Does anyone have any fond memories of pinball? I always did enjoy it, but of course it's very hard now to find machines.
I've just seen again the documentary "Special When Lit" and it reminded me of just how immense pinball was for fifty years. Indeed, I'd forgotten the little factoid that between 1955 and 1970 pinball took more money worldwide than the entire American movie industry. It was huge, and then faded away when video games started coming in. The death blow was the invention of the home entertainment Atari type video games, at which point people stopped going out for entertainment, and as today, now stayed in.
Anyway, I have the excellent Pinball Arcade video game, which recreates genuine tables in great detail, but it's not the same. But I had many happy times as a callow youth spending all my money on Black Knight and its ilk.
Anyone else remember any games? Zero probably played Big Shot in a milk bar, and AC before they invented flippers (a six flippered table called Humpty Dumpty if you care).
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Remember loads of pinball machines, and mastering the skill of "catching" the ball in your flipper, letting it roll into the angle, letting the flipper go and firing it a chosen target flag. You also got to feel how much you could nudge a table before the infamous TILT killed your game.
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In my youth pinball machines held no attraction for me whatsoever.
Whereas these days I find them irresistible. Trouble is, because I wasn't an addict when I was younger I'm not much good at them.
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Always loved them. Never been any good at them.
Good ones in France I seem to remember.
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Now, Bar Billiards on the other hand..................
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Tsk. Misspent youth eh FMR?
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Depends on your definition of "misspent" AC. At the time, and mostly on reflection, I thought I'd got it about right!
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>> Depends on your definition of "misspent"
My father used to say that being good at billiards was an infallible sign of a misspent youth. He had a certain puritanism inherited from his Congregationalist parents.
There was a bar billiards table/machine at my last school, acceessible to over-16s for an hour or so in the evening. The keenest players, I noticed, tended to have slicked-back Brylcreemed hair. Indeed that is a look favoured by billiards players everywhere. People's attempts to get free games were noisy and often resulted in the machine seizing up.
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Used to spend a lot of my time in the Lucania Temperance Billiard Hall. There were lots of them, usually over Burtons the Taylors I seem to remember. I think they had some sort of tie up with them. Very Spartan places, you could buy a cup of tea and a cheese roll and that was about it. A cheap nights entertainment though.
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>> Used to spend a lot of my time in the Lucania Temperance Billiard Hall. There were lots of them,
I went to the one in Hammersmith once, can't remember why, probably by arrangement with someone else. Ghastly place, well-run but strangely soporific. Brylcreem hairdos wall to wall.
Me I like bit a haction mon innit...
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Mon 17 Aug 15 at 18:34
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Mind you save Steve Davies didn't do too bad from hanging around in Lucania Billiard Halls. He misspent his youth in the one in Romford.
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>> Mind you save Steve Davies didn't do too bad from hanging around in Lucania Billiard
>> Halls. He misspent his youth in the one in Romford.
>>
For about ten years of my life I virtually lived in snooker halls. Used to go to one in Plaistow after 2-10 shift and get kicked out at about 4am when the guy behind the counter woke up.
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....misspent youth indeed!
Back in my student days, the Hall games room had, amongst other amusements, a pinball machine and a bar billiards table.
If the front legs of the pinball machine were lifted about 6 inches in the air, and the unit was then dropped, it would rack up 6 (playable) replays, without a cent being expended.
As for the bar billiards table, the plastic knob on the front of the rod used, after inserting coin of the realm, to release the balls at the start of the game, had just enough of a ridge on it to insert a carefully measured match-stick, and stop it retracting. As this prevented the internal ball blocker from falling at the end of the pre-determined game interval, any number of games could be had for very little outlay.
As an "open secret" in our circles, we were always surprised when the Hall committee were at a lost as to why games room takings were so low.
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As a student, I was pleased to see a new pool table added to the amenities, even if it was tenpence a go.
By the end of the first evening it had been discovered that the cups from the nearby drinks dispenser fitted the table pockets perfectly.
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>> Good ones in France I seem to remember.
>>
There's one in the holiday complex we stay in every year in Vendee. My boy discovered it this year and also discovered that Belwegians from about the age of 7 are absolutely expert and unbeatable at this pastime, and they are the same with table football (babyfoot, in the local argot - there's a 'tournoi' every week and over three years me and the lad have come bottom of the league every year, and are still yet to win a match - however we sweep all before us in the weekly general knowledge quiz, play to your strengths, what?).
Life must be very dull in Belwegium.
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>> Life must be very dull in Belwegium.
Belgium was the premiere place in the world for pinball at its peak, so they must have something in the genes.
Can you recall which table it is btw?
Last edited by: Crankcase on Mon 17 Aug 15 at 09:54
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Haven't the foggiest. Not even remotely interested in playing it myself, I'm afraid.
Had no idea Belgium really were world leaders, how odd. I have noticed the tendency in both Walloons and Flemish types. They seem to have quite an affinity with Americana - Yankee vehicles are inexplicably popular with them too.
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You need to learn the dance. I've discover special when lit is on YouTube so you can see some pretty weird moves ( and people to be honest) if you whizz through.
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Coincidentally I had a reunion this weekend with some old school friends and we reminisced over the amount of time I used to spend on the pinball machines, loved them then and still do now, when I can find them. I'm still pretty good at it too...
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Me and a group of mates used to descend upon either Membury or Chieveley services at the weekends. Especially in winter where it meant we could go somewhere and be in the warm. We had hours of fun on the arcade machines:-
Pinball, Outrun, Defender, Space Invaders, Sega Rally, to name but a few. We even had a go on the teddy bear grabbing machines.
