Packard

Packard Cavalier. (Frequently the lights represented scores in the hundreds of thousands.) Then later, during the 1950s and 1960s when the scoring mechanism was limited to mechanical wheels, high scores were frequently only in the hundreds or thousands. Packard Caribbean. During the 1930s and the 1940s, lights mounted behind the painted backglass were used for scoring purposes, making the scoring somewhat arbitrary. Packard 400. Pinball scoring can be peculiar and varies greatly from machine to machine. Packard 300. In later games these tasks have been taken over by semiconductor chips and displays are made on electronic segmented or dot matrix displays.

Packard 200. Older pinball machines used an electromechanical system for scoring wherein a pulse from a switch would cause a complex mechanism composed of relays to ratchet up the score. Packard 180. Electrical switches embedded in the scoring elements detect contact and relay this information to the scoring mechanism. Packard 120. Contact with or manipulation of scoring elements scores points for the player. Packard 110. The entire machine is designed to be as eye-catching (some would say gaudy) as possible; every possible space is filled with graphics, blinking lights, and themed objects.

Recent machines are typically "tied-in" to other enterprises such as a popular film series, toy, or brand name. Games are generally built around a particular theme, such as a sport or character. This area features the scoring display and eye-catching graphics including the name of the machine. The backglass is a vertical panel mounted at the back of the machine.

In 1947, the first mechanical flippers appeared on Gottlieb's Humpty Dumpty and by the early 1950s, the familiar two-flipper configuration was standard. (These pins gave the game its name). The very first pinball games appeared in the early 1930s and did not have flippers; after launch the ball simply proceeded down the playfield, directed by static nails (or "pins") to one of several scoring areas. With the flippers, the player attempts to move the ball to hit various types of scoring targets, and to keep the ball from disappearing off the bottom of the playfield.

Careful timing and positional control allows the player to intentionally direct the ball in a range of directions with various levels of velocity. They are the main control that the player has over the ball. The flippers are one or more small mechanically or electromechanically-controlled levers, roughly 3 to 7 cm in length, used for redirecting the ball up the playfield. In modern machines, an electronically-controlled launcher is sometimes substituted for the plunger.

Once the ball is in motion in the main area of the playfield, the plunger is not used again until another ball must be brought onto the playfield. This is often used for a "skill shot", in which a player attempts to launch a ball so that it exactly hits a specified target. The player can control the amount of force used for launching by pulling the plunger a certain distance (thus changing the spring compression). The plunger is a spring-loaded rod with a small handle, used to propel the ball into the playfield.

Score is kept separately for each player. Typically in a modern in a two-player game, each player gets three balls to play. In multiplayer games, each player gets his or her fair share of balls. During the course of play, a player can sometimes earn extra balls, and in those cases, the extra balls are played immediately.

In games with more than one player, players alternate turns playing, one ball per turn. In more modern games, it can be either three or five, at the operator's discretion. The number of balls played was up to ten in very old machines, usually five in games of the 1940s through 1970s, and typically became three balls in the late 1970s or early 1980s. The game ends when a specified number of balls have been lost off the bottom of the playfield, or drained.

However, excessive nudging is generally penalized by the loss of the current player's turn (known as tilting) or ending of the entire game when the nudging is particularly violent (known as slam tilting). Manipulation of the ball may also be accomplished by nudging (physically pushing the cabinet). To return the ball to the upper part of the playfield, the player makes use of one or more flippers. Once a ball is in play, it tends to move downward towards the player, although the ball can move in any direction, sometimes unpredictably, as the result of contact with objects on the playfield or by the player's own actions.

With both devices the result is the same: The ball is propelled upwards onto the playfield. The ball is put into play by use of the plunger, a spring-loaded rod that strikes the ball as it rests in an entry lane, or as in some newer games, by a button that signals the game logic to fire a solenoid that strikes the ball. The playfield is a planar surface inclined upward from three to seven degrees (current convention is six and a half degrees), away from the player, and includes multiple targets and scoring objectives. The machine is scheduled for production in 2009.

