# TOPCast 50: Lyman Sheats

**Source:** TOPCast - This Old Pinball  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2007-09-12  
**Duration:** 183m 0s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** http://www.pinrepair.com/topcast/showget.php?id=50

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## Analysis

TOPCast episode 50 features an in-depth interview with Lyman Sheets, a legendary pinball programmer and competitive player. Sheets discusses his journey from discovering pinball in college to winning tournaments (including PAPA 1993) and transitioning into industry work at DataEast and Williams, where he programmed games like Tommy, Guns N' Roses, Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, and Monster Bash. He shares technical insights into 6809 assembly programming, the challenges of dual-CPU architectures on DataEast machines, and his philosophy on game design and code craftsmanship.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Lyman Sheets won PAPA (Pro/Amateur Pinball Association) tournament in 1993 — _Lyman states: 'Williams sent me out to Las Vegas... And so, wait, wait, wait, was that when they taped that camera to like your head and you played their game?... because you won Papa in 1993, so because of that, they hired you to do this? Yes.'_
- [HIGH] Lyman Sheets won the IFPA doubles tournament in 1992 with friend Mike Teixeira — _Lyman says: 'Expo 91, where I didn't qualify and then my friend Mike and I actually, we won the double set, IFPA in 1992'_
- [HIGH] DataEast's Tommy prototype had six bumpers, a shaker motor, and chiming but was crowded and played poorly compared to production version — _Lyman explains: 'The prototype had six bumpers... There was a shaker motor in it... The prototype just, it's very crowded. The production game plays a lot better than the prototype.'_
- [HIGH] Lyman was hired specifically for dot matrix display programming at DataEast — _Lyman states: 'I was hired to do a dot matrix display programming... I was hired to do dot matrix display programming and the first project I got put on was Tommy.'_
- [HIGH] DataEast's system was essentially Williams System 11 with added dot matrix display capability — _Lyman explains: 'the DADies, their system was basically like William System 11 except it had a dot matrix display that communicated with the CPU and the two operating systems were separate.'_
- [HIGH] Tommy had only six weeks of development time before Dallas premiere for Broadway musical tour — _Lyman recounts: 'They were going on sort of like a road tour around the US... We had to have like, I think it was like six games or however many games ready for this premiere... we had like six weeks to just basically like throw a game together'_
- [HIGH] Lyman attended Northeastern University and majored in computer science with focus on operating systems, compilers, and algorithms — _Lyman says: 'I went to college at the Northeastern University. They had majored in computer science... programming, Pascal, C, LIST, and Fortran. And then theory, probably like three years of theory, operating systems, compilers, artificial intelligence, databases'_
- [HIGH] Lyman worked at Draper Labs and MITRE after college before pursuing pinball industry work — _Lyman states: 'when I worked for MITRE... they were mostly sort of DOD-funded research firm... And eventually, it worked when I worked for a couple of years at Draper Labs in Cambridge.'_

### Notable Quotes

> "It wasn't until college. And I saw a couple of guys playing Apal Deluxe. And they're just absolutely killing the game, playing. And winning all kinds of credits and stuff and playing and back and forth. And that sort of appealed to me like, hey, they're like video games. There was skill and pinball."
> — **Lyman Sheets**, early in interview
> _Explains how Lyman discovered pinball and recognized it required skill similar to video games he loved_

> "If I could do absolutely anything, I wanted to do in life. But probably just go back to school full time for the rest of my life because there's, it's just again. It's a very relaxing atmosphere. And you get to learn to me that's one of the best things in life. Never stop learning."
> — **Lyman Sheets**, discussing college experience
> _Reveals Lyman's deep passion for learning and education as a formative influence_

> "It just requires a lot of thought and a lot of discipline and a lot of long hours is no other way to say it. But, yeah, I, when I became interested in getting into the industry, I was living in Virginia"
> — **Lyman Sheets**, discussing programming challenges
> _Reflects on the demanding nature of pinball programming despite initially thinking 'anybody could do it'_

> "His concern, he told me later, was that it would be, you know, kind of a shock to me to be thrown into an environment where... Yeah, the dead lines were so tight and everybody was pushed. You have to sacrifice a lot in your life to get things done."
> — **Lyman Sheets (reporting Larry DeMar's concerns)**, explaining why Williams didn't hire him
> _Shows Larry DeMar's reasoning for not hiring Lyman and reveals the intensity of pinball game development_

> "Everybody's wearing shorts and jeans. I moved out in the middle of the summer and everything was just kind of relaxed and very casual."
> — **Lyman Sheets**, first day at DataEast
> _Contrasts DataEast's culture with corporate America, highlighting the casual, maker-oriented atmosphere_

> "The prototype just, it's very crowded. It just, it didn't play all that well. I didn't think. I mean, again, even if it made it beyond that stage, I still think that what we ended up with, the production version was much better."
> — **Lyman Sheets**, discussing Tommy prototype vs production
> _Lyman's expert assessment of design trade-offs, valuing playability over feature density_

