Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jovin Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the
Speaker 1: tech are you. We are continuing our look at the
Speaker 1: evolution of pinball, which was inspired by my visit to
Speaker 1: the Southern Fried Gaming Expo where I appeared as media,
Speaker 1: appeared at as too strong a word, I attended as media.
Speaker 1: So in the last episode, we learned that pinball's origins
Speaker 1: trace back to lawn games that eventually were moving indoors
Speaker 1: because not everyone had a lawn and there is disagreement
Speaker 1: over what game constitutes the first true pinball table. But
Speaker 1: we learned how a gradual evolution brought us from simple
Speaker 1: machines outfitted only with like a spring loaded plunger up
Speaker 1: to the early days of electro mechanical pinball tables, and
Speaker 1: some of the things that were added were really a
Speaker 1: big deal. I would argue probably the most important was
Speaker 1: the addition of a coin slot. One early title Bally,
Speaker 1: who reportedly sold around fifty thousand units to various shop
Speaker 1: owners and other proprietors. Fifty thousand units, that's no small shakes.
Speaker 1: Remember this is in the nineteen thirties when this happened.
Speaker 1: That really helped put the company Bally on the map,
Speaker 1: and Bally would play a huge role in the development
Speaker 1: of pinball here in the United States. But yeah, these
Speaker 1: coin operated machines like it became a new source of
Speaker 1: revenue for shop owners and bar owners and such. They
Speaker 1: would buy a machine for a large amount of money,
Speaker 1: but then they would get to keep the proceeds the
Speaker 1: coins made up. And so you know, if you had
Speaker 1: a really popular machine, you could earn back what you
Speaker 1: spent on it within a relatively short amount of time.
Speaker 1: And then everything on top of that is profit, apart
Speaker 1: from whatever you have to spend to keep the machine working.
Speaker 1: But these early machine, because they really had very few
Speaker 1: moving parts, they were relatively easy to maintain. But let's
Speaker 1: talk about some of the electro mechanical components in later
Speaker 1: pinball machines and how those components work. Now, as I
Speaker 1: mentioned in the last episode, the earliest electrified pinball machines
Speaker 1: didn't really have much going for them. Usually there was
Speaker 1: some sort of noise making element that would signify scoring
Speaker 1: and help draw attention to the table so that more
Speaker 1: people would want to play, but there were few components
Speaker 1: that actually used electricity to create mechanical motion. But it
Speaker 1: didn't take long for that to change. Harry Williams of
Speaker 1: Williams Manufacturing Williams is another important pinball company, came up
Speaker 1: with an idea to set up a game that would
Speaker 1: make it stand apart from the competition that was on
Speaker 1: the market. So this was way back in nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 1: and his idea was a relatively simple one, which was
Speaker 1: the inclusion of solenoids. Solinoid is an electro mechanical component
Speaker 1: that works through electromagnetism. In many ways, it's similar to
Speaker 1: your basic electromagnet. So if you think of a standard electromagnet,
Speaker 1: you have a coil of conductive wire, typically copper wire,
Speaker 1: and it's wrapped around a core of some sort like
Speaker 1: sometimes it's just iron, right, And when you run electricity
Speaker 1: through the coil of wire, it creates an electromagnet, and
Speaker 1: you can interact with ferromagnetic stuff using this electromagnet, and
Speaker 1: with a solenoid it's pretty similar. You've got your coil
Speaker 1: of conductive wire. When you pass a current through this coil,
Speaker 1: it creates a magnetic field, and you have a sleeve
Speaker 1: inside this coil. Nestled in the sleeve is a movable plunger,
Speaker 1: so the plunger can slide in or out of this coil.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's called the armature. When the magnetic field is on,
Speaker 1: it pulls the plunger into the coil. There's a stop
Speaker 1: on either end so that the plunger doesn't just shoot
Speaker 1: through the coil or or fall out of the coil,
Speaker 1: so that it can come to a stop where it's
Speaker 1: partially inside the coil. But when you run electricity through
Speaker 1: the coil, it pulls the plunger in entirely. So when
Speaker 1: the magnetic field is on, the plunger is inside the coil.
Speaker 1: When the magnetic field goes off, like when the current
Speaker 1: stops flowing through this coil, the plunger moves back out
Speaker 1: of the coil and mounting a post at the end
Speaker 1: of the plunger, like extending the plunger so that it
Speaker 1: can punch through something. You have a little device capable
Speaker 1: of giving a quick push. Whenever the electric current flows
Speaker 1: through the wire, the plunger moves in. It pushes this
Speaker 1: arm out and it's pretty fast. It's a pretty simple
Speaker 1: electro mechanical device, and effectively it turns electric current into
Speaker 1: mechanical work. That's its main purpose. Solenoids would in up
Speaker 1: being kind of the heartbeat, the lifeblood of pinball machines.
Speaker 1: They power so much like a lot of the elements
Speaker 1: in your basic pinball machine are worked with solenoids. So
Speaker 1: Williams pinball machine had this name called Contact, which is
Speaker 1: very clever because contact is what we would say was
Speaker 1: made within the circuit to activate the solenoid in the
Speaker 1: first place. So the playfield of Contact had holes with
Speaker 1: little barriers around them. So the ball you know, your
Speaker 1: goal is to get the ball into the highest scoring
Speaker 1: holes in the playfield. Those were closer to the bottom
Speaker 1: of the playfield, which meant that the ball needed to
Speaker 1: pass over or around the holes that were higher up,
Speaker 1: because otherwise you would get a lower score. Well, at
Speaker 1: the very top of the playfield was this solenoid, so
Speaker 1: it's facing downward like toward you. It's at the top
Speaker 1: of the play you're playing at the bottom of the playfield.
