We had some ems in my basement.

I would play pool and pinball with my dad, then we would cook hot dogs in the fireplace while he was drinking crown and cokes.

I vividly remember him telling me to flip only one flipper and not both.
I was 4

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Probably the first time I got to play pinball is when i was around seven me and my dad are big movie guys and the guy he gets his stereo equipment from had pinball machines. So after we bought a game it sat in the basment for six years until I started playing it and caught the pinball bug.

Saw a Willy Wonka at a bowling alley. Had no idea what pinball was.

Probably still don't. LOL!

He just puts his juice on spinners schudel5

I remember an arcade next to a toy store, all I remember was it was all pinballs. Probably around '76. The first I remember playing as Black Knight at the American Legion where my dad lived in Texas.

1969 Local swim club behind my house.
The owner Walt had like 12+ early 60’s Gottlieb's and a Williams baseball.Buckaroo was my fav. I remember being dripping wet playing that game.
Wish I had pics of the pins.

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I have fuzzy memories of seeing Taxi, Black Knight, etc. in malls in the late eighties when I was 10-12. I was definitely playing by the early nineties (my early teens), either at the mall or the local Putt Putt.

Alladin's Castle in the new mall built in 1977. It was all arcade games until early 1978 when the pins were introduced. Mata Hari, Eight Ball and Power Play were all new. The digital scoring was the coolest. Gas pumps displays were still the "rollover" type at the time. Wasn't long after pins were everywhere. The local Majik Market always had a pin or two. I was 12 at the time and it was a golden age for pinball. Little did we know what the future years would bring. Pinball has been in my blood ever since.

Williams Hot Line at a Lakeman's market, and Bally Sea Ray and Fireball at Carter Bowl are the first titles I have a clear memory of.

Earliest one I remember playing was Bally Eight Ball in a roadside motel game room along I95, probably in South Carolina. Family trip to Disney, mid 80s. Think Red Roof Inn with a game room that smelled of heavily used air conditioning in the deep South.

I remember the game wouldn't end because I kept getting replays.

But I got hooked on pinball playing Time Machine in high school at the local mall arcade.

a tiny pizza place called "Capri" in Beckley W.V.A had my first ever slice of pizza there & first memory of ever seeing Pinball machines it was either 1973 or 1974 I was five or 6 years old , cant remember what games they were but there were two in a back room my brother begged my dad for some quarters to play & my dad gave in & we played a few games but he always kept commenting that they were rip off machines & only foolish people spent money on them ha ha ha

My father brought home a Gottlieb Jungle from my uncles tavern when I was 4. I played it while standing on a step stool. My dad gave me the pin a few decades later and it’s still in my collection. While growing up, the local mini mart always had a couple pins to eat my quarters.

There was data east Star Wars pinball machine at the Marriott hotel near Disneyland. We would go there and play it, bubble hockey and the Star Wars arcade. Those are my first memories of arcade games.

Data east Star Wars was my first pin. I bought it in 2001. I since have a bubble hockey as well. I love the nostalgia.

I saw no fewer than 3 parents with children under 1 year old strapped to their chest playing pinball at California Extreme this year. They should have had a Baby Bjorn Tourney.

My first memory of pinball was in the early 90’s at a pizza joint called Sharky’s Pizza, it was located in a small mining town in AZ. I was around 6 or so and I would beg my mom for quarters when we would go so I could play Creature From The Black Lagoon. I remember they also had an Elvira And The Party Monster and one other pin I can’t really recall besides their being a scantly clad woman on the back-glass, kinda like paragon but can’t quite remember. The thing I remember the most about playing Creature was hearing the callout “stay cool Daddy-O”. I played pinball a few other times in arcade growing up but none made the impression that Creature made on me. I consider Creature my Grail game and hope to own one day in the future!

the first pinball machines I saw (but I do not remember playing) would have been in the early 70s when I was about 8yo, in the local milkbar

the first games I remember playing would have been Grand Prix and Space Odyssey in the local arcade