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>>We even had
>> a go on the teddy bear grabbing machines.
we prefered grab a granny at the Hammersmith Palais
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>> Remember loads of pinball machines,
Remembered one - Black Knight I think it was called. First multi levelled machine I saw.
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The very one I referenced earlier. It was one of the first that "spoke" to you, and definitely has that "just one more" hook.
They did a reboot of it called Black Knight 2000 which is even better, being jolly quick and has exciting music.
Oi. Wake up!
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>> The very one I referenced earlier. It was one of the first that "spoke" to
>> you, and definitely has that "just one more" hook.
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>> They did a reboot of it called Black Knight 2000 which is even better, being
>> jolly quick and has exciting music.
>>
>> Oi. Wake up!
Sorry, you know i never listen to you.
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>> Remembered one - Black Knight I think it was called.
I can remember a couple. The Addams Family, and Demolition Man. They had several audible quotes from the films they were named after.
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 17 Aug 15 at 21:34
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I learned my pinball skills in the massive arcades on Rhyl seafront probably in the later 60s and early 70s. There were some fantastic machines but I can't remember any of them except one which was American Football - I reckon this is it
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rhN2vAtxeI).
After that it was whatever I could find in pubs, though there was an arcade near Victoria station with a couple of machines, that I used to visit after work (74 - 77 I'd guess).
I was interested to find there is a "museum" in South Wales - I might well pay a visit sometime. Also I have spare time on a Euro tour (DTM race at Nurburgring and Munich Oktoberfest) and may drop into a pinball museum near the Nurburgring, just for old times sake.
Last edited by: smokie on Mon 17 Aug 15 at 23:46
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Way back in the mists of time, a day wouldn't go by without me being at a pinball machine, I was a bit of a wizard you know.
At one café I used to frequent in my amphetamine days, there used to be a monthly prize for the highest score, so we used to raise the machine up on those glass ashtrays just enough to not trigger the tilt mechanism until chummy came a'hollering and threw us all out.
One of my 3 brothers used to be a sowf lunden gangster in the 50's/60's He had pinball machines & one arm bandits in many establishments all over E & S lunden. I had a one arm bandit in my bedroom at one point, and could have had a pinball machine - if my bedroom was big enough.
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Some of the well-known hoods in the Notting Hill of my youth (very heavy cats some of them too) had deals with pubs, night-clubs and cafes. They used to drive around delivering and collecting pinball machines and one-armed bandits stuffed in the gaping, ever-open boots of their American cars. They weren't people you could pass the time of day with. They despised ordinary citizens.
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>> They weren't people you could pass the time of day with. They despised ordinary citizens.
I should have added: those people were muscular and had horny hands from humping those machines in and out of their jalopies and their clients' premises (often down narrow staircases with missing treads and so on, post-war housing stock you know...).
Unless you've tried shifting a one-armed bandit or two yourself, don't argue. They are unbelievably heavy and awkward.
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Nearly all the machines came from Chicago, AC. Any connection do you think? The Firm is everywhere, after all.
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I could have, in my earlier days, have become addicted to one arm bandits (the simple ones of the era).
So, I did not play them after discovering that weakness.
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Found a YouTube of one I remember well, I used to enjoy this one - Magic City
www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8wVcahgabA
The old ones are the best!!!
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Cool, that's a great retro one. Space Needle on the playfield and everything.
If I put my geeky hat on I'd say that would probably be "pre sequence-targets" too...
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If I understand the term right then you're right - is it when you have to get a sequence to achieve some feature?
Zero mentions above the skill of trapping the ball by holding the flipper up. I'm pretty sure this wasn't possible on the older machines as the flippers did not go so high, and the ball would have rolled off.
This thread has got me itching to have a game or two :-)
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Yes, sequence targetting on that machine would have been, if it had been invented then, "get something extra for lighting the word "magic" in order rather than in any old order."
The flipper heights were (are, indeed, on the remaining couple of machines being made) determined by two circuits. Modern flippers have two circuits involved - a heavy duty one that gives the initial flip, and a lighter duty one. The heavy duty one cuts out as soon as it's flipped, and then the lower power one will hold it in place for the Zero manoeuvre. Sometimes the heavy duty one would burn out ( a common problem on older machines) and you would get a useless weak flipper.
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Just remembered that I hadn't updated this thread.
I spent one Sunday afternoon and one night at the Flipper Museum and hotel in Neuweid Germany (see www.flippermuseum.eu/fotogalerie.html and theballiswild.net/night-at-the-pinball-hotel/ )
Museum entrance was €10 and they gave you 10 DM with which to play the machines - you could buy more. It isn't really a hotel, just a shop with some hotel-like rooms over, but in my room I had my very own pinball table, free to play.
It was certainly a novel idea and I would drop by there again but only as a one night stopover.
Last edited by: smokie on Fri 6 Nov 15 at 13:07
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It was bar football for me - the only sport I have ever played voluntarily.
A mispent youth tinkering with old cars gave me very strong arms and wrists. I always played in defence and specialised in a vicious hole in one from the back.
It was best as an angled shot, or the ball was liable to rebound out of the back of their goal and go straight into our own.
My regular forward partner's party piece was a rapid machine-gun like action that blasted the ball past our opponents.
We had no finesse whatsoever, and relied on brute force and lightening speed.
6d a go - we often got a pound's worth and played all evening in the college JCR.
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Pinball - Zero