Speaker 1: If you were to fire a ball up so that
Speaker 1: it would activate a switch, a contact at the top
Speaker 1: of this playfield, the solenoid would activate and it would
Speaker 1: hit the ball, and if you were lucky, it would
Speaker 1: propel the ball so that it would roll over the
Speaker 1: lower scoring holes and the ball would settle into one
Speaker 1: of the ones that had a higher score if you
Speaker 1: were pretty lucky. Contact relied on a dry cell battery
Speaker 1: to provide this electrical current, and according to Williams, the
Speaker 1: battery would hold a sufficient charge to provide three months
Speaker 1: of play. After that, I assume you would swap the
Speaker 1: battery out. I mean possible that you could recharge it,
Speaker 1: but you would definitely have to swap it out if
Speaker 1: you wanted to be able to play after that time
Speaker 1: and to have the electro mechanical elements work. Contact was
Speaker 1: a game that went through some changes. This is something
Speaker 1: that still happens with the pinball machines now, where manufacturers
Speaker 1: will make changes to a machine and later versions will
Speaker 1: be slightly different, or they will these days because things
Speaker 1: are running on microcomputers. They will update the firmware of
Speaker 1: a machine and it will include new modes and such.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about modes later. So the company, William's Company
Speaker 1: would incorporate a door bell into the machine so that
Speaker 1: when the ball made contact with this switch, that would
Speaker 1: activate the solenoid, it would also ring the bell, and
Speaker 1: Williams also included his anti tilt measure. I talked about
Speaker 1: this in the last episode. So his anti tilt design
Speaker 1: was there was inside the machine was a post. On
Speaker 1: top of this post was a ball, and if the
Speaker 1: player were to shake the machine in an attempt to cheat,
Speaker 1: the ball could roll off this post and it would
Speaker 1: then signal a tilt, which would invalidate the accumulated score
Speaker 1: at that point. Back to solenoids, These would become incredibly
Speaker 1: important components for pinball machines. They are pretty darn simple,
Speaker 1: which is good right. Simple means they're fewer points of failure.
Speaker 1: They can fail if you run electricity through wire. One
Speaker 1: of the byproducts you get is heat, and if electricity
Speaker 1: is running through wire for a long time, a lot
Speaker 1: of heat can build up and that can cause damage
Speaker 1: to the components. So there are points of failure, but
Speaker 1: there are few of them. Solenoids are used not just
Speaker 1: to knock a pinball around. They can also be used
Speaker 1: as noise makers, they can strike a bell, or they
Speaker 1: can be used as knockers. So if you're really good
Speaker 1: at pinball, you have probably experienced a replay or you know,
Speaker 1: if you've ever matched. Matching is when you know modern
Speaker 1: pinball machines, they'll take the last two digits of your
Speaker 1: score and then they'll display kind of a random selection
Speaker 1: of other scores, and if you end up matching, then
Speaker 1: you get a replay. Well, a lot of pinball machines
Speaker 1: include a knocker to signal that a player has managed
Speaker 1: to get a replay and they have a free game.
Speaker 1: The pinball machine lets out this very loud knocking sound. Well,
Speaker 1: a solenoid is what is actually making that sound. There's
Speaker 1: a dedicated knocker or solenoid mounted in the machine to
Speaker 1: do this, and there are a couple of different types
Speaker 1: that you could find in various machines. One would be
Speaker 1: a spring mounted solenoid. So the spring would typically keep
Speaker 1: the plunger out of the coil, but when an electric
Speaker 1: current runs through the coil, the magnetic pole is strong
Speaker 1: enough to compress the spring, pull the plunger in quickly,
Speaker 1: and mounted on the top of the plunger as a
Speaker 1: post that's capped in plastic. This post strikes a plate
Speaker 1: typically mounted near the pinball machine's back box, and the
Speaker 1: current only passes through the wire for a fraction of
Speaker 1: a second, so the spring decompresses, the plunger is pulled
Speaker 1: into the coil, and the cap strikes the plate and boom,
Speaker 1: you get your old knocking noise, which could be quite loud.
Speaker 1: Usually there's like a fifty volt current that's being put
Speaker 1: through the device order to make this happen, and if
Speaker 1: you have a lower power supply, the knock's going to
Speaker 1: be less impressive. Many knocker solenoids actually are simpler than
Speaker 1: this design. They don't have the spring loaded piston at all. Instead,
Speaker 1: they rely on gravity. So these solenoids have to be
Speaker 1: mounted vertically so that the plunger naturally slides down. Like
Speaker 1: if there's no current running through the coil, the plunger
Speaker 1: is going to be resting on a rest plate, so
Speaker 1: it's only partly inside the coil. Then when current runs
Speaker 1: through the coil, it pulls the plunger up right because
Speaker 1: magnetic attraction and the plunger the post mounted on the
Speaker 1: end of the plunger will strike the striking plate and make
Speaker 1: the knocking noise. And then when the current is shut off,
Speaker 1: the plunger will naturally slide back down the sleeve inside
Speaker 1: the coil and rest against the resting plate, so you
Speaker 1: have to have it mounted vertically so that gravity will
Speaker 1: pull the plunger back down. But this does simple things
Speaker 1: quite a bit. But what about other elements inside a
Speaker 1: pinball machine? What about flippers? These are pretty common today,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're almost universal in modern pinball machines. Again,
Speaker 1: it wasn't until nineteen forty seven that we got the
Speaker 1: first pinball machine that had flippers. And even then they
Speaker 1: were oriented opposite, like they were facing outward on the
Speaker 1: machine rather than inward, and they were along the sides
Speaker 1: and there were six of them, so it was very
Speaker 1: different from the way flippers are today. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: wasn't until nineteen forty seven that we even got flippers,
Speaker 1: and now they're pretty much standard on pinball machines. How
Speaker 1: do they work, well, no, big surprise. They also use solenoids,
Speaker 1: which are mounted below the playfield where they're out of sight.
Speaker 1: But a solenoid works, you know, like a piston. Right,
Speaker 1: The plunger moves linearly, it moves in and out, so
Speaker 1: you need to have something that translates this action. Because
Speaker 1: a flipper acts like a bat, It swings, it rotates,
Speaker 1: So mounted on the solenoid plunger is a little piece
Speaker 1: typically called a linkage, and the linkage connects to a
Speaker 1: rotating element that in turn is mounted on a spindle.