In November 2005, The Pinball Factory, based in Melbourne, Australia, announced that they would be producing a new Crocodile Hunter-themed pinball machine under the Bally label. In fact, almost all members of the design teams for Stern Pinball are former employees of Williams. Stern Pinball is the only current manufacturer of pinball machines. The reception was lukewarm and Williams exited the pinball business to focus on making gaming equipment for casinos, licensing the rights to Bally/Williams parts and names to Illinois Pinball.

In 1999, Williams attempted to revive sales with the Pinball 2000 line of games, merging a video display into the pinball playfield. By this time, Williams had shrunk its production runs significantly and reduced the manufacturing cost of their machines by incorporating fewer playfield toys than in earlier games. Sega later sold their pinball division to Gary Stern (President of Sega Pinball at the time) who called his company Stern Pinball. By 1997 there were only two companies left: Sega Pinball and Williams.

Data East was acquired by Sega and became Sega Pinball for a few years. The end of the 1990s saw another downturn in the industry, with Gottlieb, Capcom, and Alvin G all closing their doors by the end of 1996. About a year after, Lawlor announced a return to the industry, starting his own company (Pat Lawlor Design) working in conjunction with Stern Pinball to produce new games into the new millennium. Pat Lawlor was the designer, working for Williams up until their closure in 1999.

Other notable popular licenses included Popeye Saves the Earth and Congo. Expanding markets in Europe and Asia helped fuel the boom. Two years later, Williams commemorated this benchmark with a limited edition of 1,000 Addams Family Gold pinball machines, featuring gold-colored trim and updated software with new game features. Licensing popular movies and icons of the day became a staple for pinball, with Bally/Williams' The Addams Family hitting an all-time modern sales record of 20,270 copies. The games from Williams now dominated the industry, with complicated mechanical devices and more elaborate display and sound systems attracting new players to the game.

Gary Stern, the son of Williams co-founder Sam Stern, founded Data East pinball with funding from Data East Japan. Some new manufacturers entered the field such as Capcom Pinball and Alvin G and Company, founded by Alvin Gottlieb, son of David Gottlieb. After the collapse of the coin-operated video game industry, pinball saw another comeback in the 1990s. Bally exited the pinball business in 1988 and sold their assets to Williams, who subsequently used the Bally trademark on about half of their pinball releases from then on.

Chicago Coin was purchased by the Stern family who brought the company into the digital era as Stern Enterprises, which closed its doors in the mid-1980's. Many of the larger companies were acquired by corporations or merged with other companies. Bally, Williams, and Gottlieb continued to quietly make pinball's while they also manufactured video games in much higher numbers. Arcades quickly replaced rows of pinball machines with games like Asteroids and Pac-Man, which earned incredible amounts of money compared to the pinball's of the day and required much less mechanical maintenance.

The video game fad of the 1980s, however, signaled the end of the boom for pinball. Companies like Bally thrived in this era, selling large amounts of games with fancy sound effects, speech, and game features that only a computer could make possible. The electromechanical relays and scoring reels that drove games in the 50s and 60s were now replaced with circuit boards and digital displays. The advent of the microprocessor in the early 1970s brought another new age for pinball.

Although they share a common ancestry, the games are very different, in that pachinko simply involves shooting many small balls one after the other into a nearly-vertical playfield while pinball is about the manipulation of the small number of balls currently in play. Another close relative to pinball is Pachinko, a gambling game played in Japan. Most recent games are clearly labeled "FOR AMUSEMENT ONLY" so that the manufacturer can emphasize their legitimate, legal nature. Some towns in America still have these bans on the law books over fifty years later.

Nevertheless, on occasion pinball games have been regulated or banned, notably in New York City beginning in the 1940s and continuing until 1976. This type of feature was later discontinued, in an effort to legitimize the machines. Other machines allowed a player to accumulate large numbers of free "games" which could then be redeemed for money. However, doing this was nearly random, and the real use for such machines was for gambling (similar to the way many places now use video poker).

