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Throughout much of the 20th century, the names Bally, Gottlieb, and Williams have been pinball deities to pinball wizards worldwide. These were the big three companies, whose pinball machines were the precursors of today’s video games.
Gottlieb was founded in Chicago in 1927. One of its first tabletop pinball machines from 1931 was called Baffle Ball, which sold for $17.50 and gave players a half-dozen-or-so chances (depending on how the game was set) to get a ball into a hole for just a penny. A Williams game from 1952 called Horsefeathers allowed two players to play side-by-side, as balls bouncing on bumpers advanced mechanical horses on the game’s backbox. As for Bally, its Caperville game from 1966 featured stylized spies in an underwater world of angular heroes and heroines.
In the 1970s, the electromechanical pinball machines of the 1950s and 1960s were replaced by solid-state machines, which could compute scores almost instantaneously. They also added a cacophony of sound effects to the machines repertoire of bells and whistles. Video games in the 1980s almost wiped out pinball games entirely, but a series of lucrative licensing deals with movie producers in the 1990s made pinball popular again. In 1991, for example, Bally’s Midway division manufactured a machine based on the film "The Addams Family." It remains the best-selling pinball machine of all time, with more than 20,000 units sold.
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Recent News: Pinball Machines
Source: Google News
Anatomical pinball table
Boing Boing, May 22ndCanadian artist Howie Tsui redesigned a pinball machine to turn it into a crude simulation of a musket-ball rattling around a soldier's guts for a War of 1812-themed exhibition currently running at the Agnes Etherington Arts Centre at Queens University...Read more
The Collectors: Lane Powell's Ken Roberts loves cars and neon
Portland Business Journal (blog), May 22ndRoberts jokes that his most expensive item is a vintage pinball machine purchased for $2 in 1977 because it literally got the ball rolling on his passion for collecting. Click the image to the right to view a gallery of Roberts' collection. We'll be...Read more
Replay, Headquarters Arcade Bars Both Opening This Week
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Get a full-size Electrohome CD/MP3 jukebox for $799.99 shipped
CNET, May 17thPinball machine: check. Vintage Coke machine: check. Now all you need is a jukebox to finish off that awesome man-cave, basement rec room, or retro-themed loft. Ah, but real old-fashioned jukeboxes limit you to a few dozen songs. I'd be more inclined...Read more
The Balmain Hotel
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Pinball is alive and well in Seattle
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County Seat Antique Mall hosting pinball tourney
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Pinballs rule over pixels at the Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown
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