I like the wireform roller coaster in lane things on Gottlieb's Roller Coaster.

LTG : )

I always liked 4 million bc, and Fireball. For being EM games they had an actual skill shot, zipper flippers, 3 ball multi ball, gates that close for a ball save. Lots of cool stuff back then.

Wizard!, Flip Flop and SlapStick had "flip flags". Don't know of any other Ballys that had them. Sure I'll be corrected.

Bagatelles in a few backboxes. Williams Apollo I think?

A lot of the earlier Gottliebs had weird animated backglasses like dancing lady

Doodle Bug has the doodle bug?

Gator on Nip It

I always thought the black drops on Fast Draw were a cool feature, even if most people never see them in action.

The Doodle Bug along with the flipper gaps on, uh, Doodle Bug.

I think there was already an EM features thread a year or two ago?

Gottlieb animated the roll over lanes apron lights off the score motor on Flying Carpet.

Zipper flippers.

Hitting a blue white pair of drop targets on Atlantis for a 5000 pt bonus, only used once.

I rather like the sequence flashing of the Flying Carpet upper lane guide lights on each rotation of the score motor.

I bought my Williams Travel Time because of the unique premise of the game. There is a big clock in the middle of the playfield. (and yes, you can tweak how fast the clock ticks down)

Traditionally, a pinball game was over after 3 balls. On Travel Time, as long as you have time on the clock, the game keeps going. If you can keep hitting the targets to add time to the clock, you could go through a dozen+ balls in a game.

I like the "Rotary Flipper" (which Bally also called "Spinner Bumper") found on Rocket III. I thought it was unique to that game but researching this reply see it featured on others of that era including "Loop-the-Loop" and "Six Shooter"

I don't know if it's unique to Fast Draw and Quick Draw regarding EM's but on those two games, the drops reset in two different arrangements and the center drops on either side have two different point values (1K or 5K) depending. I always thought it was way ahead of it's time for 1975 and you don't see games utilizing individual drop target changes again until games like Alien Poker and Eight Ball Deluxe.

In the same regard, a lot of foreign solid state games from 1983 and 1984 utilized "ramps that fed flippers" in machines that eventually made their way in to games like Space Shuttle and High Speed. I realize there were some "ramps" in EM games but the few that I've seen didn't really feed a flipper shot.

Bally Star-Jet has a cool "blast off" multiball feature where the balls are held in saucers on the play field until you hit the "blast off" targets to start multiball play.

Zodiac has a magnet
swinging targets are cool as far back as Gay 90s
Six digit scoring! (you like cleaning score reels? Here's 20 of 'em sucker!)
Fireball has a bunch of cool stuff (multiball, spinning disc, zipper flippers, left kickback and right gate return).

My least favorite "innovation" of all time has to be the roulette wheel. They are usually pointless random awards, slow game play to a crawl, and are used way too much.

Flying Turns and Race-Way both have a backbox animation where cars race around track, pulled by magnets.

The Hayburners pins also have an animated diorama in the backbox.

1301892167 (resized).jpg

hayburn1 (resized).jpg

This summary sheet of pinball milestones was being handed out at Texas Pinball Festival (or Houston Arcade Expo) last year or 2 yrs ago. I believe Mr. Dan Ferguson was handing out pinball info during his e-m pinball machine trouble shooting class.

pinball-milestones (resized).jpg

1963 SweetHearts last of the gobble holes...

Was Neptune (in Novelty mode) the only game to feature 5 rapid knocker strikes for scoring 50K points?

I haven’t tried novelty mode on my Lucky Hand, but the other instruction cards say WOWs are worth 50k points, just like Neptune. I’ll have to check my schematic to see if the knocker is in circuit with the 10k relay. I’m presuming it probably is.

I liked this feature enough to wire in the other 4 lane guides, (Y, R, left and right side drains). Looks great! '55 Gtb. Sluggin' Champ and '63 Sweethearts are other games that have score motor-driven flashing playfield illumination.

Another rare feature is the "All-Rollover Special," available only on Gtb. Sweethearts and North Star, (as far as I know).

