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Pinball Wizards on the Internet
cecil36 writes "Pinball wizards are now turning to the Internet for their needed support. With WMS Industries (Williams/Bally) no longer in existence,
owners of Williams/Bally pinball games are turning to online communities (such as the news group rec.games.pinball) to find sources for parts to maintain their games. It could use a little more detail, as the article failed to mention Stern Pinball. Lots of useful links contained within if you are looking for those few parts to fix your games." I need to order new
Rubber for my Jack Bot sometime too.
Hope I can turn some people on to pinball via Virtual Pinball and PinMAME. Most of your favorite games are available. It really has come a LONG way.
Cheers!
Visual Pinball Forums>
Tables and more>
There has been awesome work done--the tables and electronics are emulated to the point that they all work together and are as close to the real thing as you can get without stepping into the arcade.
The downside is that this stuff is very much Windows-centric. So that means I have to reboot to get my fix of Circus Voltaire.
Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag
Quoted directly from the article on Yahoo (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020120/wr/colum n_livewire_dc.html) :
"Only one firm, privately-held Stern Pinball (http://www.sternpinball.com/), is still making pinball machines. The Melrose Park, Ill.-based company was spun off from gaming giant Sega Enterprises Ltd (7964.T) when the company left the pinball industry in the late 1990s."
so, the article DOES mention Stern pinball... Though whether it was edited later to add the fact or not, I don't know...
...this is getting out of hand
I can recommend Steve Young's The Pinball Resource very much.
They bought a bunch of spare inventory when Gottlieb went out of business, although you can get parts, manuals, and kits for all other kinds of brands too.
I was surprised and relieved they had in stock a miniature cue stick for the Cue Ball Wizard pinball my wife got me for Christmas last year. I didn't figure I would be able to find a specialized part like that easily. Cheap, too.
Anyway, highly recommended. Good prices, quick turnaround and easy to deal with.
TILT!
The problem is that, as the mainstream of people started to really get into computers, Windows 95 was taking over. Simple (as in, non-FPS) DOS games died like flies compared to graphically worse Windows games that were easier to install and run.
The majority of people thinking of computer pinball games must primarily be basing their knowledge of them on Microsoft's "3D Pinball" game that came with Windows NT 4.0 and 98, and later versions of Windows.
It's a really shitty pinball game, for those of you that haven't seen it. It's not "3D" in any sense of the word. The ball is just a sprite flying around a layered bitmap.
Epic Pinball was great... it had good sound, really smooth gameplay, and diverse tables that were lots of fun to play and get good at.
Sadly, Microsoft crushed the market.. if you wanted a pinball game, you already had one, why bother go get something else when pinball games seem to suck (based on experience).
The guys who made Epic Pinball (Digital Extremes) released a new Pinball game a few months ago, built with the Unreal Engine. Its pretty cool and look great as well. You can find more about it here: http://www.pinball.ea.com/
There's also a free demo available.
Digital Extremes is now working on Unreal Championship and Unreal Tournament 2.
I remember once seeing a program on television about modern pinball machines. I was surprised that they actually used a 486 in the pinball machine, with a special "video" card to display stuff on the LED grid display.
... specifically, the Motorola 6809. Sega games used a 68000 16-bit CPU to run the dot-matrix display (gas plasma, not LEDs), but that was about as complex as it got.
... then yes, these machines used more "standard" PC-style hardware. Whether it was indeed a 486 or not, I don't know ... but these games came with full-screen color video monitors, not LED displays.
Why in the world is a whole 486 needed? I don't see why they couldn't implement the thing using a few cheap 8 bit processors. Oh well.
Dunno what you were watching, but they're entirely wrong. Late model "true" pinball machines did indeed use 8-bit processors in them
Now, if you wanna talk Pinball 2000
I have built a couple of them.
It is very simple if you just get yourself a keyboard encoder to hook up the joysticks (I recommend the I-Pac).