Speaker 1: The spindle is connected to the flipper, so the rotating
Speaker 1: element translates the linear action into a rotational action and
Speaker 1: then transmits that through the spindle to the flipper. So
Speaker 1: the flipper can swing and there's a stop. Typically that
Speaker 1: all may mean the flipper can only rotate so far.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna make the flipper go all the way around.
Speaker 1: It'll just rise up when you're looking down from the
Speaker 1: position of a player. So when the solenoid activates, the
Speaker 1: mechanical motion causes the flipper to swing, and a spring
Speaker 1: on the spindle will return the flipper to its resting
Speaker 1: position afterwards, so it's not just relying on gravity to
Speaker 1: return the flipper to its downward position. There is a
Speaker 1: spring there so that it adds resistance and pushes back
Speaker 1: against the flipper so it returns to its normal downward state.
Speaker 1: When you connect this assembly to a power supply and
Speaker 1: a flipper button, the flipper button serves as a switch.
Speaker 1: You have your classic pinball flipper as long as you're
Speaker 1: holding the switch down the flipper will remain up, but
Speaker 1: it does get a little more complicated, and in my opinion,
Speaker 1: this is a really cool element for flippers because it's
Speaker 1: engineering a solution to a real problem. So again, pinball
Speaker 1: machines typically have balls that are made out of solid steel,
Speaker 1: which allows for some other fun gimmicks that we'll talk
Speaker 1: about a bit later. These balls weigh in and around
Speaker 1: eighty grams, which is significant, so the flipper bats have
Speaker 1: to be strong enough to whack an eighty gram steel
Speaker 1: ball around a playfield. Anyone who has played a machine
Speaker 1: that has really weak flippers can tell you it's a
Speaker 1: very frustrating experience. So the solidoids powering these flippers need
Speaker 1: to be sufficiently strong to generate the mechanical force necessary
Speaker 1: to give the ball a good whack across the playfield,
Speaker 1: and that means having a fairly significant coil to generate
Speaker 1: a strong enough magnetic field to pull the plunger with force.
Speaker 1: But this also creates an issue if someone is holding
Speaker 1: the flipper button down to keep the flipper raised up,
Speaker 1: and players will often do this, like you might want
Speaker 1: to pause so that you can prepare for a specific shot.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're lining up a shot so you can shoot
Speaker 1: a ball up a ramp, for example, and you kind
Speaker 1: of have a feel for where on the flipper that
Speaker 1: needs to happen, but you need to get control of
Speaker 1: the ball first in order to be able to do
Speaker 1: it reliably. So you've trapped the ball and you're holding
Speaker 1: it in place before you make your shot. You could
Speaker 1: be holding the ball the button down for a bit.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've also decided, Hey, I'm going to take a
Speaker 1: swig of my frosty beverage that I have next to me,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to pause gameplay a little bit by
Speaker 1: holding the ball in place while I do this. The
Speaker 1: issue here is that a high powered solnoid's going to
Speaker 1: generate a lot of heat as that electric current runs
Speaker 1: through that coil, which it will keep doing while you're
Speaker 1: holding the button down, right, because that button's a switch. This,
Speaker 1: as I said, can damage the machine over time. Specifically,
Speaker 1: can damage the solenoids and melt them so that they
Speaker 1: become less effective, and eventually they become ineffective and you're
Speaker 1: going to have to replace the solenoids in the pinball machine.
Speaker 1: So what was needed was a way to switch from
Speaker 1: the high powered coil to perhaps a secondary coil that
Speaker 1: was just strong enough to keep the plunger in position
Speaker 1: once it already had been pulled into the coil itself.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of energy to move the plunger
Speaker 1: into place, but once it's there, it doesn't take as
Speaker 1: much energy to hold it there. So flippers solenoids often
Speaker 1: have two coils, one essentially kind of nested inside the other.
Speaker 1: One coil is the high powered one that pulls the
Speaker 1: plunger in the other one requires much less power and
Speaker 1: is just there to hold the plunger once it's in place.
Speaker 1: The rotating element of the flipper's spindle actually breaks a
Speaker 1: contact that is for the heavy duty coil, so once
Speaker 1: the flipper is in full upright position, it is no
Speaker 1: longer under the power of the main coil. It is
Speaker 1: swapped to the secondary coil, which requires much less power
Speaker 1: to operate. It also generates much less heat, so the
Speaker 1: power coil does the heavy lifting of pulling the plunger
Speaker 1: in the later coil just holds it in place once
Speaker 1: it's there. All because a mechanical element physically changes the
Speaker 1: circuit underneath by breaking this one contact and making another.
Speaker 1: And I think that's really super cool, Okay, I've got
Speaker 1: a lot more to talk about with pinball machines, but
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsors.
Speaker 1: So before the break, I was talking about flippers and
Speaker 1: solenoids and how a pair of different coils can allow
Speaker 1: you to hold a flipper an upright position without burning
Speaker 1: out your solenoids. Well, we are starting to get into
Speaker 1: why some pinball machines have really weak flippers, and there
Speaker 1: can be a few different things that contribute to this.
Speaker 1: One is that the power supply that's going to the solenoids,
Speaker 1: that power of the flippers is in turn weak. That
Speaker 1: could be an issue. And you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: these pinball machines get pretty janky over time, with people
Speaker 1: replacing components with stuff that wasn't necessarily designed to go
Speaker 1: in a pinball machine, or wasn't the same sort of
Speaker 1: power supply that was used in a previous version of
Speaker 1: the machine, which means that some of these solenoids might
Speaker 1: be receiving far less power than they typically would, and
Speaker 1: that means when you push the button, you get a
Speaker 1: kind of weak flipper and you're not really able to
Speaker 1: play the game very effectively. Other times, it can be
Speaker 1: an issue where there's a problem with the actual mechanical
Speaker 1: components where they're not able to turn or move as
Speaker 1: freely as they usually would. They might need some cleaning
Speaker 1: or replacing in order to do that, and sometimes it's
Speaker 1: because the solenoids themselves have become damage due to overheating.
