Pinball - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Pinball is a type of arcade game, usually coin- operated, in which points are scored by a player manipulating one or more steel balls on a play field inside a glass- covered cabinet called a pinball machine.
The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible. Points are earned when the ball strikes different targets on the play field. A drain is situated at the bottom of the play field, partially protected by player- controlled plastic bats called flippers. A game ends after all the balls fall into the drain. Secondary objectives are to maximize the time spent playing (by earning "extra balls" and keeping the ball in play as long as possible) and to earn bonus games (known as "replays"). History[edit]Pre- modern: Development of outdoor and tabletop ball games[edit]The origins of pinball are intertwined with the history of many other games.
Games played outdoors by rolling balls or stones on a grass course, such as bocce or bowls, eventually evolved into various local ground billiards games played by hitting the balls with sticks and propelling them at targets, often around obstacles. Croquet, golf and paille- maille eventually derived from ground billiards variants.
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The evolving and specializing outdoor games finally led to indoor versions that could be played on a table, such as billiards, or on the floor of a pub, like bowling and shuffleboard. The tabletop versions of these games became the ancestors of modern pinball. Late 1. 70. 0s: Spring launcher invented[edit]Billard japonais, Southern Germany/Alsace ca. It already has a spring mechanism to propel the ball, 1.
Pinball Medic is in Austin, Texas. We Sell, Buy Restore and Repair Coin-Op arcade game equipment including Pinball Games, Video Arcades and Crane and. True American Craftsmanship. Stern Pinball traces its lineage to the early 1930’s and the founding of modern pinball. Sam Stern, the father of SPI’s Founder. The introduction of microprocessors brought pinball into the realm of electronic gaming. The electromechanical relays and scoring reels that drove games in the 1950s.
Montague Redgrave's patent. In France, during the long 1. Louis XIV, billiard tables were narrowed, with wooden pins or skittles at one end of the table, and players would shoot balls with a stick or cue from the other end, in a game inspired as much by bowling as billiards. Pins took too long to reset when knocked down, so they were eventually fixed to the table, and holes in the bed of the table became the targets.
Players could ricochet balls off the pins to achieve the harder scorable holes. A standardized version of the game eventually became known as bagatelle. Somewhere between the 1. Billard japonais 'Japanese billiards' was invented (in Western Europe, despite the name), which used thin metal pins and replaced the cue at the player's end of the table with a coiled spring and a plunger. The player shot balls up the inclined playfield toward the scoring targets using this plunger, a device that remains in use in pinball to this day, and the game was also directly ancestral to pachinko. Spring launchers become mainstream[edit]In 1.
British inventor Montague Redgrave settled in the US and manufactured bagatelle tables in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1. 87. 1 Redgrave was granted US Patent #1. Improvements in Bagatelle",[1] another name for the spring launcher that was first introduced in Billard japonais. The game also shrank in size to fit atop a bar or counter. The balls became marbles and the wickets became small metal pins.
Redgrave's popularization of the spring launcher and innovations in game design are acknowledged as the birth of pinball in its modern form. Coin operation introduced[edit]. An early pinball game without flippers, circa 1. By the 1. 93. 0s, manufacturers were producing coin- operated versions of bagatelles, now known as "marble games" or "pin games". The table was under glass and used M.
Redgrave's plunger device to propel the ball into the upper playfield.[citation needed] In 1. David Gottlieb's Baffle Ball became the first hit of the coin- operated era.
Selling for $1. 7. The game resonated with people wanting cheap entertainment in the Great Depression- era economy.
Most drugstores and taverns in the US operated pinball machines,[citation needed] with many locations quickly recovering the cost of the game. Baffle Ball sold over 5. Gottlieb as the first major manufacturer of pinball machines. In 1. 93. 2, 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.
Its larger playfield and ten pockets made it more challenging than Baffle Ball, selling 5. 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 designed to sit on a counter or bar top. Electrification and active bumpers introduced[edit]The 1. A company called Pacific Amusements in Los Angeles, USA produced a game called Contact in 1. 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.[3] The designer of Contact, Harry Williams, would eventually form his own company, Williams Manufacturing, in 1. Other manufacturers quickly followed suit with similar features.