Williams used the wireform on a couple pre-flipper games including Cyclone. The most memorable and desirable flipper game with a wireform habitrail is 1953s Williams Skyway.

http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2206

The list shows Bally as introducing the pop bumper, but I can't find any reference to what game it was. To the best of my knowledge, Williams Saratoga was the first.
http://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=2055&picno=7433

San Fransisco was the last.

http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2049

In the late 40s the knocker was not used to indicate replays. It was used as a "drumroll" sound effect on games such as Ali Baba and Buccanneer along with a few others. Max out and collect the bonus on Buccanneer and the knocker rattles of a ridiculous amount of times.

Williams Thunderbird has a really cool wireform,too. Its a beautiful machine from playfield to backglass.

Now we're really getting into the unobtainable. lol. I looked for a long time for one. I think there was one at that big auction a few weeks back.

Another game from that era of Williams, Big Ben has a bagatelle at the bottom of the playfield.

Not mentioned yet are the disappearing pop bumpers on Gusher and Sea Wolf along with a couple others.

I'm still quite found of the swinging target on Magic Clock, the first game to have one, although they became pretty common after that. And drop targets that progressively increase in value up to a special on several 60s games.

The backglass cannon that fires a pinball as a cannon ball, when the game starts and when adding a ball. Who will be first to name that game?

Making '4 corners' on the tic-tac-toe board on Williams Gulfstream was adjustable for up to 3 replays or extra balls (made for some fun risk-reward strategy)

oh come on... Flipper Parade of course

A second target behind a drop target, referred to as "New Back-up Targets" in the 1977 Team One and Kicker flyers, these are called dip targets in the parts catalog.

image (resized).jpeg

A gobble hole behind a drop target on Jumpin' Jacks. I believe they were simply referred to as "gobble holes".

image-22 (resized).jpg

1956 Fun House is an EM with a one of a kind feature not used on another game until the sequel Funhouse in 1990.

A trap door, or in this case three of them.

image-2 (resized).jpg

Ball return gates, directing the ball back to the shooter lane.

How about a dot matrix display in 1966:

http://mirror2.ipdb.org/files/1245/Williams_1966_Hot_Line_Animated_Rollover_Button_Letter_Sequence.gif

/Mark

Or even a game where 9 dancers lift up their skirts.
http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=3815

image-12 (resized).jpg

How about line voltage at the coin door switch? (Not all, but on a bunch of old Gottliebs)

About the most unique thing I ever found on a Gottlieb were these little guys. Only used on two games.

http://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=1607&picno=28228

And the rock em sock em robots on Knock Out.

Hi Pinhead - I didn't say the answer would be hard - just interested to see who would get there first. Congratulations, you did. And if the "52" part of Pinhead means what i think it might, maybe you even played Flipper Parade back when it was new?

The "Snap" targets on the 1968 Royal guard & Palace guard pins

Not completely accurate.
Elektra was the first Tri-level playfield
Haunted House is more popular, but came out 2nd.

Love the list though!

But the top or bottom level (can't remember) had a captive ball. In Haunted House, the ball traveled all thee levels.

That is correct. Elektra's under playfield has a ball down there all the time. Sort of a bonus round at the end of ball, but it is a tri-playfiled nonetheless and did come out prior to Haunted House.
Yes, HH the ball physically moves between all three playfields.

Sorry, off topic a bit. On with the EM innovations!

Cool thread! I've not seen any mention of the rotating platter of pop-bumpers on Williams' Nags:

Nor the mirrored-reveal backglass on games like 3D, Jungle, and others:

Actually I was 52 when I jumped into rgp then pinside. Games I remember from my childhood include Miss Annabell and TurfChamp as well as a baseball pitch and bat that had no hold relay. We would have 1 kid play a game and another with one hand on the plug. If the ball was going for an out hole we could rip out the plug, the out wouldnt register and plug the game back in and carry on playing. Play all day on 1 nickel.

I owned a Flipper Parade 10 years ago, a fun little game. I currently own 13 games but checking my records Ive bought and sold 77 games over the years.

Ken

*LOL* Fantastic! Thanks for sharing, Ken, but how the heck did you guys figure that out?

Hi Ken, that story made me laugh too. You've sold 77 games? Wow. Played my Flipper Parade today, need to tune up the bumpers.

You just weren't paying attention then.

http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=3815

IMG_1341 (resized).JPG

Slot-machine device on Yukon, Klondike, several others.

Top Hand/Full House.
Student Prince has a single reel.

Any others?