There will never be any more EMs made. Please don't screw up a remaining one by trying this.

If you know what you're doing and get an EM dialed in correctly, it will be reliable for a long long time. I've owned one game for 43 years and it plays just as well as the day I bought it. You think an SS is going to be able to do that 43 years later? I don't.

As for the retro KoD, yeah, it was a cool idea. Go play it, and you might change your mind. It doesn't play anywhere near as well as the EM version.

This is true. In that case, what's the point in coming on an EM forum, a place where people love the old games, and telling us he wants to make an SS out of it?

The truth was spoken above. You want an EM/SS hybrid, buy a System 1. I own a S1, and that's exactly what it is.

Well, they made a four player out of it. Maybe that might be considered an improvement, in that it had the capabilities of playing like a single player wedgehead, but also to let four people play at one time. That has nothing to do, however, with the playability of the game.

If you grew up on EMs, it's just the feel of an EM game vs the feel of a SS game. They just don't play the same. For all the technology, the game played slower, to me, than the EM version. It had a "cobbled together" feel that just didn't do a thing for me. The intention and the idea was pretty cool, but the execution of it was not particularly good. EM reels click over. These just rolled. It's hard to put it into words, but if this was a meeting of old and new, then I prefer the old by itself, and the new by itself.

I'm trying to understand the mentality of buying not one, not two, but four EM games, with the complete understanding of what you were getting into, then complaining about the technology you found, and wanting to change it. If you want SS games, then that's where you should be.

I agree with Chris. This whole thread probably belongs in a restoration forum, not in an EM forum, because if you do what you intend to do here, the game won't be an EM, and as such, it won't belong here.

In my restoration experience, I've never had one game that I had to replace every single lamp socket. Some, yes. But even on one game where everything metal (stepper frames, relay frames, you name it) was rusty, most of the lamp sockets still worked fine and didn't require replacement. Unless that game was pulled from a lake, I'm having a real hard time understanding just how junky that game was. It had to be obvious. Why buy such a basket case, then complain about what you found?

You can also put a modern four cylinder fuel injected turbocharged engine in a Model A. But would you do it? And would it make it better? Define "better."

The point is, these games are a snapshot of a place and time in history. It's not a matter of originality, because replacing all the parts is being done with the intent to keep their original character-you attempt to replace worn out/missing parts with parts that mimic the original as closely as humanly possible. That isn't at all what you're proposing to do here.

I don't want to speak for other people. It's your game, you certainly are within your rights to do it. Just don't expect those of us who grew up on these games and would like to keep them as close to what they were as possible to approve of it.

Sure, once in awhile, a bulb burns out, or you have to adjust a switch. So what? That's part of the charm and beauty of these games. Getting in there and finding and fixing the occasional issue is just as satisfying to some of us as a game that plays on and on forever with nary a problem. But that game hasn't been invented yet, either.

I doubt that.

I've said my piece. Nothing more to be gained by repeating it. As has been said, good luck to you and your project. The rest of us simpletons will just have to live with our EM games as they are.

Putting LEDs in a game isn't even in the same ballpark as what you want to do here. It doesn't change the essense of the machine, and it's a modification that is easily reversed. Hell, I've done it, and I've taken them out and put the original bulbs back in, some I've left as is.

Yours will be neither.

I understand you think you'll own the game forever, and maybe you will. Some of us have an attachment to games for various reasons that won't allow us to let go of them. I have two of them like that. But others, you think you'll keep them for good, but you end up tiring of them after awhile and you look for something else.

Your Corvette analogy is false because 60s Vettes had factory air as an option-I should know, I grew up and rode in them with it. 1960s EMs did not have SS technology in them. So putting air in a 60s car that had the option of getting it from the factory is not in any shape or form the same as completely changing what is essentially the operating system of the game. It wasn't available at the time, and changing it changes the entire nature of the game.

You're completely missing the point, but that's ok.

As for your Corvette idea, just do this for me. Go on a Corvette forum and propose exactly what you just wrote here.

I would wager that the response you get in return will be very similar to the response you've gotten here.

You mentioned Mecum Auctions. Let me ask you this. If you put your modified Corvette up for auction via Mecum, and I put up the same car with the original powerplant in it-who do you think is going to get the higher sell price? And why?