Free games could be won if the player was skillful enough to get three balls in a row. Some pinball machines, such as Bally's "bingos", featured a grid on the backglass scoring area. Pinball machines, like many other mechanical games, were sometimes used as gambling devices. Pinball has long been associated with various disreputable activities.

Game designer Wayne Neyens along with artist Leroy Parker turned out game after game that collectors consider some of the most classic pinball machines ever designed. The post-war era was dominated by Gottlieb. Multiplayer scores were added soon after, and then bells and other noise-makers, all of which began to make pinball less a game and more of an experience. Targets were added, spinning scoring reels replaced games featuring static scores lit from behind.

The new flipper ushered in the "golden age" of pinball, where the fierce competition between the various pinball manufacturers led to constant innovation in the field. This major innovation was one of many by designer Steve Kordek, also credited with introducing the very first "drop target" (1962 on Vagabond) and "multiball" (1963 on Beat the Clock) concepts to the game, which are considered as essentials to the pinball experience. Gottlieb's Humpty Dumpty, introduced in 1947, was the first game to add player-controlled flippers to keep the ball in play longer and added a skill factor to the game. Innovations such as the tilt mechanism and free games (known as replays) appeared.

Pinball saw another golden age of growth. By the end of the war, a generation of Americans looked for amusement in their bars and malt shops. Some companies like Williams bought old games from operators and refurbished them, adding new artwork with a patriotic theme. During World War II all of the major manufacturing companies in coin-operated games were put into use manufacturing equipment for the American war effort.

Competition between the companies was brutal, however, and by 1934 there were only 14 companies left. Chicago has been the center of pinball manufacturing ever since. By the end of 1932 there were approximately 150 companies manufacturing pinball machines, most of them in the city of Chicago, Illinois, USA. In addition, electric lights soon became a standard feature of all subsequent pinball games, designed to attract people to the game.

Other manufacturers quickly followed suit with similar features. The designer of Contact, Harry Williams, would eventually form his own company, Williams Manufacturing, in 1944. Another solenoid rang a bell to reward the player. Contact had an electrically powered solenoid to propel the ball out of a bonus hole in the middle of the playfield.

A company called Pacific Amusements in Los Angeles, California, USA produced a game called Contact in 1933. The 1930s saw a leap forward in innovation in pinball design and devices with the introduction of electrification. These early machines were relatively small, mechanically simple and originally designed to sit on a counter or bar top. Moloney eventually changed the name of his company to Bally to reflect the success of this game.

The game became a smash hit as well, its larger playfield and ten pockets making it more of a challenge than Baffle Ball, selling 50,000 units in 7 months[2]. In his frustration he founded Lion Manufacturing to produce a game of his own design, Ballyhoo, named after a popular magazine of the day. In 1932, Gottlieb distributor Ray Moloney found it hard to obtain more Baffle Ball units to sell. Baffle Ball sold over 50,000 units and established Gottlieb as the first major manufacturer of pinball machines.

Most drugstores and taverns in America operated pinball machines, with many locations making back the cost of the game in a matter of days. The game struck a chord with a public eager for cheap entertainment in a depression-era economy. Selling for $17.50, the game dispensed five balls for a penny. In 1931 David Gottlieb's Baffle Ball became the first overnight hit of the coin-operated era.

The table was under glass and used Redgrave's plunger device to propel the ball into the upper playfield. By the 1930s, manufacturers were producing coin-operated versions of bagatelles, now known as "marble games" or "pin games". Redgrave's innovations in game design are acknowledged as the birth of pinball in its modern form. The balls became marbles and the wickets became small "pins".

