Posts Tagged ‘restore’

“Will you challenge the Black Knight Again?” One of the great masterpieces of the 80’s – Black Knight pinball.   This machine went under pretty reasonable surgery: Cabinet and backbox stripped to wood.  Repaired and painted with a 5 stage automotive process. New mirror backglass – a very high cost item All new internal circuit […]

Tales of the Arabian Nights (TOTAN) pinball is one of my “grail” pins… meaning, a machine that I’ve been looking to own for quite some time.   These machines are very hard as most collectors hold on to them forever.   These machines are considered the most beautiful pinball machines ever made due to the machine layout, […]

Robot Girlfriend 1.0 Pretty much since the beginning of pinball time, women have been depicted on pinball machines to allure the typical patrons.  However, none were so popular as Bally Xenon from 1980. This machine was not only futuristic looking, but employed cutting edge technology that still surprises tech-heads today with what the Bally engineers could accomplish. […]

Williams, the top brand pinball maker in the 80’s and 90’s, produced three unique machines showcasing the classic Coney Island amusement park.   The Cyclone was the 2nd machine in the lineup, and arguably the best model of the series. This machine had many of the elements of the first machine (Comet), but expanded on […]

Pinball machines used to made from a complicated set of relays, motors, wheels and contacts which allowed the games to have basic sets of rules.  Around 1977, solid state machines were being designed which incorporated the latest technology of micro processors, memory and various integrated circuits.  This cutting edge technology wasn’t even available to consumers […]

In my little town growing up, there was an old brick building just under the rail road track bridge.  It had probably served as a dozen things in the past 100+ years, but I always remembered it being an old service garage.   One day, in likely 1982, it was converted into coin-op arcade.  I […]

The Bride of pinbot (BOP) is a unique machine in all of pinball.  This is the second in the Pinbot series, and arguably the best one of the group.  Only 8100 units were ever created. This is the only pinball machine that shares the same circuitry as the legendary Williams Funhouse, and if you haven’t […]

Bally actually came out with two versions of the Mata Hari pinball in 1977 and was right in the middle of changing technology from electro-mechanical (relays, contacts and basic operation) to solid state (circuit board with programmable memory and deeper rules).   This of course was their first iteration of solid state pinball, but they […]

Bally (Midway / Williams) thankfully had the foresight (or dumb luck) in allowing the designers to bid on their next pinball machine.  Rather than go the simple route of making a product tie-in to some current fad or movie release, the Bally/Midway/Williams company realized that not all great ideas came from top down. The result […]

1967 was at the height of the space race and everyone wanted to share in celebrating the United States’ remarkable technical prowess.  The Williams Apollo pinball machine was created to capture and relive these moments for patrons in the back alley bars and bowling alleys.   About This Machine This machine was produced in limited […]