Spectrum
Bally, 1982There Never seems to be much posted about this machine. I suppose the fact only 700 were ever made and it was too strange for the masses kinda helps that. but it is a cool machine and fun to play.
Post your pics and or opinions on the game.
Heres mine it took alot of work to get it playing right and looking good again.
I think this machine out of all the old SS bally machines has the coolest cabinet art and originality.spec7.jpgspec1.jpgspec2.jpgspec3.jpgSpec4.jpgspec5.jpgspec8.jpgSpec9.jpg
Quoted from Hellfire:I suppose the fact only 700 were ever made and it was too strange for the masses kinda helps that. but it is a cool machine and fun to play.
From what I understood, a little bit more were made, but actually never sold! They actually had to force sell the game by giving it for free with other games.
Quoted from OTTOgd:Great pin but I can see why it might have done terrible in the arcades, bitd.
TZ has done terrible in the arcades as well...
I love my Spectrum. My first pin ! Cool art, original theme, interesting rules.
Drawback: best scoring strategy is a bit against the spirit of the game. Bonus count for an error (5000 points times bonus multiplier) is too high. So in the end, the best way to score is to "drop them all" and get a bonus multiplier. If I could correct that (for example by giving no reward for an incorrect guess or increasing the end-of-game bonus for each star from 100,000 to 200 or 250k), that would be great !
During an IFPA tournament, I organized a side event on the Spectrum machine only. Goal was to score as many stars as possible. 3 players achieved 2 stars with 3 balls / no extra ball allowed.
Games I would like to see near my spectrum: Barracora, Williams Defender. Catacomb is cool too! But the next one to arrive this very afternoon is an Embryon!
Quoted from Hellfire:Someday ill get a Catacomb perhaps myself as well.
Catacomb is a thinker's game as well ... but faster! The timed bagatelle game is brutally frantic but necessary to complete the 'toast'. Masochistic game, imho.
Quoted from jlm33:From what I understood, a little bit more were made, but actually never sold! They actually had to force sell the game by giving it for free with other games.
According to IPDB: "According to the book Pinball Memories, of the 994 games made, less than 500 were sold. The rest were ultimately scrapped or salvaged." (Ref: http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2274)
Quoted from jlm33:Games I would like to see near my spectrum: Barracora, Williams Defender. Catacomb is cool too! But the next one to arrive this very afternoon is an Embryon!
I'd like a Defender too. But no room and they're few and far between anyway.
Quoted from OTTOgd:According to IPDB: "According to the book Pinball Memories, of the 994 games made, less than 500 were sold. The rest were ultimately scrapped or salvaged." (Ref: http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2274
Ive read several different versions of the story on these as well i guess originaly it was scheduled for a production run of 1700 machines i guess 700 got made but its a good possibility only 500 got sold at the end of the day. its kinda hard to pin down the actual numbers on this machine.
Quoted from schwarz:What's next Medusa?
Yup.
Quoted from Stu:I Color Coded my LED Displays to match the Backglass Graphics.....
The colored displays do look pretty nice Stu. 
My brother loves to "hate" this game. He calls it a "Mind F__K" but loves to play it. Mine will never leave either. Nothing else quite like it! One More Game Perhaps? YES!
nice! I'm in!
really like the led GI matching colors on playfield.both seem in very good condition, Hellfire you must replace those ugly targets with matching green ones 
Just added a 1f capacitor to keep scores yesterday. left the pinball on attract mode 2h but doesnt seem enough. I wonder how long it needs to charge....
Mine misses the sound, need to redo the connectors.. soon
ssssspectrum , one mor' game perrrrhapsss ^^
plus it's like best BG ever ! am i right ? ^^
Quoted from archaik:Hellfire you must replace those ugly targets with matching green ones
I agree i just havnt gotten around to it yet but i think im going to replace them all with black drop targets with the gold bullseyes just becouse i think they look nicer esp with all the black on the machine.
I also added 4th leds to both the white flickering light clusters on the backglass that only had 3x each originaly makes the backglass more active.
Yeah the backglass is pretty sexy with the exception of the 2 outdated faces from to 70s lol.
Personaly i like fathom and medusa backglasses better though.001.JPG003.JPG
Quoted from schwarz:Any wanna be Spectrum members contact the guy in the marketplace selling one?
I contacted him but didn't get a reply, if anyone knows him please put him in touch with me. Or, if anyone else is selling their Spectrum please let me know. Thanks.
For those interested, I scanned all schematics from the spectrum manual. This is not a professional job (two pages per scheme) as I do not have access to A3-size scanner but it may help as the downloadable pdf file in IPDB does not include them.
Mails sent - had to split the 30 files into two different emails, 18 Mo in total.
As this is the third time I am doing this, I wonder if I could post all these files once and for all on Pinside ? Would I be breaking a copyright somehow ?
Curious that IPDB pdf of the manual does not include these schematics.
Quoted from seshpilot:Dang this club is QUIET. Nevertheless, I'm officially a card-carrying member as of tonight! It will be my winter project I'm guessing. I'll need a better backglass though as this one is flaking ugly.
Congrats. Got a question for ya. How many balls are in the game?
Unless your game gets confused (as mine currently does) and releases two balls occasionally, in which case it's a multiball game. 
At the moment I'm working on a Tech Chart for Spectrum.
As I always keep an eye out for game roms for PinMame and to preserve the file for prosparity...
It seems the regular version in PinMame does not work.
It's missing a good working U2 rom file.
There is a version 4 available, but I don't know if that is the regular version.
Anyone have some insight on this?
Maybe even a file to add to PinMame?
Peter
www.inkochnito.nl
Does anyone in this group have an extra clear plastic, the one that goes above the yellow drop target bank. The previous owner broke it in half and threw away one of the two pieces. I also need two of the bell style metal posts.
Quoted from tandem2:Ive got this backglass, with new lift channel -
PM sent. I'm buying this
Hey Folks! We're prepping a Spectrum for an upcoming event. Does anyone know of a way to disable the auto-launch feature? I can't seem to find anything in the manual, but I could me missing something in the dip switch settings.
I don't believe there is a way to do this unfortunately. In related news, I've got an extra backglass for sale here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/spectrum-backglass-1
Quoted from Dayhuff:Finishing up (hopefully soon) shopping out my 4 Million BC, then doing a Six Million Dollar Man and then with any luck I'll be doing a playfield swap on my Spectrum. I'll post pics when or if that ever happens.
John
Is there a source for reproduction playfields for this game or did you come across a nice used or NOS one?
Hi folks,
I'm curently bringing a spectrum back from the dead.I'm in love with that pinball:
So far , did an entire rebuilt of MPU and sound board. Game plays fine except a few lights wich is a pitty as most of the game is based on lights...
For my restoration, i'm desesperately searching for a backglass or a high def scan of it so i could remake one. If anybody in the club could give me a hand on this one, it would be greatly appreciated.
Best regards,
Quoted from mikebrandt:Hi folks,
I'm curently bringing a spectrum back from the dead.I'm in love with that pinball:
So far , did an entire rebuilt of MPU and sound board. Game plays fine except a few lights wich is a pitty as most of the game is based on lights...
For my restoration, i'm desesperately searching for a backglass or a high def scan of it so i could remake one. If anybody in the club could give me a hand on this one, it would be greatly appreciated.
Best regards,
Check out my Tech Chart for Spectrum.
It is on my website in the Bally and/or Tech Chart section.
This will tell you which thyristor you need to replace.
Peter
http://www.inkochnito.nl
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