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Inventor of the Modern Pinball Machine Dies At 100
porsche911 writes with this excerpt from the New York Times: "Steve Kordek, who revolutionized the game of pinball in the 1940s by designing what became the standard two-flipper machine found in bars and penny arcades around the world, died on Sunday at a hospice in Park Ridge, Ill. He was 100. ... 'Steve's impact would be comparable to D. W. Griffith moving from silent films through talkies and color and CinemaScope and 3-D with computer-generated graphics,' [pinball historian Roger] Sharpe said. 'He moved through each era seamlessly.'"
***TILT***
He just wrapped around, to be reborn somewhere else...
Goodbye, old friend.
Bummer, it sucks to call first post and then not get first post. And the actual first poster made a decent joke, too.
As a kid, I loved pinball machines. It was like a coming-of-age thing to go to the game parlor full of these beeping, ringing, singing gadgets and blow 4, 5, 6 quarters on these wonderful games of skill and chance and, er, gravity.
Many kids today probably haven't had a chance to play a physical, mechanical pinball machine. It's a visceral, physical experience, different from the cute virtual pinball games available on most computers. Kind of like playing a real piano versus an electronic keyboard, only more so. There was the art of shaking the machine just enough not to get a tilt penalty. There was the knowledge of each machine's little quirks and peculiarities.
Thank you Mr. Kordek for your contributions (note that he did not "invent" pinball machines; he invented the paddles, as the article explains). You changed the world, hopefully for the better!
By the way, another interesting factoid in the article: in the late 40s, there were TWO DOZEN manufacturers of pinball machines just in the Chicago area alone. Them was the days for manufacturing in this country!
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Shouldn't he get a free game at 100?
100? High score! :rofl:
all those f'ing quarters back!
He outlived his creation... Pinball machines are almost nowhere to be found any more. Unfortunately those photoplay machines offered more variety in gameplay and less maintenance (not to mention way less floorspace), replacing pinballs almost worldwide.
I find pinball machines (especially the later ones, from the solid state era) a perfect blending of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, art, and game.
As a proud owner of an Addams Family machine, I can only think of Anjelica Huston's sampled voice saying "Rest in peace" after draining the final ball.
Eventually, in the Game of Life, the flippers stop working, quarters won't take, and you just can't save your ball.
Thanks for all the memories, good sir! May your gameplay in the afterlife have infinite credits and no more tilts!
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Should you find yourself in Las Vegas (as I will this weekend), make sure you check out the Pinball Hall of Fame - several hundred games from all eras, all playable (many for $0.25). It's an amazing place.
Such restraint you had!
I just missed the Pinball Heydey, catching instead the early Arcade Heyday.
Rule of Thumb was to take a $10 roll of quarters! Because EACH of 7 games needed attention!
Worst spendings:
A : against a Neo-Pro at Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat 1: $30.
B: against Mushmanand Goron in Ataxx Circa 1993. $20
C: Recreational games with friends of Mortal Kombat 3: $50
D. beating Killer Instinct 1: $30
Then I basically retired from video games.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The funniest quarter-wasting moment I've ever seen was my friend getting his ass kicked at Sengoku. The same samurai(not even a boss) kicked 5 dollars out of his ass, and he told me to get more quarters as he was losing his temper at the game. I got him more quarters and he finally knocked the sword out of the samurai's hand(which is itself comedic because the samurai looks back and forth at both his empty hands), but then the samurai kicked two more dollars of quarters out of his ass while he was screaming obscenities at the game.
The most underrated game of that era had to be Midway's Total Carnage, a parody of Gulf War I. From the Wikipedia:
In Total Carnage, an evil Middle Eastern dictator named General Akhboob closes off his country to the rest of the world following a war in 1999. Hundreds of reporters flocked to the zone in hopes of getting a real scoop. Unfortunately for them, one of the reporters discovers that there's more than baby milk being made at the 'Baby Milk Factory'.
General Akhboob then captures the reporter, as well as all the remaining reporters in his country. It turns out that General Akhboob has been building an army of mutants and a stockpile of chemical weapons. He's also holding several American reporters and other civilians captive. It is up to the Doomsday Squad, composed of Captain Carnage (Player 1) and Major Mayhem (Player 2), to invade Akhboob's base, wipe out his forces, destroy the mutants, rescue all the hostages and capture Akhboob.
Nice score, good man! Wow, really! A one hundred!
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
...his gravestone will read
Table-ized A.I.
Average male lifespan is about 78 years. Steve Kordek died at 100, Steve Jobs at 56. Who was smarter? By that standard, lifespan, Kordek was a genius. Smarter than Einstein?
When Jobs died I mused that he was a failure. A moron. Dying at 56 puts him, in my opinion, in a verly low intelligence bracket, given the circumstances of his life - born healthy, excellent environment, etc...
Based on your reasoning skills, I predict you will die fairly young.
I grew up at the last gasp of the pinball game, when everything had a movie tie-in, but still then I loved them.
If I were feeling even a little bit humorous right now I would ask that when he is placed to rest the pall-bearers take extra care lest they trigger a Tilt and loose all their credits.
I remember that Slashdot only posts events etc. with links that include analysis etc. of the event.
But something is seriously wrong if a board takes 5 days to point out someone's dead - esp. someone that we like and is quite a bit famous - and there is nothing worthwhile in the description and no links that make it worth waiting for 5 days to read about it.
Could the moderator hire some support staff.. and speed it up a bit.
Slashdot reminds me of the ATT Ad where everyone gets text a few mins earlier than the other guy.... slashdot seems to be the 'slow-on-the-uptake' guy.