Speaker 1: This is a good point to remind y'all that if
Speaker 1: you do ever play a pinball machine, or if you
Speaker 1: happen to be rolling in the bucks and you own
Speaker 1: a pinball machine, because these things are expensive, y'all, don't
Speaker 1: push a flipper button a whole bunch of times in
Speaker 1: quick succession. When you do that, you're activating that primary coil.
Speaker 1: Each time you push the button and release it and
Speaker 1: then push it again, they're activating that primary coil and
Speaker 1: you're building up heat. So if you hold the button down,
Speaker 1: that's less damaging because you're using that secondary coil that
Speaker 1: consumes less energy and doesn't generate as much heat. But
Speaker 1: if you press the button really quickly over and over
Speaker 1: and over and over and over again, that can make
Speaker 1: the coil heat up, and the coil can actually melt
Speaker 1: and the flippers will stop working. Eventually, you'll have to
Speaker 1: replace the solenoid underneath, and that could be that's a
Speaker 1: bit of a thing, like it's not impossible, people do
Speaker 1: it all the time, but it is a bit complicated.
Speaker 1: Another common feature in pinball machines are bumpers. So in
Speaker 1: the previous episode I talked about a game called Bollow
Speaker 1: Bolo and it had passive bumpers that has had these
Speaker 1: little obstacles. So in Bollow they were the shape of
Speaker 1: bowling pins and they were mounted on rods that in
Speaker 1: turn were attached to springs. They otherwise had no other
Speaker 1: mechanism attached to them, so they were what you would
Speaker 1: call passive bumpers. So a ball could hit them and
Speaker 1: bounce off of them, and they would wiggle around in stuff.
Speaker 1: But that was pretty much it. Well, I say that
Speaker 1: was it, But there were also passive bumpers that could
Speaker 1: actually send a signal for the purposes of scorekeeping. Ballow
Speaker 1: as far as I can determine, wasn't this way, but
Speaker 1: others were. And sometimes these bumpers are called mushroom bumpers
Speaker 1: because they look kind of like mushrooms. So these bumpers
Speaker 1: are also passive. They don't bounce back, but they can
Speaker 1: register when they've been hit and that can then go
Speaker 1: toward the progressive scorekeeping part of the pinball machine. And
Speaker 1: the way that this typically works is that these bumpers
Speaker 1: have a diss sitting near the top of the post
Speaker 1: of the bumper. So if you think of the bumper,
Speaker 1: you got the post that's the centralized stand, the pedestal
Speaker 1: kind of that makes up the bumper. Then you've got
Speaker 1: a disc on top, and then maybe you've got like
Speaker 1: a cap on the very top that shows how many
Speaker 1: points the bumper is worth. So when a ball makes
Speaker 1: contact with the pedestal, the rod the post of this bumper,
Speaker 1: there's this little disc that the ball impacts and it
Speaker 1: lifts the disc up slightly. Now the disc, in turn
Speaker 1: is connected to a stem. That stem is ultimately connected
Speaker 1: to a leaf switch, and when the disc lifts up,
Speaker 1: the leaf switch is activated and it sends a signal
Speaker 1: to indicate scoring. These simple bumpers date back to the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties, but they would get much more attention in
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies. They would become kind of emblematic
Speaker 1: of pinball machines of that era. Just as flippers were
Speaker 1: really important for pinball machines to take off, these bumpers
Speaker 1: would become something that people just associate with pinball machines.
Speaker 1: There are also active bumpers, however, they have different names.
Speaker 1: Some people call them pop bumpers, or jet bumpers or
Speaker 1: thumper bumpers, among other things. So these react when they're struck.
Speaker 1: They strike back, so they propel the ball in the process.
Speaker 1: These are electro mechanical bumpers, and the basic pop bumper
Speaker 1: is a pretty clever design. So typically at the very
Speaker 1: base of the bumper's post or pedestal on the playfield side,
Speaker 1: there's a little plastic disc that's raised up just to
Speaker 1: touch off the playfield itself. Now, it's low enough that
Speaker 1: a ball can roll onto this plastic disc, and when
Speaker 1: that happens, the weight of the ball tilts the disc
Speaker 1: slightly so. Connected to this disc, underneath the playfield is
Speaker 1: a stem, and that stem rests inside a kind of
Speaker 1: a shallow bowl or spoon under this playfield. Now, when
Speaker 1: the disc is in its resting position, the stem's not
Speaker 1: really making content with the bowl. It's almost but not
Speaker 1: quite touching, or if it's touching, it's touching so lightly
Speaker 1: as to not displace the bowl. When the disc tilts,
Speaker 1: the stem is deflected, and it starts to push against
Speaker 1: the rising sides of this bowl, and it makes the
Speaker 1: whole bowl push downward. This is what completes a switch.
Speaker 1: That switch does a couple of things. It sends a
Speaker 1: signal to the progressive score keeping system, so it increases
Speaker 1: the score to the appropriate amount depending on how much
Speaker 1: the bumper is worth. And it completes a command that
Speaker 1: ultimately sends a signal to a solenoid that's attached to
Speaker 1: this bumper. That's a separate circuit typically, but that circuit
Speaker 1: is what gives the bumper the bump. The solenoid in
Speaker 1: turn connects to a metal ring that is also around
Speaker 1: the bumper's post. So you have a disc at the
Speaker 1: base of the ring. On the playfield side, you've got
Speaker 1: the post that extends up and at the top of
Speaker 1: the post typically you have this metal ring that connects
Speaker 1: down through the playfield to the solemn So the solenoid,
Speaker 1: when it activates, it pulls the plunger in. This pulls
Speaker 1: the ring downward, and the ring acts as a bumper.