> "I mean, to me, it just hadn't occurred to me that like, oh, wow, you know, you could actually do something for work that's also your hobby."
> — **Lyman Sheets**, reflecting on industry conversations at Vegas show
> _Captures the realization that led to his career pivot into pinball_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Lyman Sheets | person | Legendary pinball programmer and competitive player; worked at DataEast and Williams; known for coding Tommy, Guns N' Roses, Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash; won PAPA 1993 |
| Larry DeMar | person | Williams designer/programmer; met Lyman at Pinball Expo 1991 through Dallas Overtuer; hired Lyman for interview but ultimately passed on hiring him due to concerns about intensity of industry work |
| Pat Lawlor | person | Williams designer; met Lyman at Las Vegas show in 1993; discussed industry work with him |
| Joe Kamikoe | person | DataEast executive who pursued Tommy license; flew Lyman to Chicago for interview; managed Tommy project with tight 6-week deadline for Broadway premiere |
| Dallas Overtuer | person | Competitive pinball player who won Connecticut championship in 1980; discovered Lyman at Fun and Games arcade through high score initials; introduced him to Larry DeMar at Pinball Expo 1991 |
| Mike Teixeira | person | Northeastern University classmate and friend; won IFPA doubles tournament with Lyman in 1992; encouraged him to attend Pinball Expo 1991 |
| Ted Estes | person | Williams engineer/manager; worked closely with Larry DeMar on Twilight Zone; conducted phone interview with Lyman |
| Rick Stetta | person | Competitive pinball player who won tournament at Pinball Expo 1991 on Party Zone, finishing ahead of Dallas Overtuer |
| Lonnie Roth | person | DataEast executive; met Lyman at Vegas show in 1993; shared red-eye flight back to Chicago where they discussed pinball; received Lyman's job resume |
| Jim Green | person | Williams designer mentioned in context of 'Monkey Cam' video capture at 1993 Vegas show |
| Neil Southner | person | DataEast team member; met Lyman during interview weekend in Chicago |
| DataEast | company | Pinball manufacturer; hired Lyman Sheets for dot matrix display programming; developed Tommy, Guns N' Roses, and other games |
| Williams | company | Major pinball manufacturer; did not hire Lyman despite meeting at Vegas show; later employed him on Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, Safe Cracker, Revenge from Mars |
| Stern Pinball | company | Referenced as Lyman's current/recent employer doing programming and operating system development |
| MITRE Corporation | company | DOD-funded research firm where Lyman worked post-college; known for relaxed work environment |
| Draper Labs | company | Cambridge-based research firm where Lyman worked for couple of years after college |
| Northeastern University | organization | Computer science program where Lyman earned degree; emphasized theory, algorithms, architecture, and multiple programming languages |
| Fun and Games | venue | Arcade in Framingham, Massachusetts where Lyman played pinball; had games like High Speed and Black Knight 2000; still operating at time of interview |
| Metro West Lanes | venue | Bowling alley managed by Bob Sundberg; had new Stern games available for play; later closed or changed ownership |
| Tommy | game | DataEast pinball game based on Broadway musical; Lyman's first project; had prototype with 6 bumpers, shaker motor, and chiming; required 6-week development for Dallas premiere |
| Attack from Mars | game | Williams pinball game Lyman programmed |
| Medieval Madness | game | Williams pinball game Lyman programmed |
| Monster Bash | game | Williams pinball game Lyman programmed |
| PAPA | organization | Pro/Amateur Pinball Association; Lyman won tournament in 1993 |
| IFPA | organization | International Flipper Pinball Association; Lyman competed in tournaments and met industry figures |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Pinball tournament history and competitive play, Career transition from aerospace/research to pinball industry, 6809 assembly language programming for pinball machines, DataEast pinball design and architecture (dual-CPU systems), Tommy pinball machine development and prototype vs production
- **Secondary:** Early internet and Usenet community for pinball enthusiasts, Game design philosophy and complexity trade-offs, Pinball industry culture and work environment

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.82) — Lyman speaks fondly of his journey, the people he met, and his experiences in both competitive pinball and industry work. Nostalgic tone when discussing early internet and arcade culture. Reflective and appreciative about learning and career opportunities. No significant negative sentiment, though he's pragmatic about design trade-offs.

### Signals

- **[personnel_signal]** Lyman Sheets transitioned from aerospace/research (Draper Labs, MITRE) to pinball industry after winning PAPA 1993 and meeting industry figures at Las Vegas show (confidence: high) — Lyman won PAPA 1993 and was subsequently recruited by DataEast after meeting Larry DeMar, Pat Lawlor, and Lonnie Roth at Williams' Vegas booth
- **[design_philosophy]** Tommy prototype was feature-dense but poorly balanced; production version prioritized playability over feature count and shaker motor/chiming effects (confidence: high) — Lyman: 'The prototype had six bumpers... shaker motor... chiming... The prototype just, it's very crowded... The production game plays a lot better than the prototype.'
- **[product_launch]** Tommy developed under extreme time pressure (6 weeks) to support Broadway musical tour premiere in Dallas (confidence: high) — Lyman: 'we had like six weeks to just basically like throw a game together and get it out there' and 'They were going on sort of like a road tour around the US. And their first stop was in Dallas'
- **[technology_signal]** DataEast machines used System 11-compatible main CPU (6809) plus separate 6809 for 128x32 dot matrix display, creating synchronization challenges vs single-CPU design (confidence: high) — Lyman explains DataEast had separate operating systems and communication channels for game CPU vs display CPU, making choreography and timing more difficult than single-processor solutions
- **[community_signal]** Early internet rec.games.pinball community was smaller, more educated, more helpful; quality declined as internet became mainstream and more accessible (confidence: medium) — Lyman: 'back in the day, I think, you know, they were more educated people using the internet... more of a makeup of what the society really is. And you know, you get the good and you get the bad.'
- **[industry_signal]** Pinball industry work is intense with tight deadlines and required personal sacrifice; significantly different from typical corporate or research environments (confidence: high) — Larry DeMar's concern about hiring Lyman: 'the dead lines were so tight and everybody was pushed. You have to sacrifice a lot in your life to get things done.'
- **[competitive_signal]** Early 1990s IFPA/PAPA tournaments had limited qualifying spots; skill floor required mastery of specific shots and techniques but didn't require excessive practice hours (confidence: medium) — Lyman: 'it took about a year and a half to actually win a tournament' and 'People would probably be disgusted with, you know, if they knew how little time I spent playing'
- **[personnel_signal]** Williams passed on hiring Lyman Sheets despite his tournament success, citing concern that industry intensity would shock someone from research environment (MITRE) (confidence: high) — Lyman: 'he told me later, was that it would be, you know, kind of a shock to me to be thrown into an environment where... Yeah, the dead lines were so tight'
- **[design_innovation]** DataEast pioneered integration of dot matrix displays as secondary processor with choreography challenges; Lyman hired specifically for dot matrix display programming expertise (confidence: high) — Lyman: 'I was hired to do a dot matrix display programming... it had a dot matrix display that communicated with the CPU and the two operating systems were separate'
- **[marketing_signal]** Williams used 'Monkey Cam' (head-mounted camera recording tournament players) at 1993 Vegas show to generate excitement and media interest in pinball (confidence: medium) — Lyman: 'it was just a way to try to get people interested and excited about pinball, you know, at a show... it was just like, you know, you know, it's like, okay, let's watch the train monkey, you know, make this shot'
- **[historical_signal]** Early-to-mid 1990s DataEast was in high production volume, unable to keep up with demand; factory was operating at capacity (confidence: medium) — Lyman: 'games are being built all day long and this was back in the day when nobody could get them out the door fast enough. And work, there were several projects going on at a time.'

