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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.'"
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.
Lighten up! I hope I live long enough that people feel free to mod ANY comment about me "funny".
100 is a pretty good run. Do you think people live forever?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.