Speaker 1: It hits the ball and knocks it away. So once again,
Speaker 1: solenoids are the work courses of the pinball world, and
Speaker 1: Typically you would find pinball machines that would group a
Speaker 1: bunch of these active bumpers in a configuration, often in
Speaker 1: like a triangle where you have one bumper at the
Speaker 1: top and two bumpers below, and with a good trajectory,
Speaker 1: the ball could start bouncing in between these like crazy
Speaker 1: as they activate one bumper after another and get knocked around.
Speaker 1: We're also not done with solenoids yet, and we still
Speaker 1: have another classic element to talk about that uses solenoids
Speaker 1: for the purposes of transferring electrical energy and turning it
Speaker 1: into mechanical energy, and that would be the sling shots.
Speaker 1: I've seen Gottleib's Double Feature pinball machine credited as the
Speaker 1: first pinball machine to have a playfield with sling shots
Speaker 1: like these active shots, But then, considering how loosey goosey
Speaker 1: pinball history is, I can't swear that Gottleib's Double Feature
Speaker 1: was the very first pinball machine to have slingshots. It's
Speaker 1: often credited that way, but I'm not sure if that's true. Anyway,
Speaker 1: a slingshot is typically triangular in shape. You will often
Speaker 1: see these at the base of the playfield in a
Speaker 1: pinball machine, usually just above where the flippers are and
Speaker 1: the slingshot has a rubber cord or band wrapped around
Speaker 1: it and it kicks a ball if the ball comes
Speaker 1: in contact with a slingshot. So how does this work? Well,
Speaker 1: it's not passive, it is active. And if you were
Speaker 1: to take a cover off of a slingshot, you would
Speaker 1: see that this rubber cord stretches around three posts. They
Speaker 1: provide the points of the triangle, and a solenoid is
Speaker 1: what gives the the slingshots their kicking power. No surprise there, right,
Speaker 1: because solenoids are used everywhere in pinball machines. The solenoid
Speaker 1: connects to a mechanism that allows for this quick punch
Speaker 1: of power. But what triggers the solenoid? While behind this
Speaker 1: rubber chord making contact with the rubber chord typically on
Speaker 1: either side of where the solenoid's post is, you have
Speaker 1: a pair of switches. So if a ball hits the
Speaker 1: rubber band or rubber chord hard enough to trigger one
Speaker 1: of these switches, it completes the electric current needed to
Speaker 1: activate the solenoid, and the solenoid activates pulls the plunger
Speaker 1: inside the coil. This movement also powers the little post
Speaker 1: that punches out through this rubber chord and boom, the
Speaker 1: ball gets propelled somewhere else on the playfield, often down
Speaker 1: one of the outlanes, and down the ball drained. Gosh
Speaker 1: darn it. Many bimbo machines also have kickout holes, so
Speaker 1: these are holes in the playfield that the ball can
Speaker 1: fall into, very similar in many ways to the holes
Speaker 1: that were used in the old Bagatelle games way back
Speaker 1: in the late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds, and these
Speaker 1: are part of play right. This is a hole that's
Speaker 1: purposefully put there so that you can have it as
Speaker 1: an element of the game. So shooting a ball into
Speaker 1: such a hole typically accomplishes something like maybe you get
Speaker 1: certain number of points, maybe there's a bonus, maybe you
Speaker 1: earn an extra ball, or something along those lines. It
Speaker 1: might be part of a mode in later games. And
Speaker 1: once again, a ball falling into such a hole activates
Speaker 1: a switch. This in turn activates a solenoid to knock
Speaker 1: the ball back out of the hole and onto the playfield.
Speaker 1: And if the ball were to fall right back into
Speaker 1: the hole, then it'll happen again, and often the ball
Speaker 1: will drain straight away. A lot of the game designers
Speaker 1: make these holes where that often the trajectory of the
Speaker 1: ball is one that is darn close to draining, like
Speaker 1: close to ninety percent of the time, and it is
Speaker 1: mad frustrating. One last common element in pinball machines are ramps,
Speaker 1: and I think it's pretty obvious what a ramp is.
Speaker 1: It's an inclined surface that brings the ball somewhere else
Speaker 1: on the playfield. It might be a raised playfield, so
Speaker 1: you have a secondary playfield that's separate from the main
Speaker 1: playfield of the game. Maybe the ramp will just guide
Speaker 1: the ball down to one of the in lanes that
Speaker 1: lead to the flippers. Usually hitting a ramp activates a
Speaker 1: switch of some sort that does something at bare minimum
Speaker 1: increases the score, but it might be part of a
Speaker 1: mode or some other more advanced game feature. There are
Speaker 1: other basic components as well, like spinners. For example. I
Speaker 1: also mentioned drop targets in the previous episode. These little
Speaker 1: targets typically made out of hard plastic that, when the
Speaker 1: ball strikes them, drops down into the playfield. And there
Speaker 1: are countless gimmicks that are usually called toys in pinball, lingo.
Speaker 1: Toys you can find in lots of different pinball machines.
Speaker 1: Some are unique to a specific table where it's a
Speaker 1: really innovative design and there's not really anything else like
Speaker 1: it in pinball. One of them are based off a
Speaker 1: very similar concept, and it's just that the iterations you
Speaker 1: see looked and act a little different. But these are
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff and they can do anything from
Speaker 1: shooting a ball elsewhere on the playfield to moving it
Speaker 1: with magnets. Like I think of Adam's Family, which is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite tables of all time. There is
Speaker 1: a toy of thing the hand, and it comes out
Speaker 1: of a box and it's got a little magnet on
Speaker 1: the end of it, so it can pick up a
Speaker 1: pinball and pull it in for a ball lock for
Speaker 1: a multi ball further down the game. That's a simple
Speaker 1: example of a toy in a pinball machine. And magnets
Speaker 1: are really important in pinball. Not only do they activate solenoids,
Speaker 1: not only are they important for all that physical action.