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## Transcript

You're listening to Topcast, this old pinballs online radio. For more information visit them anytime, www.marvin3m.com Flash Topcast. Tonight on Topcast this is our 50th Topcast show. 50 shows, number 50. I can't believe we got this far. Everybody at the Topcast tab is quite proud that we've gotten to 50 shows. But tonight we've got a really special show on Topcast. Tonight on Topcast for a 50th show we've got somebody that's an excellent pinball player. Somebody just won a great number of pinball tournaments, but he's also somebody that worked in the industry, working for Dating East and Williams, developing such games as Guns and Roses, the Hoos Tommy, Royal Rumble, and then he moved over to Williams and worked on attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, Safe Cracker, and Revenge from Mars. And now has recently started working again at Stern, doing some games over there. Special guests. Special guests. Special guests. Special guests. Tonight I'd like to welcome Lyman Sheets to our Topcast show tonight. Again, Lyman worked for Dating East and for Williams. And now is back at Stern, doing programming and operating system development software there. Lyman is also an excellent pinball player, winning a great number of really big pinball tournaments. So we're going to give Lyman Sheets a call right now on Topcast. Hello. Hello. Lyman, it's Joshua Clay. Hi Joshua Clay, how are you? Good, how are you? Is it OK? I'm good, yeah, sure. OK, how did you get into the whole pinball thing? I mean, what was your first memory of pinball and how you get to her nod to it? Yeah, I wasn't one of those guys who started playing pinball at age three. I didn't pick it up until college. I actually played a lot of video games. I love video games. The Laxian and Robotron, Defender, all these great classic games that I played. And it wasn't until college. And I saw a couple of guys playing Apal Deluxe. And they're just absolutely killing the game, playing. And winning all kinds of credits and stuff and playing and back and forth. And that sort of appealed to me like, hey, they're like video games. There was skill and pinball. And of course, I wasn't very good at it. But I got better over the years watching other people play. I mean, probably one of the first games I played outside of the Apal Deluxe was high speed. I used to play at an arcade in Framingham, Massachusetts fun and games. It's actually still there, although I haven't been in there for a while. I'm, although I'm in Chicago now, I was born and grew up around Boston area. Where'd you go to school? I went to college at the Northeastern University. They had majored in computer science, which did a great CS program back in the day. I'm not sure how it is now. I don't kind of keep up on the school or whatever. But they had a great bunch of professors who mostly all came over from the math department. And so it was a lot of introductory material, basic algorithm, data structures, so on and so forth, and programming, Pascal, C, LIST, and Fortran. And then theory, probably like three years of theory, operating systems, compilers, artificial intelligence, databases, things like that. It was college was like one of the best experiences of my life. Not like I wasn't like this big college party dude or whatever, but it was just a very stress-free, relaxing time for me. It's just a very fun environment and anybody who has that opportunity to go to school and learn should definitely take advantage of it. Yeah, it was my, I mean, I don't mean, when I was in school for, well, actually, I stretched it to five years. And man, I was, which I stretched it longer. I didn't even know who the president was. I mean, it was like, you're just disconnected from reality. It was great. Yeah, I think if I could do absolutely anything, I wanted to do in life. But probably just go back to school full time for the rest of my life because there's, it's just again. It's a very relaxing atmosphere. And you get to learn to me that's one of the best things in life. Never stop learning. So now how did you make this connection between programming and pinball? I mean, was that just like a natural turn? I never really thought about the connection at all because I guess that was sort of insulated as to what options were available as far as what computer science people did. I didn't really get involved or even know about people programming games. I mean, it's supposed it occurred to me at some point. Hey, somebody actually has to write code for these things to work and be fun because they have micro-processors in them. But to me, like, I guess very naively computers were mainframes in PCs because that's mostly what I dealt with in school. And eventually, it worked when I worked for a couple of years at Draper Labs in Cambridge. And after I graduated, I worked for MITRE. In bed, for those names, probably they may or may not mean anything to people. But they're mostly sort of DOD-funded research firm that's probably a bad generalization. But that's mostly, you know, they get their money from the government and they do research projects and RFPs and things like that. But actually, when I was in school, I used to play, again, I sit at fun and games and framing him. I played Black Knight 2000. I used to play a lot. And some of my favorite games back then were Steve's Richie games and Pat Waller games. I mean, I played a lot of Earth Shaker, Banzai Run, Worldland, and then Steve's games, high speed, obviously, F-14, which I guess, unlike most people, I actually enjoyed playing and liked it. And Black Knight 2000, and one of my friends, not at the time, but later became one of my friends. Dallas, overtour, E used to go to that arcade too. And I used to put in my initials on all the games. He was curious because Dallas is a former, I guess, great pinball player. He won this championship in Connecticut in 1980. And has been to tournament, pinball expo, and so on and so forth. He talked to the staff there at fun and games and asked them if they knew who LFS was, those are the initials I used to put in on the game. And they said, yeah, sure. And so he asked them to give him a call when I showed up. And so I guess one of the next times I showed up, Dallas came over to me and introduced himself. And we played pinball for a couple hours and talked. And of course, this was 1988. And I was in school. And he was trying to talk me into going out to pinball expo. He said, yeah, you should go out to this thing. He probably went it. And I told him I didn't have the time or the money or anything. But it was two years later. And I graduated from school in 1990. And one of my friends, Mike Texteira, a good friend from college. We both were in the CS program. And it was about close to the fall of 1991. And he and I used to play a lot of pinball in college. And he asked me if I wanted just out of the blue, if I wanted to go out for pinball expo 1991. I guess it was a party zone with the tournament games. That's sort of how I remember expo's the year. And what like what game was there. So I thought about it for just a couple of minutes. And I thought, well, why not? I'm employed. I have the time. I have