The best compromise for a display is to get a VGA arcade monitor. As standard PC monitors look too good, while standard res arcade monitors are hard to deal with. I got mine for $100 on Ebay.
Your cabinet is as good as free. Wait for the next amusement industry auction to come to town (www.superauctions.com) and then buy a dead machine ($25 to $50 will be enough). The take that machine home, and sell all the inside parts on ebay. You will recoup your purchase price nearly every time.
I love pinball, always have. Been playing it since the 70's when arcades were dimly lit, grungy holes in the side hallways of malls [or the basements of bowling alleys] where the walls were covered in carpet to cut the noise.
The silverball has always won my heart, because - if your good . you can play for hours. Robotron, great game - but I remember overhearing an operator at my local arcade say 'Yeah .. crank that difficulty up .. all the way' on saturday. At least with a pinball machine .. you saw what you were up against.
As for their demise .. well .. Cleaning and maintaing them really is a labor of love. As more and more arcades became huge chains, with corporate # employees, they cared less and less about the machines. The individual arcade operator had to buy their own machines, so they took care of their investment. The kids making $4.25 an hour in the 80's couldn't be bothered.
And lets face it .. I own five machines (kept in my basement) all mid 90's games .. and they are a PAIN to keep clean sometimes. My Attack from mars EATS bulbs.
But two real kickers helped put the nail in the coffin I think :
Street Fighter II, and WMS' reaction to it.
Street Fighter II was a phenenomon (With mortal Kombat on its heels). A $3000 arcade machine (about the same price as a new Pin at the time) was making $2000-$3000 in coins a week, EASY ! Never before had a machine been able to pay for *ITSELF* in a single week of operation .. when you included in the costs of 2 new joysticks a month (and 2-3 buttons) your still WELL into the black.
This put a lot of $$ in a lot of operator's pockets .. whom .. I must say .. probally didn't deserve it. Business wise i mean. If 'bill's arcade' is run by Bill , a guy who pays for his girlfriend's car out of the till - then wonders why he cant pay rent - we'll its no surprise when he goes out of business. Now all the Bill's of the world have 1/2 a dozen street fighter machines that are giving them phat cash every week- and can hold on. Do they buy different machines, and revitalize their arcades ? no .. they buy more Street Fighter Machines .. after all THATS their cash cow. [forgetting the pinball machines that kept them afloat before SF II came along]
[this same phenonomin happened with Comic Book shops in the early 90's with Magic Cards - Many hole in the wall shops that should have died - we're given free 'fad' $$ .. and did stupid things .. like 50% discounts, or whatever to try to keep up with all the idiots making a quick buck out of their garage because the $$ was good. The closest example today would be the folks on E-Bay that were selling X-Box Boxes, easy $$ .. once one managed it .. about 60 other people jumped on the bandwagon in about 10 mins.]
WMS' reaction to this was 'we gotta make pinball machines *MORE* fun !! Twilight zone, the ungodly beast that it is .. has MORE stuff stuck on it (breakable stuff mind you!) than almost any other pin. They made GREAT $$ for operators, while they worked. Thats the key phraze, while they worked. As Bally,Williams and Bally/Williams put more and more 'gimmics' on the machines (talking heads anyone?) they broke easier and easier.
Of course that cost more .. so pin prices went up, thats one of the REAL kickers, to compeate with cheap video games .. pins started to cost more. Mid - late 90's .. running out of cash .. they got back to the basics. Compeating on price
of machine rather than interest level. and *POW* they started making $$ again. Attack from Mars was HUGELY successful [just TRY to find one with a decent playfield .. i was damn lucky with mine.] and it was a stripped (narrow) playfield.
The end all though .. was a business decision. Do you manufature 'fruit' machines ? [for casinos] that you can sell for $12-15k a pop by the hundred ? or pinball machines where the manufacture count is 1,000-2,000 machines that sell for under $4k each ?.
At least we still got Stern pinball .. trying .. Hopefully Monopoly will dig them out of the hole their last few games put them in. [it plays more like a bally/williams machine than any of their previous tries.
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!