Again, if you want to do this for you, well, it's your right. But you're barking up the wrong tree if you think most long term EM guys are going to like it, or approve of it. That's basically it in a nutshell.

The Retro KoD was a nice piece of engineering, but to me it fell short because of playability issues. The overlay certainly didn't help, although it obviously helped keep the price down.

On purely a cosmetic front, I didn't like the marriage of a wedgehead backbox with a current day deep cabinet. I realize why they did it, to be able to put the multiplayer aspect into it, but I felt from an esthetic point of view, it was a failure. As an old time EM guy, I wasn't thrilled with the modern front door, although again, I understood why it was done. You have to use what you can get.

So, it didn't, to me, play with the pop of the early SS games, or even the Williams DC games, but neither did it truly have the feel of playing an EM that has SS guts. It's hard to describe that, but that's what I came away with.

I was seriously considering at some point trying to get the money to buy one, but I was hesitant. An EM plays like an EM. SS/DMDs play differently. I didn't know where this was going to fall. So finally I got to play it at the PHOF and I was so glad I didn't jump into it. I played a couple of games and walked off. I truthfully was more interested in playing some of the old, tired EMs in there than this game. It just did nothing for me.

It's sad because it was a great idea, but somewhere between the idea and the execution it came up short.

The one I played, I certainly don't remember the door looking like that. It was black IIRC. Maybe I'm thinking of something else.

I give Herb and crew all the credit in the world for having the vision, and the balls, to give this a try. I had huge hopes for it, because I understand that a properly programmed SS game is really nice to play.

It's hard to put my finger on exactly what was wrong with it. It may be that it was not possible for it to meet my expectations, because I was expecting it to play exactly like the EM version, with the fact that it is really an SS game being totally invisible. In retrospect, that's a pretty tough standard.

It was kind of a fusion between the playfield of the old game and the externals (meaning the cabinet and the front door etc) of a modern Stern game. I was probably looking for that old door and the small red start button and all the rest. Maybe I was unfair and didn't give the game enough chances. Certainly there's been other games I played at first that I didn't like and they grew on me.

I had hopes for it because it was a chance for pinball to go back to what the old EM guys really think that pinball is, without the ramps and the toys and the TV screens and all the rest-just you and the flippers and the balls. No magic saves, none of that other stuff. So I wanted it to work. For some reason, it just didn't.

Anyone who has toured Stern's factory knows the labor intensive job it is to build a game. And Stern charges more than Herb was asking for this game.

It's a hell of an idea. The System 1 games are really a true hybrid EM/SS already. You take the head off and don't let anyone look under the hood and they never would know. The playfields on all the early SS games were still very EM like.

The one thing I do think SS games have over the EMs, though, are the displays. EM score reels are the source of much agony and frustration for all of us. The KoD reels were EM like but they functioned differently, as I said before. They didn't click over like true EM reels, they kind of rolled. Who knows, in time, maybe I like that more.

A proven EM layout with SS architecture is basically what the Retro KoD was. KoD is one of the all timers.

It can become repetitive because you get drawn into smacking away on that roto carriage, though. It's still a fun game. I had one and I traded it out for something else, mainly because mine needed more restoration work than I wanted to put into it at the time.

Ken, it's a great idea, but we'll have to get someone to rerun the glasses, too. Unfortunately I don't think the SS glasses would work real well with the EM style reels. But there are a lot of S1 games out there, so if you got enough people to buy such a kit, someone would come forward with a repro. Hell, you might be able to get bgresto to do them modified, they modify glasses now.

I'll fully admit that the last few posts went completely over my head. Fascinating stuff.

I can sort of understand where Jack is going, though. Hell, EM reels aren't always accurate using the equipment they were designed to operate with. They skip, they miss, you name it. When they're dialed in well right they do pretty well but given how quickly the ball can move through scoring places on the playfield, it's understandable that they miss a few.

I've got a Bally Surfers that with 50v bumpers nested close together, plays a lot like DC bumpers. They're fast. I can't watch them, but I always wonder how many points get missed when that ball is flying around inside those three bumpers.

What you're going to do here is what Herb did with KoD. Good luck.