the money to go. And why not? Why not just go out and see what it's all about? Now, I hadn't played pinball in probably about a year and a half. Because once I sort of got out of college, I didn't have a lot of time with work and a lot of the reading and whatever else I would do in my spare time. And so I hadn't played in a long time. And it's kind of hard to go back to play. Well, it's kind of like riding a bicycle, I guess. You're away from it for a long time. And then some of the more advanced skills take a while to refine over a point, some number of times. We went out to Chicago. I had a great time. It was a lot of fun. And I played in a tournament. I did not qualify. I played like, I think like 400 something million on party zone. My friend Dallas, qualified last minute, qualified A. This was back. Convalesco would take eight qualifiers instead of 16 or A or B division or whatever they do now. And he finished second to Rick Stetta in the final set here. But after I went, I saw what everybody was doing as far as their skills and how they were getting scores on the games and whatever. And my thought was, hey, I used to be able to do this. I just need a little bit more practice. And I'll come out next year and see what happens. After that, I started playing again, making time to practice and play. Of course, I didn't own any games. And I used to go out on location and play. There were a few good ones around. Fun and games was OK. There was a bowling alley. It's gone now. It was Metro West Lane run by Bob Sundberg, who has, well, he doesn't have it anymore, actually. I think it could have an act in ball, anybody who's in and around. Act in. There were some new games. There are new stirons there to play. So anybody who wants to go out there and check it out should it's over like kind of in the back amid some novelty games. After that, I just mostly practice and play and being able to find out about tournaments and go to tournaments. I met a lot of people in the industry because they used to go to tournaments to like IFPA. I met Larry DeMar. Well, actually, my friend Dallas introduced me to Larry at Pimboxville in 1991. Then I sort of saw him at IFPA. We talked a little bit about his game and past game, Adam's family was there. And that ended up being the first game I bought. Well, Adam's family has excellent games, very entertaining, great game. Did you buy a brand new? Yeah, back in the day, I sure did. It was difficult for me with my time constraints and so on trying to find good games that worked. It seemed to make sense to just, well, hey, if I'm going to take this seriously or be serious about it or even just have some fun, which is what it used to be back in college, I didn't see the harm in owning a game or two or three or whatever is now 20 something. So you got 20 games in your collection? Yeah, roughly. Some come, some go. I mean, it's mostly limited on space as everybody knows. It happens you start collecting and one just isn't enough. And I think a lot of that has to do with just a variety and one game and how long can you play one game or whatever. Yeah, but realistically, I've been collecting for, well, since 1992, about 15 years, little more than that. Did you get good at fixing games? You mentioned that there was a lot of games you played that were in disrepair. So are you pretty good at fixing your own stuff? But you know what? I learned that just out of interest and necessity, you know, something goes wrong with it. It's like, okay, how do I fix this thing? Of course, now it's a lot easier because you want to figure something out. You just like, go on to internet and do a search and go, oh, yeah, okay, I think I know how to do this. And back then, it was a little harder. Like not like you could go down to the library and figure out how to fix a pinball machine, how that will. But there was a wrecking pinball, which I don't read anymore today because it's just too what I want to say. Deluted? Yeah, I suppose. Back in the days, I think there, and this is probably true of internet in general. And maybe I just, the big, well, I'll just say what I feel about it. I mean, back in the day, I think, you know, they were more educated people using the internet because you actually had to work somewhere or go to school or whatever to some college to get access to it. It's not like, you know, every home user could like go buy a computer and sign up for AOL and get on internet. You know, you had to be reasonably, I don't know. Yeah, a student ought to be able to find a way on. Well, yeah, technically, I guess, technically capable, I suppose, yes. And it wasn't of great interest to everybody because it was, I may be still sort of in its infancy. I mean, there were, for me, there were mostly news groups and that was about it, male and news groups. Right. But within that community, it was great. I mean, I met a lot of people who I wouldn't ordinarily have met. And back in the day, you know, there were a lot of helpful people who were really great. Today, it's difficult because I just think you have, in general, more of a makeup of what the society really is. And you know, you get the good and you get the bad. And so there you go. So now, how did you get over to actually programming machines? Now, I assume you're talking about working on your own games. Did it ever occur to you before you got into the industry that, gee, maybe, you know, it'd be nice if I could change this rule set or change this programming or anything like that? I didn't think so much about changing games other than, say, 16 bugs. It's just kind of a thing where each game, if I like it, it sort of, you know, stands on its own and I don't think. I mean, I may think like, oh, well, if I worked on this game, then I would have done something a little bit different or so on and so forth. As far as changing the game, it's, I don't know, to me, the game is the game. I mean, there's a lot going on right now. It's like, oh, you know, we're going to remake this or, oh, we're going to remake that. And to me, it's like the interesting thing is in the new games and what new things people can do. And also, I think, you know, a lot of the games that are worth remaking are, you know, just fine on their own. You know, they can stand on their own and they've held up for, you know, however many years. But, yeah, I mostly was more, I mean, when I was thinking about getting into the industry, I was thinking more of just like game design as opposed to programming. I mean, programming for me was, it wasn't that big of a deal. It was like, yeah, you know, it's programming. I mean, I sort of felt like anybody could do it. It turns out that's as far from the truth as possible. It just requires a lot of thought and a lot of discipline and a lot of long hours is no other way to say it. But, yeah, I, when I became interested in getting into the industry, I was living in Virginia and I had won the pop alternates in 1993. And Williams sent me out to Las Vegas to like kind of do demonstrations on their games there at the show. They had Twilight Zone and Creature from the Black Lagoon and Dracula there at the show. And so, wait, wait, wait, was that when they taped that camera to like your head and you played their