The game also shrunk in size and began to fit on top of a bar or counter. This innovation made the game friendlier to players. The player shot balls up the inclined playfield using this plunger, a device that remains in pinball to this day. In 1871 Redgrave was granted US Patent #115,357 for his "Improvements in Bagatelle" [1], which replaced the cue at the player's end of the table with a coiled spring and a plunger.

In 1869, a British inventor named Montegue Redgrave settled in America and manufactured bagatelle tables out of his factory in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Bagatelle spread and became so popular in America as well that a political cartoon from 1863 even depicts President Abraham Lincoln playing a tabletop bagatelle game. Some French soldiers carried their favorite bagatelle tables with them to America while helping to fight the British in the American Revolutionary War. The table game was dubbed Bagatelle by the King's brother and shortly after swept through France.

The highlight of the party was a new table game featuring the slender table and cue sticks, which players used to shoot ivory balls up an inclined playfield. In 1777 a party was thrown in honor of the King and his wife at the Chateau D'Bagatelle, owned by the brother of the king. Players could ricochet the ball off the pins to achieve the harder scoring holes. Pins took too long to reset when knocked down, so the pins eventually became fixed to the table and holes took the place of targets.

In France, during the reign of King Louis XIV, someone took a billiard table and narrowed it, placing the pins at one end of the table while making the player shoot balls with a stick or cue from the other end. While some games took the wickets and balls of Croquet and turned them into the pockets of modern billiards, some tables became smaller and had the holes placed in strategic areas in the middle of the table. History records the existence of table-based games back to the 15th Century. The tabletop versions of these games eventually became the ancestor of the modern pinball machine.

Eventually the games led to indoor versions that could be played on a table, such as Billiards or Carrom, or on the floor of a pub like Bowling. Croquet and Shuffleboard are examples of these games. Games played outdoors by rolling balls or stones on a grass course, such as Bocce or Bowls, eventually evolved into games played by hitting the balls with sticks and propelling them at targets. The origins of pinball are intertwined with the history of many other games.

. Secondary objectives are to maximize the time spent playing (by earning extra balls and keeping balls in play as long as possible) and to earn free games (known as replays). The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible. Pinball is a type of coin-operated arcade game where a player attempts to score points by manipulating one or more metal balls on a playfield inside a glass case.

(Note: Happy Days was set in the 1950s, Nip-It was created in the 1970s) No surprise that the 1977 Bally game Eight Ball was strongly inspired by Happy Days. Happy Days' Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli often played a "Nip-It" pinball at Al's Diner. The 1970s TV game show The Magnificent Marble Machine featured a giant pinball machine. The 1979 movie Tilt starring Brooke Shields as a young pinball wizard.

The 1973 movie Heavy Traffic, directed by Ralph Bakshi, uses pinball imagery as a metaphor for inner-city life. First pinball game to overlay interactive video on to the mechanical playfield: Williams' Revenge From Mars (1999). First pinball game to reward for a "death save": Data East's The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (1993). First dot matrix scoring display: Data East's Checkpoint (1991).

First game to feature a "Wizard Mode" (high-scoring mode): Williams' Black Knight 2000 (1989). First jackpot to carry over between games: Williams' High Speed (1986). First game to feature a complete song/soundtrack: Williams' High Speed (1986). First game to auto-adjust replay scores based on game history: Williams' High Speed (1986).

First three-level playfield: Gottlieb's Haunted House (1982) ^ . First pinball game to combine mechanical pinball with a video game: Bally's Baby Pac-Man (1982). First pinball game with reverse playfield: Gottlieb's Black Hole 1981. First pinball game with Magna-Save (player-controlled magnet to prevent outlane drains): Williams' Black Knight (1980).

First pinball game with two-level playfield: Williams' Black Knight] (1980). First pinball game with "lane advance" (player control of top rollover lane lights): Williams' Firepower (1980). First solid-state electronics multi-ball pinball game: Williams' Firepower (1980). First skee-ball based pinball machine, "Andre The Giant" form factor: Hercules (1979).

