Pinball Vintage - EM - 50´ 60´ 70´ - part 2

http://www.youtube.com/group/visualpinball
(...) By the 1930s, manufacturers were producing coin-operated versions of bagatelles, now known as "marble games" or "pin games". The table was under glass and used Redgrave's plunger device to propel the ball into the upper playfield. In 1931 David Gottlieb's Baffle Ball became the first overnight hit of the coin-operated era. Selling for $17.50, the game dispensed five balls for a penny. The game struck a chord with a public eager for cheap entertainment in a depression-era economy. Most drugstores and taverns in America operated pinball machines, with many locations making back the cost of the game in a matter of days. Baffle Ball sold over 50,000 units and established Gottlieb as the first major manufacturer of pinball machines.

In 1932, Gottlieb distributor Ray Moloney found it hard to obtain more Baffle Ball units to sell. In his frustration he founded Lion Manufacturing to produce a game of his own design, Ballyhoo, named after a popular magazine of the day. The game became a smash hit as well, its larger playfield and ten pockets making it more of a challenge than Baffle Ball, selling 50,000 units in 7 months. Moloney eventually changed the name of his company to Bally to reflect the success of this game. These early machines were relatively small, mechanically simple and originally designed to sit on a counter or bar top.

The 1930s saw a leap forward in innovation in pinball design and devices with the introduction of electrification. A company called Pacific Amusements in Los Angeles, California, USA produced a game called Contact in 1933. Contact had an electrically powered solenoid to propel the ball out of a bonus hole in the middle of the playfield. Another solenoid rang a bell to reward the player. The designer of Contact, Harry Williams, would eventually form his own company, Williams Manufacturing, in 1944. Other manufacturers quickly followed suit with similar features. In addition, electric lights soon became a standard feature of all subsequent pinball games, designed to attract people to the game.

By the end of 1932 there were approximately 150 companies manufacturing pinball machines, most of them in the city of Chicago. Chicago has been the center of pinball manufacturing ever since. Competition between the companies was brutal, however, and by 1934 there were only 14 companies left.

During World War II all of the major manufacturing companies in coin-operated games were put into use manufacturing equipment for the American war effort. Some companies like Williams bought old games from operators and refurbished them, adding new artwork with a patriotic theme.

By the end of the war, a generation of Americans looked for amusement in their bars and malt shops. Pinball saw another golden age of growth. Innovations such as the tilt mechanism and free games (known as replays) appeared.

The post-war era was dominated by Gottlieb. Game designer Wayne Neyens along with artist Leroy Parker turned out game after game that collectors consider some of the most classic pinball machines ever designed. The most famous were designed by James Rider, the man behind the epitomous catchphrase "I've got it", amongst others.

Gottlieb's Humpty Dumpty, introduced in 1947, was the first game to add player-controlled flippers to keep the ball in play longer and added a skill factor to the game. The low power of the Humpty Dumpty flippers necessitated that three pairs be placed around the playfield in order to get the ball to the top. But the addition of a DC power supply enabled the flippers on Humpty Dumpty to become only two, more powerful ones at the bottom of the Triple Action playfield -- one of many innovations by designer Steve Kordek, who is also credited with introducing the very first "drop target" (1962 on Vagabond) and "multiball" (1963 on Beat the Clock) concepts to the game. (wikipedia)

In this movie:
King and Queens
Atari 1978
Bally Old Chicago
Pyramid
Queen and Diamonds
Solar Ride
Space ship
Spanish eyes
Star Jet
Vagabond
Wizard!

Visual Pinball is a free program that allows programmers to create and play pseudo-3D renditions of pinball machines on a home computer. It is unlike any pinball simulation program made previously in terms of realistic graphics and physics. This gives pinball players an opportunity to play renditions of real pinball machines that they might not otherwise ever be able to in real life. (...)

Visual Pinball can be seen as an important step in the evolution of pinball-based entertainment, especially as the availability of publicly playable machines has shrunk and currently only one manufacturer of real pinball machines (Stern Pinball Inc.) exists today. As of 2007, there are hundreds of pinball machines that have been rendered for Visual Pinball.


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Music: Dancing mood

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• visual
• pinball
• table
• flipper
• game
• simulation
• pinmame
• emulation
• bally
• williams
• dataeast
• gottlieb
• pc
• mame
• roms
• emulator

[jukingeo]

How/ Where were you able to get EM games to play on Visual Pinball. All I seen thus far were all solid state games. I am particularly interested in Spanish Eyes.

[nadita5600]

h3 3p://irpinball(dot)ztnet(dot)c­om

[Caroline2831]

Please tell me the year of the very first electro-mechanical machine. That was exactly what we played during 1976-1980 at Glendon College in the pub. I'm desperate to describe this game in my book. The music is so-o engulfing - the Carpenters and James Bond - so cool - exactly what we listened to.

What are those white flipping gates called????

Can you please give any names of the parts to describe the game.

Thank you very much. Smooch, caroline

[5inthehole]

Could someone please help me download the right files so that I may also play these awesome online pins? I've downloaded files many time and still am unable to play. PLEASE HELP!!!!

[mukatuna]

Totally correct. AFAIK Atari didn't make any EM machines at all. They had some reliability problems as well, because Atari put the CPU boards below the playfied, and not in the backbox. Bits can often fall from the playfield mechanics.

[MrBallyTechnologies]

Nice video. No big deal but Atari's Middle Earth was not an EM machine.

[birdysim55]

Too bad the music destroys the video

[Carnacki]

Really nicely put together vid on the old EM's Fun!

[aronricardovideo]

¡Gracias nadita5600 por hacerme regresar a mis años de la infancia!. saludos desde la Argentina.

[Fooblestheclown]

Foobles is the proud owner of Williams Straight flush pinball...1969. I made a mural of the scoreboard in my rec room. Check out the video.

[jukingeo]

Thanks! Found it there.