game? What did they call it? I'm sorry, what? What did they call it? Oh, we called it Monkey Cam. Like Jim Green, who I ended up not working with, but he worked for, you know, back in the day, it was just one company. But, yeah, we jokingly called it Monkey Cam because it was just like, you know, you know, it's like, okay, let's watch the train monkey, you know, make this shot or that shot or whatever. And so, yeah, it was, it was just a way to try to get people interested and excited about pinball, you know, at a show. I mean, at a show, you have a bunch of industry people and some operators and some booth beds and not a lot happens there. I mean, most people, you know, the hours are like, like bankers hours for people who sleep in and then, you know, at four o'clock or three o'clock or whatever, everybody goes out and, you know, has a fat meal and parties and goes drinking and whatever else. So, Williams hired, because you won Papa in 1993, so because of that, they hired you to do this? Yes, to go out to Las Vegas and demonstrate on Twilight Zone, yes. Now when did you win your first turn? I mean, you know, you talked about entering and the expo tournaments and you didn't qualify when that one year when Dallas came in second. How long was it before you actually were winning tournaments? It took a little while. Expo 91, where I didn't qualify and then my friend Mike and I actually, we won the double set, IFPA in 1992, but as far as myself, I was like Mr. Second Place because I would go to tournaments and then I would come close but not win and then come close and not win. And it gets disappointed along the way because I felt that I was pretty good and that, you know, I could probably beat most people, but it took individually. It took about a year and a half to actually win a tournament and the Papa tournament in 1993 was the first tournament that I had won, just on an individual basis. And I mean, to, in order, you know, so you went from not going to any tournaments to winning and sounds like under two years, how much time did it take you to hone your skills to get to that level? Actually, not very much. People would probably be disgusted with, you know, if they knew how little time I spent playing and whatever I mean, people think like, oh, these people who are really good at something, they spend their whole lives at it and it's like, well, no, this is just a fun thing for me. And yes, I take it very seriously, excuse me, seriously, but at the same time it's all in perspective. It's just a fun, entertaining thing that I do. But again, it's sort of like riding a bicycle. I mean, for me, I could drop it for months and then come back and take it up and maybe in a period of, I don't know. Two or three days feel like I'm back in it. So, back then it probably wasn't all that different. I mean, back then I was, I might have been a better player back then than I am now. It's really hard to say, but they're really only a handful of skills that anybody needs to really do well in a tournament or competitively. Now how did you get over to your first pinball job I assume was with DADY East? How did you get to that point? Oh, sure. Well, I was in Virginia and I had after, you know, talking with Larry and Pat and spending time with some of the people at Williams at that show in Las Vegas. I thought, wow, you know, they talked about, you know, a little bit what work was like and what they did. And it's more than what they'd normally say, I suppose, say anybody like to any enthusiast who just, you know, say it like a pinball expo or some other show like that where somebody wouldn't necessarily just come up to them and ask like, oh, oh, so, you know, how has worked today or what'd you do or this or that where they just, you know, I mean, I'm talked about it because like, hey, we're at work. We're at a show and here's our games and so on and so forth. And that's when it really occurred to me that like, hey, these people do this for a living and it sounds kind of fun. And I probably have a set of skills that would be useful. So it was after that. I pursued, you know, trying to get a job in the industry. I sent the resume to Larry and Ed Williams and also Lonnie Roth who at that show in Vegas. I met and actually we're on the same flight back. This red eye, huh, Vegas, every flight out of Vegas is a red eye. The flight, we were on the same flight and we talked for a long time on a flight just about, you know, tin ball and games and stuff like that. And one of the things that was really great about the whole, that whole experience was that it seemed like everybody I talked to really enjoyed what they did. And to me, it's really important. A lot of people I think that they kind of go through life and they're like, yeah, I have this job and it has the bills and so on and so forth. And they find other things like outside of work or whatever to entertain them or make them happy in their lives or whatever. And to me, it just hadn't occurred to me that like, oh, wow, you know, you could actually do something for work that's also your hobby. So I sent resume to Larry and I sent resume to Lonnie at D.E. And how long was it before you heard back from these people? It was pretty immediate. I think, I mean, within, you know, like a few days or a week, head and Larry did an interview with me over the phone. And he meets Ted Estes, right? Yes, Ted Estes, right. He was, I don't know if he was manager of the department at the time, but he was, you know, basically worked very closely with Larry on Twilight Zone, which was happened just shortly before that. And then Joe Camico from D.E. actually flew me out to Chicago to interview. And because I had only really talked with Lonnie, I had spent, you know, a lot of time at the show with the guys at Williams. And so I had only really, you know, talked with Lonnie briefly at the show and on the flight back to Chicago, my stopover was in Chicago. And so Joe had me come out to Chicago to just mostly spend the weekend and talk with everybody and all that. So why did you take, why, I mean, did both companies offer you jobs or just D.E.s? D.E.s offered me a job. Williams did not offer me a job. And it's kind of funny actually later, but I'm trying to remember exactly what the reason or whatever. Later, Larry had explained to me that, you know, he wasn't sure leaving an environment like Miter, which everybody, Miter's a great company to work for. But I think the perception is that it's not very intense and people don't have dead lines and people don't really work more than 9 to 5 and work 40 hours a week. And his concern, he told me later, was that it would be, you know, kind of a shock to me to be thrown into an environment where... Yeah, the dead lines were so tight and everybody was pushed. You have to sacrifice a lot in your life to get things done. And it's not for everybody, that's for sure. So, but I wanted to work in Timbol, so I said, sure, I'll go to work for D.E.s. I absolutely will. And I packed up all my things and moved out to Chicago. Was it a pay increase for you? Not really. It was more like a lateral. Lots of living increase. It was, I mean, pretty much a lateral move. Virginia, I lived around North Vicaria and Virginia worked