First talking pinball game: Williams' Gorgar (1979). First pinball game to use a microprocessor: Mirco Games' Spirit of 76 (1975). First pinball game to use drop targets: Williams' Vagabond (1962). First pinball game to award an extra ball: Gottlieb's Flipper (1960).

First pinball game with a moving target: Williams' Magic Clock (1960). First multiball machine: Bally's Balls-a-Poppin' (1956). First four-player machine: Gottlieb's Super Jumbo (1954). First pinball game to use a ramp on playfield: Williams' Nine Sisters (1953).

First pinball game with score wheels: Williams' Army Navy (1953). First pinball game to use "jet bumpers" and locate the flippers at lower end of playfield: Williams' Saratoga (1948). First pinball game to use flippers: Humpty Dumpty (1947). First full-size backglass on game: Dux (1937).

First use of a bumper: Bally's Bumper (1936). First use of a tilt mechanism: Williams' Advance (1932). First commercially successful game: Gottlieb's Baffle Ball (1931). Visual PinMAME is a project that combines the Visual Pinball program with an emulator that uses ROM images from electronic pinball machines to both control the behavior of the simulation in Visual Pinball and to reproduce the sounds and score displays of the actual tables.

Visual Pinball, released by Randy Davis in 2001, is a simulation tool that not only allows a user to play simulations of popular real-world machines, but also allows them to create new tables (playfields). Both the PC and video game compilations had tables representing various time periods in Gottlieb's history. A different collection of simulated Gottlieb games was released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2004. While most pinball simulators feature tables created specifically for the computer, fans of real tables were rewarded for their patience when Microsoft released a collection of simulated Gottlieb tables for the PC.

Space Cadet was licensed to Microsoft from Maxis from the Maxis pinball software collection Full Tilt. Microsoft Windows 98 brought the computerized pinball game into the workplace, by including 3D Pinball: Space Cadet with the operating system alongside the popular Solitaire card game. 1982's David's Midnight Magic for the Apple II, Commodore 64, and Atari 8-bit computer series was notable as being a fairly accurate presentation of Williams' Black Knight machine. There have been pinball programs released for all major home video game and computer systems.

In earlier machines, before a phenomenon often referred to as score inflation, had happened (causing almost all scores to end in 0) and scores could end in any integer, the match function was often a random integer from 0 to 9 that had to match the last digit in the score. Other non-numeric methods are sometimes used to award a match. As pinball scores on modern machines nearly always end in zero, the chances of this happening appear to be 1 in 10, but the operator can alter this probability. Match: At the end of the game, if the last two digits of your score match a random digit followed by zero, you get an extra game.

Since the outlanes always lose the ball, having "special" there makes it worth shooting for them (and is pretty much the only time this is the case). Typically, some hard-to-get feature of the game will light the outlanes (the areas to the extreme left and right of the flippers) for special. Special: A mechanism to get an extra game during play is usually called a "special". Replay Score: Beat a specified score to get an extra game.

"Bragging rights" associated with being on the high-score list are a powerful incentive for experienced players to master a new machine. High score lists: if a player attains one of the highest scores ever (or the highest score on a given day) he is invited to add his initials to a displayed list of high-scorers on that particular machine. There are many and various time-related features in pinball. Various timed rounds (modes): For example, if you hit a specific target three times within the next 20 seconds, you might score several tens of millions of points for it.

For example, if you were on Ball 2, and you have an extra ball, the next ball (the extra one) will also be Ball 2 (it will not be Ball 3). Extra ball: If a player has earned this, when they lose a ball, they get another one to play immediately afterward, and the machine does not count the lost ball towards the limit of balls for that game. This "something else" could be as simple as hitting a ramp, or it could be a complicated sequence of targets. Jackpot: Some targets on the playfield increase the scoring value of something else.

Multiball ends when all but one ball is lost down the bottom of the playfield, when regular play resumes. Usually includes some kind of "jackpot" scoring. Difficult to handle. Multiball: More than one ball in play at a time.