Electric lights soon became a standard feature of all subsequent pinball games, designed to attract players. By the end of 1. 93. Chicago. Chicago has been the center of pinball manufacturing ever since. Competition among the companies was strong, and by 1. During WWII, all of the major manufacturers of coin- operated games turned to the manufacture of equipment for the war effort. Some companies, like Williams, bought old games from operators and refurbished them, adding new artwork with a patriotic theme.
At the end of the war, a generation of Americans looked for amusement in bars and malt shops, and pinball saw another golden age. Improvements such as the tilt mechanism and free games (known as replays) appeared. Flippers introduced[edit]Gottlieb's Humpty Dumpty, introduced in 1. The low power flippers required three pairs around the playfield to get the ball to the top. Triple Action was the first game to feature just two flippers at the bottom of the playfield. Unlike in modern machines, the flippers faced outwards. These more powerful flippers were facilitated by the addition of a DC power supply.
These innovations were some of many by designer Steve Kordek. The first game to feature the familiar dual- inward- facing- flipper design was Spot Bowler, made by Gottlieb in 1. The post- war era was dominated by Gottlieb. Game designer Wayne Neyens, along with artist Leroy Parker, produced games that collectors consider some of the best classic pinball machines. Solid- state electronics and digital displays introduced[edit].
A clear walled electromechanical pinball machine created by the Pacific Pinball Museum to show what the insides of pinball machines look like. The introduction of microprocessors brought pinball into the realm of electronic gaming. The electromechanical relays and scoring reels that drove games in the 1.
The first solid- state pinball is believed to be Mirco Games' The Spirit of '7. Williams' Hot Tip (1. This new technology led to a boom for Williams and Bally, who attracted more players with games featuring more complex rules, digital sound effects, and speech. The video game boom of the 1. Arcades replaced rows of pinball machines with video games like 1. Space Invaders, 1.
Asteroids, 1. 98. Pac- Man, and 1. 98.
Galaga. These earned significantly greater profits than the pinball machines of the day, while simultaneously requiring less maintenance. Bally, Williams, and Gottlieb continued to make pinball machines, while they also manufactured video games in much higher numbers. Many of the larger companies were acquired by, or merged with, other companies. Chicago Coin was purchased by the Stern family, who brought the company into the digital era as Stern Enterprises, which closed its doors in the mid- 1. Bally exited the pinball business in 1. Williams, who subsequently used the Bally trademark from then on for about half of their pinball releases. While the video game craze of the late 1.
All companies involved tried to take advantage of the new solid state technology to improve player appeal of pinball and win back former players from video games. Some of this creativity resulted in landmark designs and features still present today. Some of these include speech, such as Williams' Gorgar; ramps for the ball to travel around, such as Williams' Space Shuttle; "multiball", used on Williams' Firepower; multi- level games like Gottlieb's Black Hole and Williams' Black Knight; and blinking chase lights, as used on Bally's Xenon. Although these novel features did not win back players as the manufacturers had hoped, they changed players' perception of pinball for coming decades. Pinball in the digital age[edit]After the collapse of the coin- operated video game industry, pinball saw another comeback in the 1. Some new manufacturers entered the field such as Capcom Pinball and Alvin G. Company, founded by Alvin Gottlieb, son of David Gottlieb.
Gary Stern, the son of Williams co- founder Sam Stern, founded Data East Pinball with funding from Data East Japan. The games from Williams now dominated the industry, with complicated mechanical devices and more elaborate display and sound systems attracting new players to the game. Licensing popular movies and icons of the day became a staple for pinball, with Bally/Williams' The Addams Family hitting an all- time modern sales record of 2. Two years later, Williams commemorated this benchmark with a limited edition of 1,0. Addams Family Gold pinball machines, featuring gold- colored trim and updated software with new game features.
Other notable popular licenses included Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Expanding markets in Europe and Asia helped fuel the revival of interest. Pat Lawlor was a designer, working for Williams until their exit from the industry in 1. About a year later, Lawlor returned to the industry, starting his own company.[7] working in conjunction with Stern Pinball to produce new games. The end of the 1.