on Langley Air Force Base. And the cost of living there is just not all that high. Now Chicago is there, a lot of people here. It's not as bad as Boston, but it's expensive to live here. So, but no, it's not like they offered me more money outside of what you'd expect from moving from, basically like North of Chicago. So what was your first day like for that matter at D.E.s.? My first day at a new place is always a lot of fun, especially at a Timbol company. Some people were, they saw me and they were, I mean, I didn't know hardly anybody except Joe, Camico, Neil Southner, who I had met and talked with over that weekend and Laudie, obviously, too. I think they sort of knew who I was because they like, maybe they'd see me at a tournament, play an tournament or they would know that, oh yeah, he won this or he won that, whatever. Some people were surprised, they were like, what's he doing here? Like always working here and I don't think people realize that, hey, I have a college degree and I'm a programmer. But it was a lot of fun. I mean, coming in and just seeing everything and seeing this factory was a great thing to see. I mean, he walked in and just games are being built all day long and this was back in the day when nobody could get them out the door fast enough. And work, there were several projects going on at a time. And I mean, it was great. It was just like, it's so unlike, hey, this corporate America where you kind of walk in and everything's quiet and everybody's wearing either suits or ties or a nice pants and whatever. Everybody's wearing shorts and jeans. I moved out in the middle of the summer and everything was just kind of relaxed and very casual. So what was the first project they put you on? I was put on Tommy was the first project I worked on. I was hired to do a dot matrix display programming. Back in the day, the DADies, their system was basically like William System 11 except it had a dot matrix display that communicated with the CPU and the two operating systems were separate. There was an operating system for like game code, what was considered to be game code. And then there was operating system for dot matrix display. I was hired to do dot matrix display programming and the first project I got put on was Tommy. Now it's kind of funny because I talked about the things being like you have to make sacrifices and so on and so forth. When I started I think we had to have a bunch of games ready for the people who did the Broadway musical, Tommy in New York. They were going on sort of like a road tour around the US. And their first stop was in Dallas and we had to have like, I think it was like six games or however many games ready for this premiere. And that happened. We had like six weeks to just basically like throw a game together and get it out there. When you say throw a game together, you mean from like a ground up design or the thing was already designed? Yeah, we had, Joe had pursued, Joe Kamikoe had pursued the license and we got the license and then they wanted to have games at the premiere and the premiere was like six weeks away. And Joe is usually not somebody who says no to something like that. So he put us all on working towards that goal which we did manage to get six games down to Dallas for the premiere. They were actually there a little bit beforehand. For these six games like the quote, prototypical, Tommy's that were different than the actual production ones. Yes, that's correct. And you know, why didn't they, I mean a lot of people, you know, rant and rave about the prototypical ones opposed to the production ones. Were they really that much different? They were pretty different. The prototype had six bumpers. The prototype, there's no way we could have built that game and made any money with it. I mean, there was just so much stuff in it. It was like there were six bumpers. There was, I think there was like a shaker motor in it. There was a chiming in it too. That was the one thing that was pretty cool about the game that, you know, I didn't like to see disappear but it disappeared anyway. The production game plays a lot better than the prototype. I mean, even if the prototype got out of that stage, I would still say the same thing. The prototype just, it's very crowded. It just, it didn't play all that well. I didn't think. I mean, again, even if it made it beyond that stage, I still think that what we ended up with, the production version was much better. Now so you had you done any 6809 assembly language programming prior to this experience? No, no, not at all. I actually spent a couple of weeks before moving out to Chicago just learning 6809 assembler. I had taken Vax 11780 assembler in college. I actually took a full year of it as part of, you know, again, what I thought was a great computer science program at Northeastern. I mean, we took courses like calculus and physics and assembler, computer architecture, a lot of stuff that I don't even know if they teach this stuff anymore. I mean, most guys we interview at a college, they're like, you know, they've got like job listed on their resumes. And I don't know. So languages are languages. I mean, to me, anybody with a degree in CF should be able to pick up most any language. I mean, languages are just the way to solve problems. I mean, the real asset that somebody has is their ability to solve problems. I mean, whether it's done in 6809 assembler or speed or the whole ball or take your pick, to me, it doesn't matter all that much. I mean, obviously, there are better fits for different types of problems that you're trying to solve. The assembly language scares a lot of people and I just don't understand why, I guess. It's actually a lot easier to learn than most people think as long as they have a good understanding of computers and how they work and architecture and so on and so forth. So now you've got, in the data use environment, you've got basically a system 11 board set that's one of the 6809. And then you've got another computer, another, I believe, 6809 running the 128 by 32 pixel display. And these two have to handshake or you have to make calls from the one computer on the main board to the dot matrix computer, which is kind of a different environment than how say Williams was doing it where they just had 16809. Was this programming in this way? Did this create any special challenges or anything? Well, first of all, given the choice, it's probably much preferable to have one CPU do all of the work because a lot of, assuming it can handle all of the work, a lot of what we do as programmers of Simba machine, it doesn't take usually much to program just the basic structure of a rule and so on and so forth. But what takes all the time is all of the choreography and all of the dot matrix work and all of the sound work and all of the light shows and so on and so forth. If everything's done on one processor, it's a lot easier to synchronize all of that and just make it very tight so that when you're doing a display effect on a particular frame, you're like, okay, there's this big explosion on this frame. So when you're just going to display that frame, it's like, okay, let's make the sound call here and maybe we'll like hit a couple of flashes or so on