Speaker 1: Remember that the balls themselves are made out of steel
Speaker 1: and thus are affected by magnets. So some games have
Speaker 1: electromagnetic elements mounted under the playfield in order to change
Speaker 1: the direction of the ball's path as it's zooming around
Speaker 1: it might make it suddenly swerve and go a totally
Speaker 1: different way. Some use magnets to pick up a ball
Speaker 1: put it somewhere else on the playfield. Some pinball machines
Speaker 1: also have special balls that aren't made of steel, that
Speaker 1: are made of ceramic like usually mixed in along with
Speaker 1: the steel balls. Twilight Zone is an example of this.
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone has a power ball that's made out of ceramic.
Speaker 1: It is lighter in weight, they don't weigh as much
Speaker 1: as the steel ball, so they go a lot faster.
Speaker 1: And they also aren't affected by magnetic fields, so the
Speaker 1: electromagnet stuff doesn't work on the ceramics, so they change
Speaker 1: the nature of the game as it's being played. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there are versions as well. You can have elements of
Speaker 1: a game work because the balls are mostly made out
Speaker 1: of steel. You can also have elements of the game
Speaker 1: for balls that are specifically not made out of steel.
Speaker 1: To be the exception, It gives a lot of versatility
Speaker 1: when you become a game designer. All right, we've got
Speaker 1: more to say about pinball, but before we get into that,
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break. Now. In my last episode
Speaker 1: about pinball, I talked about how various communities across the
Speaker 1: United States had identified pinball as being a great social evil,
Speaker 1: and pinball machines were associated with gambling and delinquency. And
Speaker 1: since early pinball machines didn't have flippers, they were seen
Speaker 1: as games of chance. And I think that was a
Speaker 1: more than fair assertion, Like, yes, you could use some
Speaker 1: skill to be able to plunge a ball in a
Speaker 1: particular way, but there was way more chance at play
Speaker 1: than skill, I would say, And since proprietors would often
Speaker 1: award prizes for people who achieved top scores, these games
Speaker 1: a chance were essentially seen as gambling. And thus the
Speaker 1: authorities eventually came down hard as moral panic drove them
Speaker 1: to do something that would says by their constituents. But
Speaker 1: it's important to do something that's not too hard, something
Speaker 1: that's achievable. You know. It's one thing to say you're
Speaker 1: going up against like organized crime and the mob. It's
Speaker 1: another thing to actually do that. So why not just
Speaker 1: smash a few pinball machines and make pimball illegal? And
Speaker 1: that'll make you look tough on crime. So folks were
Speaker 1: seeing pimball as a corrupting influence on the youth, of
Speaker 1: the day, partly because pinball machines were also often found
Speaker 1: in places that were a little unseemly, you know, like
Speaker 1: bars and that kind of thing. And so cities like Atlanta,
Speaker 1: New York, Chicago, and several more would pass laws making
Speaker 1: pinball illegal. And then we get up to an event
Speaker 1: that is famous in the history of pinball, at least
Speaker 1: for pimball enthusiasts. So, if you'll recall, in the nineteen forties,
Speaker 1: New York Mayor LaGuardia would outlaw pinball and famously pose
Speaker 1: for publicity photos sledgehammer in hand, smash pinball machines at
Speaker 1: his feet. And it wouldn't be into till nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: six that this band would get overturned. The New York
Speaker 1: City Council was called upon to review the ban, and
Speaker 1: a man named Roger Sharp successfully convinced the council that
Speaker 1: the ban was not appropriate. Sharp wrote for GQ magazine,
Speaker 1: and he really really wanted to play pinball. He had
Speaker 1: played pinball in college and he wanted to be able
Speaker 1: to play pinball day to day. He wrote an article
Speaker 1: and later a book about pinball. But you know, he
Speaker 1: worked in New York City and there was no pinball
Speaker 1: to be played there, it was against the law. So
Speaker 1: his writings would eventually lead to this council meeting and
Speaker 1: he was called upon to provide expert testimony about the game.
Speaker 1: And here's where we get into the myth and legend
Speaker 1: segment of the episode, not to say that this stuff
Speaker 1: isn't true, just that it's become kind of a central,
Speaker 1: really important moment in pinball history here in the United States.
Speaker 1: So Sharp was pulled in to talk to the council
Speaker 1: about pinball, and he was arguing that modern pinball was
Speaker 1: a game of skill, not chance, and that the reasons
Speaker 1: for banning the machines were based off outdated devices that
Speaker 1: were really more like slot machines than they were like
Speaker 1: pinball games. And he said, well, that's not the case anymore.
Speaker 1: That's not what pinball is anymore, and the band shouldn't stand.
Speaker 1: And you know, modern machines were games of skill in
Speaker 1: which a player who was actually good at the game
Speaker 1: could achieve specific outcomes. You know, you could aim for
Speaker 1: and make a particular shot. It wasn't just random chance.
Speaker 1: Otherwise the ball would just bounce around and eventually drain,
Speaker 1: and players would not really be able to affect the
Speaker 1: score in any meaningful way. So Sharp was put to
Speaker 1: the test. The Council had Sharp play a pinball machine
Speaker 1: and asked him to make several specific shots, which Sharp
Speaker 1: managed to do, which is great, he must perform fantastic
Speaker 1: under pressure. I hear he's legit a phenomenal pinball. But
Speaker 1: the thing that I think was interesting is that even
Speaker 1: great pinball players don't make every shot right like It's
Speaker 1: just like any great athlete never doesn't make every shot.
