Easier for coins to drop in and not jam up on the lid. Especially if you had a mound of coins in one spot.

LTG : )

Speaking of pinball mysteries......whatever hapened to Timeshock being made into a real machine????

Why do we continue to pay big money for the latest game, before we have played it?

In interviews with the designers at the time, they've all said that they really didn't pay that much attention to what their competitors were doing, so I'd assume the williams designers just liked single drops. Similarly Gottlieb using tons of banks wasn't because they were super popular or anything, their designer just decided he liked them.

Williams seems to have tried to save some money by not having a silkscreen layer at all. They did label the pin numbers in copper, so maybe they just couldn't fit all the IC numbers in with the actual circuitry?

It should be noted that only Genco used DC, and they used it for everything. Other manufacturers at the time used all AC, probably due to problems with early diode tech. Once bridge rectifiers got better/cheaper williams+bally started using them on their pops to liven up the games. Why didn't they use them on flippers? I asked once and no one could give a good reason: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/why-no-dc-flippers.

I thought I'd read in one of the Pinball Compendiums that Gottlieb didn't patent their playfield devices. They just wanted pinball to be awesome and didn't care if a competing company used their ideas.

I have a mystery of my own to solve: who did the artwork for International Concepts? We know that Trudeau was the designer and Premier/Gottlieb manufactured the games, but no artist is credited. A lot of the elements and style look like the work of Larry Day, but he left Premier the year before the IC games were released. Maybe IC pieced it together from sketches Day left behind or hired him as a freelancer after he left? Or maybe it's a different, unknown artist's work.

My question is what happens to all the bells & chime units? I can understand missing back doors but why are bells or chime units missing for a good many machines?

People needed doorbells for their house? lol

What do people do with their used balls?

I have glass jars filled with used balls. Figure ill make something one day with a used ramp, wire form or something.

I tried recycling them once. Got about $0.012 for each one. Two dozen used balls didn't even pay for one new one.

I still hate to just throw them away, though.

Somone was selling a pyramid stacking device on pinside. Cant find it. Looked clever.

Here it is, looks like the kickstarter was not funded

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-pyramid-bracket

Bally also used them on certain machines that required a consistent kick, like 1955's Gay Time, with the Magic Pockets unit.

And some of the earliest electromechanical machines used DC (dry cell batteries).

From another thread I read recently, certain export games did not have bells or chimes installed. Why? Dunno. I would imagine that whatever locality/country didn't allow bells/chimes would require an importer to remove them as well. Eventually, some of these found their way back to the States. I do not know if this is true or not, but seems plausible, as many of the games without bells or chimes have fresh screw holes as well. Modular chime design probably also made them easier to swap in from a game that was in storage vs. taking the time to change a coil.

Then you'd need the floor of the cabinet lower.

LTG : )

No idea what to do with them. I have a box of rusty ones. May be good anti-Zombie shot in the future.

Maybe not one of the "greatest" mysteries, but...what was the REAL reason Solar Fire production was limited to less than 800 units? I think many of us have heard the story about a lawsuit from some sci-fi show/movie production company regarding the artwork, but I wonder if anyone knows the truth, and specific details?

Richard

I just bought one here:
https://www.shapeways.com/product/JYXZWRUEQ/4x4-pinball-pyramid-stand

It wasn't exactly a monopoly as Williams continued to use drop targets. Maybe they never found the need to put 10 to 20 of them on almost every game and used other interesting features instead, like the swinging target for example.

After all, Williams had already used drop targets in many different interesting ways so they were moving forward by then.

I was going to get one, but I thought $20 was a bit much....

On the flip side, Gottlieb was the first to use spinners, but it was other manufacturers like Williams and Bally that really put them to good use in the 70s.

I didn't think it was a mystery that Gottlieb did indeed use DC flippers on EMs in the latter part of the 70s.

Gottlieb is the only one that does make sense. Although they waited a long time to introduce DC at all, once they did they used it for everything as you'd expect.

It wasn't on many, but a few of the last EMs they did.

I remember playing an EM Joker Poker on location, and had to take a double look at the "Gottlieb" name on it, because I was amazed at how powerful the flippers and everything else were on this one. Back then, that seemed like a bit of a mystery I guess.

No need. Lots of the gambling pins had full fronts on them to the floor.

Makes a pinball cart useless.

LTG : )

Like this one ?

http://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=2735&picno=5391

LTG : )

You can cart the one balls from the side.

Typically in most manufacturer's cases because a pre-orderer can either:

A: obtain a refund prior to final delivery when a product iteration doesn't meet the initial promised expectations. Strike one.

B: be assured of a quality product designed and built by those with industry experience and no tainted reputations. Strike two.

C: that the title will have universal appeal/recognition, have kept up with current technological pinball trends and thus will have good resale value on the secondary market. Strike three.

I'm thinking Gottlieb used a similar drop down cabinet for a while.

But the biggest mystery of all is why did they ever stop making that cabinet with the shelf on the front where you could set your drink down.

Here's a mystery for you: Wheel of Fortune. How do you play it?

There doesn't seem to be a rule sheet available online and Bowen's "tutorial" on YouTube is reactive, explaining what just happened rather than explaining the game logic and detailing what to shoot for and why. It focuses mainly on Multiball and mostly ignores the puzzle-solving aspects.

Can someone who knows their way around WOF please write up a detailed rule sheet?

I'm about 100% certain that warning is meant simply to inform operators when replacing boards in the game, what level of boards must be used and how they must be configured. In other words, don't try to pull an MPU from a level 6 game sitting in your warehouse in an attempt to quickie repair your level 7 Black Knight out on location so it keeps earning. Don't swap the wrong game ROMs in. Don't plug in the game ROMs with the jumpers set incorrectly. etc.

Richard

It is like any other modern game, it doesn't come with rules. But with each code update there is a read me sheet that explains features as they are added to the game.

So basically when the next code update comes, you read that sheet and it will explain more in depth what the goals of the game are.

Why were pinball o-rings traditionally white? Seems like black would have been a better color to not show dirt.

It's not about dirt. White rings have superior bounce qualities. Still many games well into the 90s used white from the factory. Quality of available white rubbers went down, so now almost all new games come with black. If you look hard enough, great quality white rubbers are available, but not from most of the usual vendors.

Maybe the same as with car tires?

Because while they are cool looking, they do not "feel" right. You can't lean up against the cabinet. They throw your playing stance off.

That's a big plus IMO. I am yet to start a game just by leaning on the cabinet.

Nothing wrong with playing stance either. I stand back and rarely if ever have my junk close to the coin door.

Set up in a tournament you nail the skills shots and that's like 75% of it

When I go on road trips why do the waitresses not look like the ones on Bally Night Rider?

Because you only eat at Waffle House?

I'm pretty certain WOF isn't getting any code updates ever. It was a dud from the start and I think only a few hundred were made. Yet Somehow they sell for over 3K and I've seen them in the wild now and then. I'm still curious about it, not that I'm looking to buy.

I never much cared about points or tournaments. What about solving puzzles, spinning the wheel and collecting prizes?

I'm fairly certain I read a rulesheet on it one time but I can't turn it up on google now...