and so forth. When you're sending, you know, like, commands over to a display to tell it to the way the dataE system worked was you requested an effect and the effect might run for a second or two seconds or five seconds or longer and a lot of the thinking up didn't happen with that fine resolution. Hopefully it would be the display effect would run on one end and then the game CPU would try to figure out and time out like when to do the light shows and when to do the sound calls and so on and so forth. Not to mention you might have, you know, just the flaky communication channel sometimes so things might get like a little out of sync or whatever. So when you did a call, like, say that you, you know, you did a call to the dot matrix computer to run an animation and the animation was say it was three seconds long. Did the main processor wait until it received like a handshake back from the dot matrix to say, okay, I did the display. It's all done. Keep going or did you have to actually incorporate that timing on your end? Well, on my end all I really did was just program effects and so I would do say all of the rendering for a particular effect, you know, like raw, a score and, you know, plot some tax and play some animation or whatever. I didn't, I mean, all of what you're talking about was mostly handled by the operating system which at the time was, you know, had already been written and I didn't really have much need to go in and mess with, I guess. I mean, it was all sort of handled. For me as a programmer of effects for Tommy and other games later, it didn't really concern me much what the operating system was doing. I just sort of knew that like, okay, here's this effect and here's what it's going to do. You know, it's going to, you know, like a jackpot effect. It's going to, you know, play some bit of animation and show a score and so on and so forth. And so mostly it was just programming the artwork and the tax didn't really involve much else. You would get the artwork pixels from the artist and then your job was basically to actually sequence that and animate them. Sure. And what did you find this, I mean, was this like, okay, this is like an entry level job to you were at the time, was this pretty challenging? Well, Lonnie had developed an operating system that was for the dot matrix that was basically it was a scripting language and it made it very easy, I guess, for non-technical people to just kind of come in and pick it up and program effects. And for me, I probably had, you know, a little bit more experience than what your average person might have coming into that type of job. But at the same time, everybody has to start somewhere. I mean, in pinball, people, they get hired and I don't know. Everybody who hires them, they like to throw people into the fire and see what happens. You know, it's kind of like think or swim. You do the best you can. And after a while, I know what you're saying, after a while, it does get to be a little tedious because you get the artwork from the artist and after you've gone through like after I went through Tommy, it becomes like you get the artwork and you think about it in your head in a second and you already know how you're going to program the effect. And after that happens several times, what goes through my head is, gee, you know, I've done this like a hundred times. Can't this thing just write itself? Because you still have to go through the process of, you know, typing the characters into the computer to make the effect do what you want it to do. But there's nothing new or innovative or whatever about what it is you're doing. There's no learning process. At some point the learning process stops and you're just kind of like, well, okay, you know, I've programmed in effect, you know, and this is just like 50 others that I've programmed. So. All right. Well, back to the work with, you know, at DADES as far as the product, the Tommy products, what was the deal with the Macy's Parade? Yeah. We had, they had, I guess, a float in the parade and they had, they had a couple Tommy games in the, in the parade, which, you know, for me was exciting because, well, my family thought my job was, they always wondered when I was going to grow up even before I let get a job at Kinballin. They never really liked about, you know, oh, he's doing Kinball stuff and they thought it was childish and, you know, like, when is he going to grow up or whatever. And then, but, you know, it's like I can turn on the TV and point to a thing. It's like, hey, you know, I worked on that and then they get all excited because it's something that's quantifiable to them. You know, it's not like working at Miter and it's a black box like they don't know what I'm doing and they're never going to see any, any results of what I do for my work. But, you know, you look at it and you see it on TV and you're like, hey, you know, there it is. So, yeah, that was, I mean, to me, it was, it was, that was pretty exciting. And what was that Thanksgiving parade in New York? Yeah. Okay, now, what about, I heard that you also, through that time experience that you, you actually met Pete Townsend of the Who? Yeah, we were invited to Dallas for the premiere of the musical and Pete Townsend was there in the audience. Actually, we went out a little earlier in the day because we had all these games at these different locations, these six Tommy games that we put out and we had to go out and service them. It was like myself and Eric Winston who worked at the, at the, at the A to E's. And I'm trying to remember who else, who went out to, to help like, you know, clean up the games and so on and so forth. We had six games all throughout Dallas, you know, on, on free play, just, you know, walk up to the, to the games and play them. Anybody could, somewhere in a couple of music stores, record stores. One was at Hard Rock Cafe. I can't really remember where, where, mostly the other ones were, but we, so we went out a little early that day and it was interesting because we're cleaning up the games. We collected over a hundred dollars in quarters out of these games that were on free play. So I think like the natural tendency for people when they block up to a game and it's like they put money in at first and then they look at the start button and maybe they don't realize that like, oh, well, you know, the start button was already blinking on free play. Let's just play it for free. So yeah, we had all these orders that the following morning we were in the hotel. It was like Joe, Camelco, Neil, Lonnie, myself, a bunch of people. We paid for breakfast and with all the quarters we took out of the game. But so we saw the musical Tommy and then later there was like sort of like a cast party at the Hard Rock Cafe. We were invited to that and that's where we got to meet Pete Townsend. Actually he signed my instruction card for my game, which was pretty cool. And what's Pete like? Yeah, he was, you know, he was pretty cool. You know, lots of women around him and you know, he looked like he was having a good time. So he told us that he thought we did a great job with the game, which made us all feel pretty good about what we were doing and what we were going with it. That ends up