I have a friend in Berkeley California who has a basement full of restored pinball machines, and every weekend he opens his house to people to play these classic games! He's probably crying right now... :-( I don't get out there often enough, but when I do, I bring him a nice bottle of VERY good tequila, and we spend an evening getting sloshed and playing the pins. :-)
-T
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
He was at each of the Chicago shows I got the chance to go to and was always willing to meet fans, shake hands and talk pinball.
He was obviously in it for the love of the game.
I am glad I got to meet him and speaking for all the pinheads out here I say he will be missed.
Pinball is great, and I'm fond of some of the "pinball people" I've met.
Many seem interesting and dedicated, but others just seem to have too much money and time, and have an enormous ego because of their collection.
Pinball is fun, I agree. However, like many expensive hobbies it seems to attract some really elitist dickweeds, and I'm having a hard time with the competing emotions of feeling sorry that this guy died, but at the same time elated that I hope the news momentarily pauses a few real assholes I've known. It won't, I know that, and it doesn't really matter.... so forgive my terrible pettiness, but M & L (you Federal Agent lunatics, you), wherever you are, I hope this makes your a day a little dimmer and distracts you for a split second where-in something truly awful befalls you both.
Petty? Yes. But so are whackjob federal agents with an axe to grind.
-
As soon as I was tall enough to play pinball, Space Invaders came out. I always just kind of assumed the modern machine was invented way back in the dark days, perhaps shortly after juke boxes. I would have guessed 1920s perhaps? The idea that the inventor was still around just never occured to me. While video games dominated my youthful pass-times, the classics never die. When I was looking for free games on my PC a while back I found a pinball and played it for a while.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/243423/special-when-lit-a-pinball-documentary (for who can watch it) and http://www.tilt-movie.com/ ...
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I worked at Williams/Bally/Midway/Atari/etc in the late 90's. I worked in the coin-op video game division, where Steve was across the street in the pinball division. Occasionally he'd swing by our building, and had a fondness for the game system I was working on, so he'd sit at the test machine outside my office and play for quite a while. He always had this knack for making what sounded like the simplest suggestion, yet it actually being a profound change that took it to the next generation.
He'd walk into my office and say "You know, I like (game X) a lot. Have you thought about adding (feature Y)? It's probably a lot of work, but maybe worth it?" and an hour later we were smacking our foreheads as to why we hadn't thought of that ourselves. There's no doubt in my mind how he could look at something like a flipperless pinball machine and figure out how to take it to the next level. It's something I really wish I could do more often myself.
He was a great guy, and one of the most patient people I've known. He'll be greatly missed.
Praise Kordek, killer of time, devourer of small change.
Blank until
I had no idea this was his father, Frank was the priest for a short time at a church my family attended. He also performed the service at the funeral.
Rest in piece mr Kordek.
Satanclauz approves of your contribution to gaming.
I would have used the analogy: "Admiral of the Fleet John Arbuthnot "Jacky" Fisher", who joined the British Navy as a cabin boy aboard oak ships with muzzle-loaded cannon, and sails (not changed much from 500 years before), and when he left, all ships were steel, turbine powered, with high velocity armour piercing shells fired from breach loaded long range 50 calibre guns with analogue range guided computers, torpedoes, radio, and very early radar. The world had changed.
The pinball heyday was the same as the arcade heyday! Remember The Addams Family pinball? It came out in 92, and was the best selling pinball machine of all time. The 90's was fantastic for pinball! All the best machines (IMHO) are from that era. Unfortunately, as arcades got less popular, so did pinball. As time got tough for arcades, pinball unfortunately was the first to go since they were so expensive and difficult to maintain.
TAF was the best selling machine *of the modern era*. Machines back in the 50-60's had greater runs.
Pinball > video games. Because you can actually play the game by beating the crap out of it.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
One of the nicest things about pinball is that once you get decent you can usually play several games on a single credit.
Back when I played quite a bit I'd pay for a credit, play a couple games, and more often than not leave it with a credit when I was done--even on machines I wasn't familiar with. I wasn't even that good, just better than people who haven't taken the time to learn the basics of actually playing the game instead of just smacking the ball around at random.
Pinball was easily one of the best values in most arcades.
Well, GP was a douche with his comment. But there is some truth. IIRC Doctors suggested Jobs to operate when they first discovered his cancer. However he decided to go with the Shamanesque "medicine" and later it was too late to use real medicine. This, against the recommendation of his doctor and own wife.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Life is great, and I'm fond of some of the "people" I've met.
Many seem interesting and dedicated, but others just seem to have too much money and time, and have an enormous ego. Life is fun, I agree. However, like many expensive hobbies it seems to attract some really elitist dickweeds, and I'm having a hard time with the competing emotions of feeling sorry that this guy died, but at the same time elated that I hope the news momentarily pauses a few real assholes I've known.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Except that netflix is tied to Windows Media Player and is thus unavailable.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Hell, Jobs was batting 100 with cult-like methods in his 'business practices.' He probably thought he was on a streak and could rely on that clap-trap (which he learned on that pilgrimage to India in his LSD-tripping youth) to keep alive, too.
It's tricky, because successful people often become so powerful that they can pay to keep only lackeys around them. And then who will give them the strong advice they need?
Williams Pinball Wii now available in PAL in Australia, and well worth it. Much better than the Gottleibson one which had historically interesting but essentially mostly boring tables.
Not as much fun as a real table but a lot easier to get to, and cheaper, and a great simulation of the real tables.
And Rudy doesn't like me much!