On some games, the balls are physically locked in place by solenoid-actuated gates, but many newer machines use "virtual" ball locks instead, in which the game merely keeps count of the number of locked balls and then auto-launches them from the main ball trough when it is time for them to be released. When you have locked the required number of balls, a multiball starts. Each time a ball goes in there, it is "locked" and a new ball appears at the plunger. Ball lock: Try to get two (or three or however many) balls into a specific hole or target.

They may be visual only, and have no effect on game play; they may be alternate ways of performing common game functions (for example, instead of using a drop hole to hold the ball, a hand or dinosaur might reach out, grab the ball, and capture it that way); or they may be an integral part of the game rules and play (for instance, having a smaller playfield over the main playfield that can be tilted right and left by the player, using the flipper buttons). Usually, each toy is unique to the machine it was made for, and reflects the theme of the game. "Toys": various items on, above, or beneath the playfield (items beneath the playfield visible through windows) or attached to the cabinet (usually to the backbox). On many tables, outlanes can have extra balls or "specials" lit to act in the same role as the older gobble holes.

Such lanes are frequently placed at the bottom sides of the table: "inlanes" feed the ball back to the flippers, "outlanes" cause the ball to immediately drain. Often a series of rollover targets are placed side-by-side and with dividers between them forming "lanes"; the player must guide the ball to particular lanes (or to all lanes) in order to complete an objective. Rollovers: these are targets activated when a ball rolls over them. Spinners: a ball can push through a flat surface that is hinged in the middle, causing it to spin; each rotation adds points.

On recent tables, a saucer shot usually awards a random prize or a "video mode" on dot-matrix display machines. Once the ball is directed into the recess, it will be ejected back towards the direction it came from, or sometimes at a right angle to its entry point instead. Saucers: A type of shallow hole that still keeps the ball visible above the table. On older games, there is a peculiar thing called a "gobble hole": this takes the ball, awards a large number of points or a free game, but doesn't give the ball back.

On modern games, there are both vertical and horizontal holes (also called scoops), and the game may include mechanisms to move the ball between them. Holes: The player directs the ball into a hole. If used in the latter way, the target is usually blocking a lane or ramp. Alternately, the drop targets can be placed in front of other targets, requiring the drop target to be knocked down before the targets behind can be hit, or the drop target may only pop up at specific times to deny the player the ability to shoot the ball into whatever is behind it.

Once an entire bank of drop targets is hit, the bank may reset or pop back up. Eliminating an entire row in this manner may lead to any of various features. Drop targets: These are targets that drop below the playfield when hit. These are generally the simplest playfield elements.

(Ordinary) Targets: These are static targets that simply record when a ball strikes them. At other times, the ramps will go to smaller "mini-playfields" (small playfields, usually raised above the main game surface, with special goals or scoring). Often, the number of ramp shots scored in a game is tallied, and reaching certain numbers may lead to various game features. Ramps frequently end in such a way that the ball goes to a flipper so you can make several ramp shots in a row, though.

If you succeed, you have made a "ramp shot". The player attempts to direct the ball with enough force to make it to the top of the ramp and down the other side. just ramps. Ramps: Ramps are..

Every recent pinball machine includes slingshots to the upper left and upper right of the lowest set of flippers; older games used more experimental arrangements. Kickers and slingshots: These are targets which propel the ball away upon impact, like bumpers, but are usually a horizontal side of a wall. Bumpers predate flippers, and active bumpers added a great deal of spice to older games. Most recent games include a set of pop bumpers, usually three, sometimes more or less depending on the designer's goals.

There's also an older kind of bumper (known as a dead bumper) that doesn't propel the ball away; most bumpers on machines built since the 1960s are active bumpers, variously called "pop bumpers", "thumper bumpers", "jet bumpers", or "turbo bumpers". Bumpers: These are round knobs that, when hit, will actively push the ball away.