Speaker 1: They might make most, but not all. So he made
Speaker 1: it when it counted, And the council saw that it
Speaker 1: was possible to actually play pinball as a game, and
Speaker 1: that it was a game of skills. So they lifted
Speaker 1: the ban, and the war on pinball, at least in
Speaker 1: New York City, was over. I'm sure the extremely moral
Speaker 1: guardians of the nineteen thirties and forties were beside themselves
Speaker 1: with horror and sadness to see the evil pinball machines
Speaker 1: return to corrupt the youth. The nineteen seventy saw a
Speaker 1: real boom in pinball. Not only were various cities lifting
Speaker 1: or ignoring earlier bands on the game, but game designers
Speaker 1: were coming up with new gimmicks and themes to entice
Speaker 1: people to play. The rise of video games would also
Speaker 1: give rise to the video game arcade. And it used
Speaker 1: to be that, like video games, and pinball machines could
Speaker 1: only be found in random spots like movie theater lobbies
Speaker 1: or bowling alleys, or pizza joints and bars. But over
Speaker 1: time the possibility of a video game and pinball arcade arose,
Speaker 1: and for a short amount of time it was a
Speaker 1: darn good business. Here in the United States, you would
Speaker 1: find such arcade galleries in pretty much every shopping mall
Speaker 1: you came across. These days, they're far more rare because
Speaker 1: over time the home market would change things. Lots of
Speaker 1: things would kind of converge to make the classic video
Speaker 1: game arcade a less viable business. Pinball machines didn't tend
Speaker 1: to be as popular with these arcades as video game
Speaker 1: cabinets were. Pinball machines took up a lot of space.
Speaker 1: For one thing, the mechanical components also meant that parts
Speaker 1: could and would need replacing on a regular basis, so
Speaker 1: sometimes a proprietor would even have to stop what they
Speaker 1: were doing in order to come over and open up
Speaker 1: a machine, slide the glass pane out of the way
Speaker 1: and remove a ball manually, because balls would sometimes get stuck.
Speaker 1: And even a machine that had a ball clearing routine
Speaker 1: where all the solenoids would go off in sequence or
Speaker 1: in series, sometimes that wasn't enough and you would have
Speaker 1: to open a machine up to remove a ball that
Speaker 1: got lodged somewhere so that games could continue. So pinball
Speaker 1: machines were seen as kind of a hassle for some folks,
Speaker 1: and the question was would they be worth the hassle
Speaker 1: of operating them. Now there were still enough people thinking
Speaker 1: they were worth the hassle that there were lots of
Speaker 1: companies making pinball machines. Licensing had become a really big
Speaker 1: deal as well. These companies would strike deals with various
Speaker 1: IP holders to make machines themed after known commodities. These
Speaker 1: could be television shows or movies, or magazines or comic
Speaker 1: books like you know, I keep mentioning Adam's Family that
Speaker 1: was actually based off the film version of Adam's Family
Speaker 1: with ral Julia as Gomez Adams and Angelica Houston as Mortsia.
Speaker 1: That is still one of my favorite tables to the
Speaker 1: stay that's a licensed property obviously, there are lots of examples,
Speaker 1: ranging from things like Marvel Comics to Playboy to Jaws,
Speaker 1: to musicians, famous musicians and rock acts, Guns n' Roses,
Speaker 1: Iron Maiden, Metallica, Elton John. They all have dedicated pinball machines. Well.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy five, a company called Micro released an
Speaker 1: electronic pinball machine called the Spirit of seventy six, which
Speaker 1: was really notable because it was a solid state pinball machine,
Speaker 1: meaning that instead of having a mass of wires and
Speaker 1: physical circuitry underneath the playfield, this one had integrated circuit
Speaker 1: boards that were connected to one another. You still had
Speaker 1: wires running to stuff and everything, but you had these
Speaker 1: integrated circuit boards, which drastically simplified the layout underneath, at
Speaker 1: least from a wire's perspective. The invention of the transistor
Speaker 1: and then lay the integrated circuit revolutionized electronics across the board.
Speaker 1: It became possible to build much smaller circuits, which in
Speaker 1: turn led to the miniaturization of various devices. So stuff
Speaker 1: like radios and computers and televisions and much more would
Speaker 1: transform thanks to miniaturization, and again that was due to
Speaker 1: transistors and integrated circuits. Now, in pinball, miniaturization wasn't really
Speaker 1: a big concern, but transistors meant that you could create
Speaker 1: these mechanical systems that could be controlled by digital inputs
Speaker 1: rather than analog circuits wired to physical buttons and whatnot.
Speaker 1: Integrated circuits allowed for more accurate score keeping and control,
Speaker 1: and they would also pave the way for more advanced
Speaker 1: effects such as sound cues and voices speech. In other words,
Speaker 1: I'm told that the first table to have speech was
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy nine pinball machine called Gorgar gor Gar.
Speaker 1: It had seven whole words to its vocabulary, and it
Speaker 1: could make simple sentences is like you beat me, or
Speaker 1: gorgr speaks. Another change in pinball would be how scores
Speaker 1: would be displayed. So you might remember in our first
Speaker 1: episode I talked about a pinball machine that featured a
Speaker 1: dial and it had a needle that would point to
Speaker 1: score increments, so as your score would go out, the
Speaker 1: needle would move and show you what your score was.
Speaker 1: Later on you would get the famous digit counters mentioned
Speaker 1: in the whose song Pinball Wizard, and these were essentially reels,
Speaker 1: and the reels had numbers printed on the circumference of
Speaker 1: the reel. And the reel would turn to show whatever
Speaker 1: the score was, and you would have a sequence of
Speaker 1: reels right so that you'd have one that would be
Speaker 1: the single digits, one that would be the tens, the hundreds,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and they would rotate to show whatever current
Speaker 1: score was in place. These gave way to digital displays.
Speaker 1: You would get like digital then LCD, THN LED and
Speaker 1: so on, and that would really allow for a lot
Speaker 1: other opportunities to use the BackBox display as part of
Speaker 1: the game. You could incorporate video game elements into your
Speaker 1: pinball game. The solid state era would lead to computer
Speaker 1: micro controllers handling the operations of the game, which also
Speaker 1: allowed game designers to create increasingly sophisticated modes. So a
Speaker 1: mode is typically a series of tasks that the player
Speaker 1: has to complete in order to finish that mode, and
Speaker 1: then you win points or earn an extra ball or
Speaker 1: some other outcome is dependent upon completing that mode. So
Speaker 1: maybe hit these two ramps like five times each. That
Speaker 1: would be a pretty crappy mode, but it could exist.
