of calling pre-DMD pins with digital scoring "Solid State". That won't change unless a better term comes along.

My first pin was a 1980 Black Knight, and my memories of it are marred by lots and lots of work and instability. When I bought my second pin, a 1988 Space Station, I thought I was done with the early 80's as a collector. The sounds and diagnostics were miles ahead of my BK, and there were VUKs and flashers, cool! And yet...if you look at my SS collection now, I'm very heavy on the early 80's. Here's how I break them down into "sub-eras". This is just my view, and I'd love to hear other ways people group their SS pins.

1977 - 1980: The Golden Years

Paragon, Mata Hari, Skateball, Trident, Magic. These are all relatively new to my collection, but I've played them a lot at pinball shows. They're simple but addictive pins. Some have sounds that emulate chimes (or actual chimes), while others have great sci-fi noises.

1980 - 1981: The First Talkers

Embryon, Medusa, Fathom, Black Knight, Lightning. Great artwork and layout are still the focus, but now speech makes deeper rules possible. Background sounds accelerate to let you know when you're doing great. By this time, most games either have multiball, or are full of cool gimmicks (e.g. Medusa).

1982 - 1984: The Lean Years

Andromeda, Time Fantasy. Gone are the speech and other advanced features of earlier games. In a way these pins seem like throwbacks to the Golden Years: great art and simple gameplay. The goal was to stay relevant while videogames took over the arcades.

1984 - 1990: The Comeback Years

Space Station, Hot Shots, Whirlwind. I'd define Space Shuttle as the first pin of this sub-era, since it got people excited about pinball again. Speech was greatly improved, and ramps became a "must have". Cool new features like kickbacks, VUKs, alphanumeric displays and Diamondplate made the older pins seem antiquated. But at the same time, beautiful mirrored backglasses gave way to cheaper translites.

#2 8 years ago

I have a theory about how I came to own 10 pins from 1977-1981: those were the best years of my life, age 13-16. I'm looking forward to getting them all together in one room some day, so I can relive what I think was the best time in Pinball.

#3 8 years ago

Bump for the west coast guys. Mof, O-din, you want to weigh in on this?

#8 8 years ago
Quoted from Collin:

I think 1981 for Bally was the best year any pinball manufacturer has ever had. (Yes, even over the early days of B/W DMDs)

I've always thought that myself. Sadly, our local operators must have had a preference for Williams, because I don't remember any Bally pins from back in the day. But the Bally "Class of '81" is just a bunch of amazing games.

#9 8 years ago
Quoted from acebathound:

Mid-80s and 90s. Doesn't look like 90s is part of the sub-era selections though. I think the artwork on everything up until the late 90s was awesome. The Photoshop collages (for movie themed machines, etc) that came after that really didn't do anything for me.

Yep, we're exempting DMDs from this thread and just talking about the pre-DMD solid state pins.

#15 8 years ago

It's also surprising (for me) to see what the best-selling SS game was for each year.

1976 - Fireball home version - 10,000 sold
1977 - Eight Ball - 20,230
1978 - Playboy - 18,250
1979 - Flash - 19,505
1980 - Firepower - 17,410
1981 - Flash Gordon - 10,000
1982 - Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man - 10,600
1983 - Firepower II - 3,400 (!)
1984 - Space Shuttle - 7,000
1985 - Comet- 8,100
1986 - High Speed - 17,800 (!)
1987 - F-14 Tomcat - 14,502
1988 - Cyclone - 9,400
1989 - Black Knight 2000 - 5,703
1990 - Funhouse - 10,750
1991 - The Machine: Bride of Pinbot - 8,100

Space Shuttle started the pinball revival in 1984, and High Speed kicked it into high gear in 1986.

[Edit] Eight Ball sold more units than any other SS pin made: 20,230. "Flash" was a close second, at 19,505. "Skateball" came out about a year later with much better art, 3 more drops, and 1 more flipper. But it sold far fewer units, presumably because it was too much like Flash.

If you like rare pins, 1982-1984 is a good place to look. There were 20 games with fewer than 1,000 units made.

#16 8 years ago
Quoted from QuarterGrabber:

I was playing Bally Elektra yesterday, my favourite of that era (and shame on you op for not listing it)

I was just listing the games in my own collection. I've only played Elektra once, at TPF, and would love to get some more time on it. Three playfield levels!

#17 8 years ago

My favorite thing about the early 80's is the Bally tap-pass (still working on that), and the accelerating background music. And I actually prefer their sci-fi sound effects to some of the system 11 sounds.

#26 8 years ago

If I had more space (ha), I'd add the top SS pins from 1985-1991: Comet, High Speed, F-14 Tomcat, Cyclone, Black Knight 2000, Funhouse, and The Machine: Bride of Pinbot. I think these are all great games. But, I can't see myself selling one of my classics to add any of them - so I'll be content playing them at friends' houses and shows.

Promoted items from the Pinside Marketplace
4,000 (OBO)
Machine - For Sale
Westerlo, FL
2,600
Machine - For Sale
Valley, NEBRASKA
Wanted
Machine - Wanted
Strongsville, OH
$ 399.00
Cabinet - Decals
Mircoplayfields
Decals
From: $ 399.95
Lighting - Led
Pin Stadium Pinball Mods
Led
$ 9.00
Cabinet Parts
Third Coast Pinball
Cabinet parts
$ 50.00
Cabinet - Toppers
Slipstream Mod Shop
Toppers
$ 1,099.00
Flipper Parts
Mircoplayfields
Flipper parts
Wanted
Machine - Wanted
London, ON
From: $ 90.00
Tools
Pincoder Store
Tools
$ 399.95
Lighting - Led
Pin Stadium Pinball Mods
Led
$ 11.00
Electronics
Third Coast Pinball
Electronics
$ 18.95
Eproms
Pinballrom
Eproms
$ 54.99
Cabinet - Shooter Rods
Lighted Pinball Mods
Shooter rods
$ 99.00
Playfield - Plastics
Pinball Shark
Plastics
From: £ 35.00
Displays
Retro Electro Designs
Displays
$ 199.95
$ 12.00
Tools
Nezzy's Pinball Prints
Tools
$ 5.95
Playfield - Protection
The Pinball Scientist
Protection
£ 195.00
Displays
Retro Electro Designs
Displays
$ 90.00
Playfield - Protection
UpKick Pinball
Protection
$ 69.00
Gameroom - Decorations
Pinball Pimp
Decorations
$ 22.95
Eproms
Pinballrom
Eproms
$ 69.00
Gameroom - Decorations
Pinball Pimp
Decorations
$ 139.00
Cabinet - Other
Pinball Pimp
Other
$ 53.95
Eproms
Pinballrom
Eproms
$ 45.00
$ 25.00
Playfield - Protection
UpKick Pinball
Protection
$ 17.00
Playfield - Decals
Metal-Mods
Decals
$ 9.95
Eproms
Pinballrom
Eproms

You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider swampfire.
Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.

Reply

Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.

Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!

Donate to Pinside

Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!


This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/solid-state-smackdown-whats-your-favorite-sub-era?tu=swampfire and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.

Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.