What did you do today in the hobby?

[Blackghost4]

Cleaned up and led'd an old friend. Today I try and unstick the backglass from the lightboard. Can't get to the bulbs in the head right now....

Very nice

[Blackghost4]

Picked up these two Gottliebs.
Got the Pro Football up and running.

[cait001]

I get this might be extremely outside the limits of what counts as "in the the hobby", but as many of you know I've been doing research on tamakorogashi - Japanese Rolling Ball. http://pinballnovice.blogspot.com/2021/ ... -ball.html
I got a toy version of the game from around 1931 and then hired an artist to redo the box art:

[GILV]

I get this might be extremely outside the limits of what counts as "in the the hobby", but as many of you know I've been doing research on tamakorogashi - Japanese Rolling Ball. http://pinballnovice.blogspot.com/2021/ ... -ball.html
I got a toy version of the game from around 1931 and then hired an artist to redo the box art:

Box smaller 1500x.jpg

1931 Japanese pinball?
Maybe the equivelince of us playing marbels outside when we were in elementary school, right?

[cait001]

1931 Japanese pinball?
Maybe the equivelince of us playing marbels outside when we were in elementary school, right?

Read the article I linked for proper context. Japanese Rolling Ball doesn't have anything to do with pinball, but is the lost ancestor of modern day redemption arcades.
I actually suggest just not reading the article, most pinball fans don't care about arcade stuff before 1977, let alone before 1931!
this is as esoteric arcade nerd stuff as it comes

[cait001]

something more recent but still somewhat esoteric, a few photos of 1976 wall games:
http://pinballnovice.blogspot.com/2021/ ... -1976.html
that also links to a fresh scan of Replay magazine Year In Review in case you want to see every USA arcade machine released that prior year.

[WARLOCK]

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[cait001]

my two British grail machines, now side by side

[WARLOCK]

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[dr.nybble]

I think I've spent more on new fasteners for this Chicago Coin Bullseye than the machine itself cost.

[uberhare]

Hauled my ass out of pinball retirement and finally got my Firepower up and running. It's been sitting here for probably 3 years in the corner!

Replaced all the Molex connectors for the thru pins that join the boards together.
Traced the sound card issues- no speech. Started with the logic side of the board, all seemed to be working with data flowing from the voice module. Had to crack out the old scope and trace the audio signal back. Turned out to be a dead op-amp. I'll pop over to Sayal tomorrow and get one to finish it up.
Striped most of the playfield, cleaned and waxed.
Replaced about 60 bulbs. I think there were as many dead as working!
All new rubbers
Washed all the plastics
Playtest and switch adjustments
A few small wiring repairs

I'm really pleased how it turned out for a grubby machine. I should have taken before and after pics. Really enjoyed working on this one. It needs 1 display, but Dave is shipping it out tomorrow. Back in the saddle boys....

[R.A.B.]

Hauled my ass out of pinball retirement and finally got my Firepower up and running. It's been sitting here for probably 3 years in the corner!

In my opinion, Firepower would haul any die hard pinball player and/or freak out of retirement, what a great game. Welcome back uberhare, and yes you qualify as die hard, so keep on keeping on dude.

Recently saw a Firepower 2 go through my workspace and man, that ain't bad at all either. Games that would challenge & entertain instead of just dazzle the latest pinball player's disposition. Maybe in 20 years, they may remember how great the latest commercially licensed pinball was, probably not, themes or design will be lost to make room for the most recent noise, but that is the nature of the new commercial world cometh, and they will keep it going as long as it pays. Ok.

I personally don't play much, I would rather fix and test play, but some games and some of the people I love and appreciate can certainly revive that player spark in me, a spark that will likely never die out completely as long as there is something to think about and appreciate besides a ruleset and score. In time, those who use more than 5 % of their brains will simply become more educated and selective rather than gobble everything that they are exposed to and that which is held up as some pinnacle. New machines so rarely spark the more seasoned player for very long anyway, temporarily interesting . In a way, it boils down to "No memories = no depth", just simple and superficial wows don't cut it for me now that I am older. Difficult for many of us vets to get a thrill out of the newer games, but as I said to Chris Silver previously on MAACA, this is not our world anymore, it has become marketed and there are alot of people falling for anything loud lately as the world falls apart and people become dumber and their phones become smarter and big box commercialism destroys creativity beyond any human dimension worth even noting. It is like Japense commercials on TV, if they aren't loud and repetitive, no one pays any attention. It is like, hey that's cool, what's next ? Hurry up with the next thing because I get bored easily now that my attention span has been trained to be short. Oops, too late Rab, you lost me.