Speaker 1: Or it might be hit these outer lanes a certain
Speaker 1: number of times, or hit them in this order right ramp,
Speaker 1: left ramp, and then the pop bumpers, it could be
Speaker 1: something along those lines now. Eventually, game designers got the
Speaker 1: idea of including several different modes within a single game,
Speaker 1: and if a player were able to complete all the
Speaker 1: modes listed, then a new bonus mode could pop up,
Speaker 1: and in the pinball community this is referenced as a
Speaker 1: wizard mode. Many newer games feature some sort of wizard mode.
Speaker 1: One of the ones I'm again most familiar with is
Speaker 1: Adam's Family. If you complete all the different modes, you
Speaker 1: get a tour of the mansion, which allows you to
Speaker 1: really rack up points if you're a really good player.
Speaker 1: I've actually done it a few times back when I
Speaker 1: was in college. These days, I doubt I could ever
Speaker 1: get that far. But back when I was playing it
Speaker 1: pretty regularly, I got really good at it and it
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. And people who are really
Speaker 1: good at pinball machines and playing pinball, they can really
Speaker 1: show off with getting to wizard modes. It often is
Speaker 1: a bit of a chore. Some games have so many
Speaker 1: different modes you have to complete first before you can
Speaker 1: unlock Wizard mode that I think I would be exhausted
Speaker 1: before I could ever get there. My wrists give out
Speaker 1: from playing with the buttons too much. But this was
Speaker 1: also in an era in which we would see some
Speaker 1: important companies actually get out of pinball design and manufacturing.
Speaker 1: Some companies would shut down important companies that really led
Speaker 1: the way in pinball development. So Gottlieb was the first
Speaker 1: to go. Bally and Williams would also get out of
Speaker 1: pinball after having an amazing run in the eighties and nineties,
Speaker 1: which left a single pinball manufacturer active at that time.
Speaker 1: It was Stern Pinball. Stern Pinball was founded in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine. It actually traces its history back to an
Speaker 1: earlier company called Data East Pinball, which kind of produced
Speaker 1: pinball machines for Sega, But Stern Pinball would establish itself
Speaker 1: in the late nineties and it stuck around. It's still
Speaker 1: making pinball machines today. They made the Jaws machine that
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the last episode, the Jaws machine that
Speaker 1: I desperately would love to own because it's such a
Speaker 1: great machine. Now, the two saw a lot of companies
Speaker 1: get out of pinball, but some companies actually got their
Speaker 1: start later in the two thousands. In twenty eleven, a
Speaker 1: company called Jersey Jack Pinball came into business. Their tables
Speaker 1: often include much more advanced technology, including stuff like Bluetooth
Speaker 1: connectivity so that you can be part of like worldwide
Speaker 1: leader boards and stuff. I got to play one of
Speaker 1: their tables at the Southern Fried Gaming Expo too. That
Speaker 1: was their Elton John table. I mentioned that earlier. Elton John.
Speaker 1: That's another fantastic table. I really love the table design,
Speaker 1: plus has an amazing soundtrack. I think they did a
Speaker 1: fantastic job with that game. It always had a big
Speaker 1: line waiting for it. There were three Elton John tables there,
Speaker 1: I want to say, and all three had a line
Speaker 1: and yeah, great machine. Other companies currently making pinball machines
Speaker 1: include Spooky Pinball, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming Company. They're several more.
Speaker 1: There's even a DIY home building pinball community. You have
Speaker 1: people who are designing and building their own customized machine
Speaker 1: because you can get the various components off different markets,
Speaker 1: and if you have knowledge on how to program, you
Speaker 1: can program a machine. And if you've got really you
Speaker 1: need to have access to some precision machinery to machine
Speaker 1: the playfield properly. But if you have access to that stuff,
Speaker 1: you can design and build a pinball machine. That's just
Speaker 1: based off your own ideas, which is really cool. So
Speaker 1: I feel like pinball had a massive setback in the
Speaker 1: early two thousands, like it was in danger of going extinct.
Speaker 1: But since it's seen a resurgence. You can find pinball
Speaker 1: machines in lots of different places. You have these expos,
Speaker 1: you have various museums that have set up around the
Speaker 1: United States that have collections of pinball machines. So, if
Speaker 1: you are a pinball enthusiast, I think the future looks bright.
Speaker 1: I think that the hobby has got a lot of
Speaker 1: new life to it over the last decade or so.
Speaker 1: If you are not a pinball enthusiast, well, there's no
Speaker 1: better time than the present to go and check out
Speaker 1: a pinball machine. Give it a whirl. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of great ones out there. There are also some
Speaker 1: real stinkers. It helps to kind of go and look
Speaker 1: at what games are generally agreed upon to be good
Speaker 1: versus those that people think are bad. Now, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of disagreement in the space. You've got people who
Speaker 1: will passionately defend one title and say that another beloved
Speaker 1: title is the worst thing to ever happen to pinball.
Speaker 1: That happens too, because gamers, as we know, are a
Speaker 1: passionate group. Sometimes they don't agree with each other, but
Speaker 1: I think you'll find general consensus around certain games, and
Speaker 1: if you play those, you'll know whether or not this
Speaker 1: is something that appeals to you. As for me, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep playing. I love my pinball, and I
Speaker 1: had a lot of fun going into talking about these
Speaker 1: machines and what makes them work. Obviously, when we get
Speaker 1: to the modern ones, there are a lot of components
Speaker 1: that are pretty advanced stuff that you would find in
Speaker 1: things like computer displays and beyond. But it's hard to
Speaker 1: talk about that because it tends to get very game dependent,
Speaker 1: and then you're doing just an episode where you're talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, four or five specific games, and I felt
Speaker 1: that that was less important than a more broad approach.
Speaker 1: I hope all of you out there are doing well.
Speaker 1: I hope you earn all the extra balls and get
Speaker 1: all the replays and set all the high scores, and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is
Speaker 1: an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows,