# Episode 388 - The Hold Feature, Robo-Frenzy, Dead Rubber, New Reproduction 50s Plastics

**Source:** For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2017-01-26  
**Duration:** 13m 7s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://foramusementonly.libsyn.com/episode-388-the-hold-feature-robo-frenzy-dead-rubber-new-reproduction-50s-plastics

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## Analysis

Nicholas Backbone discusses multiple EM pinball projects: programming Palm Springs and Surf Club (Valley Company games with hold features), designing a new game called RoboFrenzy Brewing Company with artist Ryan Claytor, continuing work on his multi-bingo playfield collection, sourcing dead rubber from Marco Specialties for authentic Bally bingo restoration, and promoting Ryan Claytor's new 1950s pinball plastic reproduction service through Pinball Resource starting with a Gottlieb Scoreboard.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Palm Springs and Surf Club are two of only three games Valley Company manufactured using a twenty-five hole playfield with a hold feature — _Nicholas Backbone, host, discussing Valley Company game mechanics_
- [MEDIUM] Marco Specialties is the only parts distributor that carries dead rubber for pinball machines — _Nicholas Backbone stating personal knowledge about Marco Specialties availability_
- [HIGH] Bally shipped playfield dead rubber only on red posts in the corners and bottom, not on all posts — _Nicholas Backbone describing factory specifications for Bally bingo installations_
- [HIGH] 1950s pinball plastics are brittle, shrink, and crumble off due to material degradation — _Nicholas Backbone discussing deterioration of vintage plastics_
- [HIGH] RoboFrenzy Brewing Company is a one or two player simultaneous game involving collecting gears and avoiding an octopus — _Nicholas Backbone describing the gameplay design for his custom EM game_
- [HIGH] Ryan Claytor is creating 1950s pinball plastic reproductions starting with a Gottlieb Scoreboard through Pinball Resource — _Nicholas Backbone announcing the new plastic reproduction service_
- [HIGH] Dead rubber makes a significant difference in bingo gameplay, affecting ricochet and requiring more precise aiming — _Nicholas Backbone describing gameplay improvements from dead rubber installation_
- [HIGH] ABC, Bolero, and 123 use identical roulette-style playfields with a metal tub and central bumper — _Nicholas Backbone describing playfield mechanics for those three games_

### Notable Quotes

> "The hold feature allowed you to shift the shutter as it moved over to the left or over to the right to dump all the odd balls, all the even balls, or all the balls as the shutter normally does."
> — **Nicholas Backbone**, 00:02:45
> _Technical explanation of the hold feature mechanism in Valley Company games_

> "Surf Club ranks right up there as one of my favorites."
> — **Nicholas Backbone**, 00:03:30
> _Personal assessment of Surf Club's quality and gameplay appeal_

> "You would not believe how big of a difference that makes... making sixteen you have to aim for it precisely. You know there's very little chance of you ricocheting into it accidentally. You have to actually play the game."
> — **Nicholas Backbone**, 00:11:20
> _Impact of dead rubber on bingo gameplay mechanics and skill requirement_

> "The 1950s plastics are brittle, they shrink and the artwork will essentially crumble off of them. So rather than having a browned crispy piece of plastic, some people say they look like bacon, it's a fresh new set of plastics that are made using modern materials."
> — **Nicholas Backbone**, 00:12:45
> _Explanation of why plastic reproduction is necessary for vintage machines_

> "Ryan has a phenomenal attention to detail. He spent a lot of time getting his plastics just right, and the final product looks amazing."
> — **Nicholas Backbone**, 00:13:20
> _Endorsement of Ryan Claytor's reproduction quality_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Nicholas Backbone | person | Host of For Amusement Only podcast, EM pinball designer and programmer, creator of multi-bingo project and RoboFrenzy |
| Ryan Claytor | person | Artist collaborating with Nicholas Backbone on RoboFrenzy artwork, creator of 1950s pinball plastic reproductions through Pinball Resource |
| Valley Company | company | EM pinball manufacturer, subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., produced games with 25-hole playfields featuring hold mechanisms |
| Walter Kidde & Co., Inc. | company | Parent company of Valley Company pinball division |
| Gottlieb | company | Vintage pinball manufacturer, produced the 1956 Scoreboard game |
| Bally | company | Vintage pinball manufacturer, shipped bingo playfields with dead rubber from factory |
| Marco Specialties | company | Parts distributor carrying dead rubber and other pinball repair materials |
| Pinball Resource | company | Service through which Ryan Claytor produces pinball plastic reproductions |
| Palm Springs | game | Valley Company game with 25-hole playfield and hold feature, recently programmed by Nicholas Backbone |
| Surf Club | game | Valley Company game with 25-hole playfield and hold feature, among Nicholas Backbone's favorite games |
| RoboFrenzy Brewing Company | game | Custom EM pinball game in development by Nicholas Backbone and Ryan Claytor, features robot-building gameplay and octopus opponent |
| Ice Frolics | game | Valley Company game with hold feature that Nicholas Backbone plans to program |
| Hi Gaiety | game | Bingo game that Nicholas Backbone plans to program for his multi-bingo project |
| Gaytime | game | Bingo game on Nicholas Backbone's programming roadmap |
| Hi-Fi | game | Bingo game with mechanism that Nicholas Backbone is considering having fabricated |
| ABC | game | Bingo game using roulette-style playfield with metal tub and central bumper |
| Bolero | game | Bingo game using roulette-style playfield with metal tub and central bumper |
| 123 | game | Bingo game using roulette-style playfield with metal tub and central bumper |
| Scoreboard | game | 1956 Gottlieb game that Ryan Claytor is reproducing plastics for through Pinball Resource |
| For Amusement Only | organization | EM and Bingo pinball podcast hosted by Nicholas Backbone |
| Papa Duke | game | Game referenced multiple times as subject of Nicholas Backbone's cabinet artwork project |

### Topics

- **Primary:** EM pinball game programming and code development, Custom pinball machine design and fabrication, Bingo pinball restoration and maintenance, Vintage pinball parts sourcing and availability, Pinball plastic reproduction and conservation
- **Secondary:** Valley Company pinball machines and hold feature mechanics, Dead rubber specifications and gameplay impact

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.82) — Nicholas Backbone expresses enthusiasm for his projects, appreciation for Ryan Claytor's work and Marco Specialties' product availability, satisfaction with gameplay improvements from dead rubber, and excitement about RoboFrenzy development. Minor frustration with slow progress on cabinet artwork, but overall optimistic tone about multiple concurrent projects.

### Signals

- **[design_innovation]** Nicholas Backbone is decoding and programming schematics for Valley Company's hold feature (shutter shifting mechanism) found in Palm Springs and Surf Club, involving coil logic and limit switch detection (confidence: high) — Detailed technical explanation of how the shutter code runs in loops, checks limit switches, and requires additional coil control for left/right shifting
- **[product_launch]** Ryan Claytor has launched a 1950s pinball plastic reproduction service through Pinball Resource, starting with limited-run Gottlieb Scoreboard plastics using modern materials to replace brittle, shrinking originals (confidence: high) — Nicholas Backbone announcing the new service, describing the production quality, and encouraging customers to purchase from Pinball Resource
- **[restoration_signal]** Marco Specialties now stocks authentic dead rubber (Bally-specification hard rubber) for bingo pinball restoration; Nicholas Backbone planning to retrofit all his bingo machines with this material (confidence: high) — Nicholas Backbone discovering dead rubber availability in a package delivery and announcing plans to re-outfit all bingo machines; specific technical details on post configurations (red posts, corner posts, bottom)
- **[gameplay_signal]** Dead rubber significantly changes bingo gameplay by reducing ricochets and requiring more precise aiming, making skill-based play more central to the experience (confidence: high) — Nicholas Backbone's detailed comparison: 'you have to aim for it precisely... there's very little chance of you ricocheting into it accidentally. You have to actually play the game.'
- **[machine_intel]** RoboFrenzy Brewing Company is in active development with mechanical design complete, parts being sourced, and custom cabinet design underway; expected timeline suggests construction phase beginning after cabinet design finalization (confidence: high) — Nicholas Backbone stating 'schematic's all drawn, at least the initial revision, and I should be able to get the thing wired up relatively quickly when we have the cabinet design figured out'
- **[manufacturing_signal]** Nicholas Backbone is exploring custom fabrication of bingo playfield mechanisms (Hi-Fi and roulette-style bowls for ABC/Bolero/123) that are difficult to source or smaller than standard dimensions (confidence: medium) — Discussion of finding a pockets unit for Hi Gaiety, fabricating Hi-Fi mechanism, and potentially creating custom roulette playfields that are smaller and deeper than standard bingo playfields
- **[design_philosophy]** The hold feature in Valley Company games represents an interesting design innovation allowing variable ball dumps (odd, even, or all), which Nicholas Backbone finds mechanically and playfully compelling (confidence: high) — Nicholas Backbone calling the feature 'really cool' and 'really fun to play,' and dedicating significant programming effort to accurately recreate it
- **[restoration_signal]** Nicholas Backbone is managing a large-scale multi-bingo project involving multiple playfields requiring wiring, graphics work, and programming of various game mechanisms including odd/even playfields and roulette-style bowls (confidence: high) — Extended discussion of playfields needing wiring, multiple games at various stages (Palm Springs/Surf Club complete, Ice Frolics pending, Hi Gaiety/Gaytime next, ABC/Bolero/123 in design phase)
- **[community_signal]** Ryan Claytor and Nicholas Backbone are collaborating on RoboFrenzy custom cabinet design and artwork, with Claytor described as keeping Backbone 'from cheaping out' on user-facing elements (confidence: high) — Nicholas Backbone stating 'Ryan Claytor, is doing the artwork and keeping me from cheaping out' on RoboFrenzy
- **[personnel_signal]** Ryan Claytor is establishing himself as a specialist in 1950s pinball plastic reproduction with 'phenomenal attention to detail,' launching commercial service through Pinball Resource (confidence: high) — Nicholas Backbone's endorsement: 'Ryan has a phenomenal attention to detail... the final product looks amazing' and announcement of new reproduction service

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## Transcript

 What's that sound? It's 4 Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to 4 Amusement Only. This is Nicholas Baldridge. It has been a crazy couple of weeks. I've been working on several projects simultaneously and things are going pretty Procedures are filed and loaded on thumb Yay. Bingo, I've been working on the cabinet artwork. Unfortunately, art is not my strong suit. And the thing that I'm working on is pretty ambitious, so it's going very slowly for my tastes. But it is coming along, so hopefully I'll have that done in the next few weeks. It's gonna take me quite I'm a bit longer than I anticipated to do it though at the rate that I'm going. So, while that's been going on, I have actually already taken a small break from it and this weekend I decided to just devote to programming. No graphics work whatsoever. I was tired of doing graphics work for a little bit so I wanted to get back into game programming and rules programming. and uh... decoding schematics so ended up working on two games palm springs and surf club palm springs and surf club are two the only three games the valley manufactured using a twenty five hole playfield that had a hold feature the hold feature allowed you to shift the shutter as it moved over to the left or over to the right to dump all the odd balls, all the even balls, or all the balls as the shutter normally does. The feature is actually really cool and it's a really fun couple games to play. I've been lucky enough to play Palm Springs and Surfclub and I will say that surfclub ranks right up there as one of my favorites. Um, so, I got the games programmed in. Here's the tricky part. The way that the shutter code works, it runs in a tight little loop and it will check to see if the shutter is open by hitting a limit switch. When it hits a limit switch, that loop effectively cancels out of itself so it stops attempting to open the shutter. If it hits the limit the other way, it knows that it's closed and it will stop. I had to add some code to the shutter so that it would pull in the coil which allows it to shift left or right as it opens and it should work Now I do have to wire in the playfield and do all the graphics for the game before I can actually test it But on my development computer it doing what I telling it to but that's as much as I know. When I have it wired into actual hardware, it'll tell me quite a bit. So. And I've also been working on a new EMRK game called Robo Frenzy. And I believe I mentioned that I was working on a game last time, but I don't think I divulged any details. So, here's a little bit about how we envision the gameplay is going to work. The idea is it's one or two player, simultaneous, and what you're trying to do is to build a robot. And you do this by collecting a gear from the bottom of the back glass and bringing it up to the top left or top right of the back glass. Meanwhile, an octopus is trying to stop you and if you're hit by the octopus while holding a gear, it causes you to drop the gear. It will also prevent you from picking up another gear for a little small period of time. When you complete six cycles of going down, picking up a gear, bringing it back up, you will have assembled a complete robot, score a couple points, and the cycle begins anew. Each gear that you bring up scores you one point, and the game is timed. So, the idea with two players is you're competing on score. The game should be super fun and it's already designed mechanically. So, I've been amassing parts and I have pretty much everything that I need. And my partner, Ryan Claytor, is doing the artwork and keeping me from cheaping out I'm not going to go too much on user-facing stuff. I'm very excited to get this thing built. We'll see how it does. One of the things that we're doing is making a custom cabinet though. That's going to take a little time. And we're taking it kind of slow. So it won't go at the pace of the multi-bingo but the schematic's all drawn, at least the initial revision, and I should be able to get the thing wired up relatively quickly when we have the cabinet design figured out. I may knock together a box just to hold some parts in order to test it out, you know, or we come up with a suitable design, but for now, things are going pretty well. So back in the land of the multi I have multiple playfields that I need to wire which I be doing but I kind of missed coding for it As I mentioned I been through and I done Palm Springs and Surfclub There one more hold feature game Ice Frolics that I still need to do And then it on to some real oddball games including Hi Gayety Gaytime and then on to some really funky stuff with these playfields with different layouts But, um, Gadean, Gaytime, I found a pockets unit. I have that here. I'll assemble that onto the playfield and get that, uh, wired in and ready to go. Uh, for Hi-Fi, I found out how that mechanism works and I'm thinking about having one fabricated. And then I'm thinking of doing something similar for ABC, Bolero, and 123. Those three games used a roulette style playfield, which is basically a big metal tub with a pop bumper in the center. And you shoot around an arch and it spins around in the bowl and it either lands in a hole or hits a pop bumper and is ricocheted into a different hole. If you get three, four, five in a row, you win. No scoring on diagonals. It's only vertical and horizontal. But that playfield is a bit of a challenge because it is smaller than all the other bingo playfields, and it's also it appears to be deeper than those playfields as well. So what I'm hoping to do is to look at one and figure out a way to make my own. There were other things that occurred on that . That's in the works. We'll see what happens there. As far as other goings-on, I got a package today with some parts for repair for a client but in the package I found out that Marco Specialties sells Dead Rubber and I am going I'm going to re-outfit all of my bingos with that dead rubber. I'm very excited. I've been using black rubber instead of true dead rubber, but having the dead rubber is a game changer and it was recommended by Bally and the playfields were shipped with dead rubber from the factory at Bally, so I'm going to outfit all the games with that and we'll see how it does. I have a bunch of playfields now and a bunch of them need dead rubber so I'll get that installed but you would not believe how big of a difference that makes and just the durometer measure is different on that, you know the bounciness factor but uh... it makes a huge difference in the gameplay uh... getting sixteen you have to aim for it precisely You know there very little chance of you ricocheting into it accidentally You have to actually play the game I love that element so that why I re everything And Marco, as far as I know, is the only parts distributor that carries the dead rubber. So if you need it, just search for dead rubber or search for hard rubber or just search for bingo and it'll come up. I thank them for carrying that. So the dead rubber gets put only on the red posts. I don't know if I mentioned that before but that's how Bally shipped the playfields from the factory. So if you're outfitting a game with dead rubber you don't put it on every single post. You put a normal 5 16th inch white rubber ring on most of the posts except for the ones in the corners Which use a one inch rubber and then the dead rubber down at the bottom. In other big news, Ryan Claytor, friend of the show, friend of mine, great artist, has taken on the task through Pinball Resource of reproducing pinball plastics. He started with his 1956 scoreboard, which is a Gottlieb, and he'll be focusing mainly on titles that have not had reproductions done in the past. Ryan has a phenomenal attention to detail. He spent a lot of time getting his plastics just right, and the final product looks amazing. The 1950s plastics are brittle, they shrink and the artwork will essentially crumble off of them. So rather than having a browned crispy piece of plastic, some people say they look like bacon, it's a fresh new set of plastics that are made using modern materials. The it just looks gorgeous compared to the way they looked initially when he picked up the game so uh... he does excellent work just all around and uh... I know he's going to make great work of any other plastic sets that he ends up taking on through pinball resource uh... for now though if you need a set of plastics for scoreboard Be sure to contact Pinball Resource. He did a very limited run and they're there now. Get them while you can. Alright, and that is all for tonight. Thank you very much for joining me. My name again is Nicholas Baldridge. You can reach me at foreamusementonlypodcast at gmail.com or you can call me on the bingos line. That's 724-BINGOS1, 724-246-4671. You can listen to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, via RSS, on Facebook, on Twitter, at Bingo Podcast. You can follow me on Instagram, also at Bingo Podcast. Or you can listen to us on our website, which is foramusementonly.libsyn.com Thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 4d4a8b0a-7f19-4618-9d75-129647da69c0*