being important. Later, I mean, this was my first experience with licensing and all that. And most of the games that I played were, seemed like they didn't have licenses associated with them. I mean like high speed or earth shaker. I mean, they were teamed games, but not like, you know, not like movie licenses or rock and roll licenses or anything like that. And this was a whole other aspect to the Timball industry that just, I guess, you know, for better or for worse. I don't want to say had to be dealt with. But it was something that we all had to be aware of and all had to be very careful about because, you know, the people who we licensed the material from, there are a lot of them are very protective of their material and they want to make sure that, you know, somebody like a data east Williams treats their license appropriately. So now, what was the next project you worked on after Tommy? After Tommy, I worked on display for WWF. And did you get to meet all those guys? No, actually, no, I don't remember. You know, we just, there was nothing really involved with that. I think it was a project that had existed for a little while around at DataEast and it was sort of like, more like I kind of got just, you know, sort of thrown on it than anything else. You know, it's like, okay, here's this project that's going on and, you know, lie on and just help out with, you know, do display and stuff on Neil Foutner, just the game programming on that. I used to be a big wrestling fan back, you know, back in the day, I guess, when I was in Lays High School. Wait, wait, wait, wait, did you think it was real or staged? No, you know, a little of both, I think, I mean, I think some stuff is real and I think some stuff is totally fake. Like, when they screw up and they make a mistake and somebody really gets hurt, well, that parts real. But most of the time they try to make it fake. So, it's entertainment. It's like anything else. It's what you get out of it. Right. Right. But then you did Guns and Roses, another, you know, rock and roll theme game. Any interesting stories with that? Yeah. That project was a lot of fun. Well, I mean, I love Guns and Roses. I mean, I like rock and roll. So, you know, death, lapper, Guns and Roses, Metallica, stuff like that. And Guns and Roses, Flash, was originally interested in having Guns and Roses game made. And he was friends with Marcus Schroff, who maybe still does in Los Angeles. That's where Flash was living at the time. And I guess Marcus told Flash like, hey, you know, talk to these guys, the data east, these are the guys who you want, you know, to do your game. So, we weren't looking to do Guns and Roses game. We were just going to like, man, what are we going to do? We weren't thinking about Guns and Roses. And so Marcus set this whole thing up and had Flash come out. And it was, I think it was an eye-opening experience because I remember Joe, I probably shouldn't say this, but I'll say it anyway. And then we can edit it out later if possible or if necessary. But I remember Joe, you know, he, he, what I heard about this. And I was asking about it. He's like, he's like, nah, we're not going to do a Guns and Roses game. But, you know, we'll have Flash out, we'll talk with them and see, you know, what is interest level is and tin ball and so on and so forth. And, but, you know, we're not going to do a Guns and Roses game, probably not. And then Flash shows up. And the way it was, the way the data east building was set up at 1990, Janus. You walked in to the building and then you actually had to walk through the factory to get back into engineering. If you enter like any normal person would enter now, most people just like, like went through the side door and trampled through my office to get into the building. But, you know, the people who just show up and don't know where they're going. Like, there's the main entrance and you go in the main entrance and you talk to the secretary and then she takes you through, you have to walk through the factory to get into engineering. So, the Flash, you know, while he was being like whatever, escorted through the factory, a lot of the factory people recognized who he was. And, you know, they're like sort of stopping what they're doing and like trying to get his autograph and stuff like that. And, I'm handed up signing a bunch of stuff, which I thought was really nice. But, you know, once everybody was in the factory was done for the day, they like run out and get their stuff from the sign. And then I think after talking with Flash, I mean, certainly Joe and Neil and Lonnie and myself and other people there spent some time with him, go out to dinner and so on and so forth. And, talk with him, his interest was pretty high. He had a lot of good ideas as to like what should be in a Guns and Roses game. And he was, he seemed extremely knowledgeable about Kimball and like what was fun and what wasn't. And, after that day, it wasn't even a full day. It was like maybe I think he came in around one or two in the afternoon. But at the end of it, I remember after he left, after Flash left, Joe said, there's no way we're not doing the Guns and Roses game. And I think most of that came from the reaction of people in the factory who saw him and recognized him. It's like, hey, you know, a lot of people know Flash, Guns and Roses and then I also think what sold everybody later was, you know, the interest level and the knowledge. Flash really did a lot of, came up with a lot of the ideas in the game. And I think the game is it was when it came out. It earned pretty good money. And we probably didn't make as many of them as we could. At the time, it was certainly during a downturn in the industry. But it was one of those strong games that you see, you know, a good game will come out and it'll do a little bit better than others. And it ended up being a pretty good game. Yeah, it's considered, you know, amongst pinball people is, you know, probably, you know, probably the best DT East game that was ever made, really. That's really encouraging because it was probably one of the most fun projects that we all worked on there because it was, ah, everybody, the, well, you work as hard on a project that sells like 15,000 as you do a project that sells, you know, by 100. And so what you can take from a project is, you hope to have a lot of fun along the way, even if the market dictates that the end result isn't going to be so great. Or if it dictates that it is going to be great. I mean, ideally, you would get out of it what you put into it, but that isn't always the case. How do Gary Stern feel about the Guns and Roses, you know, Monica for a game? I actually am not, I probably have no idea because Gary at the time back then, he was sort of like, he was sort of like a business guy like, ah, so it was Joe that was making all the calls is what you're saying. Yeah, I mean, I thought to me, I never really saw Gary all that much back when I worked there. I mean, I saw Joe every day, multiple times a day usually. And Gary I often never saw. I mean, I might see him like once a week, he worked, ah, essentially over in the, in the

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 2398d4d1-653a-4585-80c3-9916c90c8cc2*