"No worries," I say,

[WARLOCK]

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[uberhare]

I personally don't play much, I would rather fix and test play, but some games and some of the people I love and appreciate can certainly revive that player spark in me, a spark that will likely never die out completely as long as there is something to think about besides a ruleset and score.

I enjoying fixing and tinkering more than playing myself. Just haven't had the time for it. I needed some stuff from Mouser and felt bad for Firepower just sitting here, so I ordered the parts I needed. The newer machines don't do much for me. I can't stand LED bulbs either, they do my head in. I find they are too bright and distracting. Early S/S is my era.

[uberhare]

I have decided today Firepower will move into my 5 keepers line up. I'll call it the Fantastic 5 - Mars GOW, Black Hole, Pinbot, Firepower, Dr Who.

Originally I thought I would fix FP to sell, but I'm really enjoying it. Pinbot is in there because it was given to my son as a present 10 years ago, I'm not allowed to sell it. Once he has a place of his own it will get replaced. 2 more to fix....

Now I struggle with the 2 Zaccaria games I have. They are soooo clean and I love the artwork, but they are EM's and rarely get played. In fact they have been sitting just long enough I have to clean some switches again.

[World_of_Warships]

At the Neighborhood Pub, trying to settle a score with that damn Seawitch

[cait001]

did a new "arcade exploration" post, this time for the 1966 film い賭博師 悪魔の左手 aka Kuroi Tobakushi: Akuma no Hidarite aka Black Gambler: Devil's Left Hand
http://pinballnovice.blogspot.com/2021/ ... kushi.html

[WARLOCK]

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[semicolin]

Captain Fantastic took a turn for the worse two weeks ago and wouldn’t start a game. I didn’t have time to do much except poke around blindly until this evening.

The game wouldn’t start. I could manually lock in the game over relay, and only certain items would score. The reset relay did nothing, but things that scored 300/500 would get it going. Alright, armed with this information and the schematics I could track it down.

Alright, so 300 and 500 power the score motor just fine, and there’s nothing between them and ground. On the other hand, the NO contact on the reset relay needs to go through two of the NC contacts on the 2nd and 3rd coin chute switches…

A visual inspection of the switches shows no problem, but when I stick my wiggy on it to see if there’s continuity, it falls off. Grabbed the shop iron, two minutes later, and we’ve got a game running, just in time for the retiree Christmas dinner in a few days.

Someone once said that good wine and free time are the keys to happiness. I don’t disagree, but patience and good documentation are a close second.

[Craig]

What did I do in the hobby today?

After a six month search to track down the artwork, gave sign-off on a proof for a custom sign in preparation for the new games rooms.

Hope to have y’all over soon.

Who was at the Bank and Alta Vista location with me from 1980 to 86?

After all…. “It is a Family Affair”

[Chris Silver]

Today I did some desperately needed ground mods on Timeline and Black Hole. Because of Covid I’ve been away from home frequently and my arcade has been acting finicky.

[semicolin]

Replaced this:

With this:

The very early Rottendog up top is laid out incorrectly: if you put in a bridge rectifier the way the PCB is keyed, you'll blow your CPU. Very cool. The way the PCB is laid out, DC is on one side and AC is on the other… but bridge rectifiers are laid out diagonally. Whoever assembled this kit had to rotate the rectifiers and cross two of the legs.… not to mention they subbed in a bunch of parts from their original board and left others out entirely.

Easier to just rebuild it from scratch with something better.

[redketchup]

Nice little project, complete LED set for my F2K, easy, nice instructions and beautiful display, i will do it agaim

[targetlaf]

Quoi de mieux pour décrocher de la covid que de refaire les "flipper"sur une Gottlieb El Dorado. Sa prend du power

[bjm-maxx]

I guess this qualifies as something I did in the hobby. I have been working with the Bally Stern Operating System to create an update to my Bally Eight Ball. I have always wanted to take a crack at modifying the rule set. I have been working on this as a project since about April. I now have a very playable game I am calling Eight Ball Plus. The game now has goals to achieve that build up to a 15 ball wizard mode. If anyone has an Eight Ball you might be interested in trying this out. I will put a video together to show it off soon.