# Episode 152 - Interview with Charles Rowland 8-5-15

**Source:** For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2015-08-10  
**Duration:** 60m 43s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://foramusementonly.libsyn.com/episode-152-interview-with-charles-rowland-8-5-15

---

## Analysis

Charles Rowland, proprietor of Games People Play in Richmond, Virginia, discusses his 36+ years as an amusement operator starting in 1979, with deep expertise in bingo machines, electromechanical pinballs, and early video games. He details his early experience at Virginia Music and Novelty (starting at age 15), re-clutching bingo machines, collections work, and the transition from bingo to pinball and video game operations. Rowland provides rich technical and operational context on bingo machine design, clutch mechanisms, scoring systems, and the arcade venue landscape of the 1970s-80s Virginia region.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Charles Rowland started operating games in 1979 and has been operating for 36 years (as of 2015) — _Charles directly stated: 'Well, originally they had an operator and when I bought the place I put that operator out and bought my own equipment. My first video was Space Invaders and my first brand new pinball was Williams Flash' and '36 years. Yeah, and you currently operate games today, is that correct? Alright, that is correct.'_
- [HIGH] Bingo machines used leather clutches soaked in neats foot oil that had to be replaced, typically taking 2-3 hours per re-clutching job — _Charles described the process in detail: 'you have to take the whole back door off the hinges, lay it down, and that big mixer unit on the top, you have to disassemble that. and it has leather clutches little disc made of leather and they're soaked in neats foot oil' and 'That would take you about two or three hours whatever pulling that down putting it back together again'_
- [MEDIUM] Video poker in the 1980s effectively ended the bingo machine business in the Richmond area — _Charles stated: 'video poker scheme in the eighties which basically put the bingo side of business ... everybody around here's one play twenty five whole games' (transcript unclear but context suggests video poker displaced bingo)_
- [MEDIUM] Williams Flash (1979) was the first pinball with 89 bulbs for flash effects and background sound — _Charles said: 'The Flash was the first one that they actually had the number 89 bulbs for a flash effect on the playfield... It was also the first machine to use background sound for Williams. Even though it was just a tone that kept getting higher as you went along'_
- [HIGH] Charles and partners purchased approximately 65 pre-war and WWII-era pinball machines from Southside Vending Exchange for around $35-45 per cabinet — _Charles stated: 'I think we paid somewhere around $35, $45 per cabinet and bought 65 pinball machines. And rented a 26-foot rider truck and The My father and my father-in-law and We hauled out all these pinballs'_
- [HIGH] Early Exhibit machines used latching relays instead of motors to achieve 5-point scoring increments, likely due to wartime copper shortages — _Charles explained: 'they scored 50 point 5-point increments and they did it with a bunch of latching relays... Well, you know, it was probably during the war and, you know, copper was insured'_
- [MEDIUM] Williams Flash and Atari Superman were the two biggest earning pinballs in 1979 — _Charles stated: 'In 79, the two biggest pinballs then was Flash and Atari Superman.'_
- [HIGH] Charles bought a Checkpoint Data East pinball with a half-height dot matrix display as a diagnostic/reference machine — _Charles said: 'I picked up a checkpoint data east pinball with their first dot matrix with the half height display... I wanted something working all the way, particularly a display where I could Tilt the pinball to the other side, then narrow down problems'_
- [HIGH] Bingo machines originally had wooden legs that would break, so operators switched to metal frames with drawers for coin collection — _Charles explained: 'The original bingos had wooden legs and those things would break. And so they had metal frames made to set the bingos in because it made the bingos less spindly and you had less tilting and stuff on it'_
- [HIGH] EM machines were designed primarily around winning replays, not narrative progression or quest completion like modern games — _Charles said: 'you know the EM's your primary goal on EM was to win a replay it wasn't to tell a storyline or complete you know quest on the playfield'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I am 63... Well, that depends on how you want to define it because, you know, I had games of my own when I was, you know, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, whatever. and then I got a real job after college and then in 79 I bought a foosball parlor"
> — **Charles Rowland**, ~00:01-00:03:00
> _Establishes Rowland's age and entry into the amusement business, framing his decades-long career_

> "My first bingo experience was that I was looking to buy games or get more games because I had found these games at the dump... I went in and applied for a job. Now, sitting in the main shop area was a bingo which I had never seen before."
> — **Charles Rowland**, ~00:04:00-00:05:00
> _Pivotal moment when Rowland encountered his first bingo machine and began his deep expertise in the technology_

> "you have to take the whole back door off the hinges, lay it down, and that big mixer unit on the top, you have to disassemble that... and you would get out your leather clutches that had been soaking for weeks in there"
> — **Charles Rowland**, ~00:08:00
> _Detailed technical description of bingo machine re-clutching, demonstrating hands-on expertise and mechanical knowledge_

> "The Flash was the first one that they actually had the number 89 bulbs for a flash effect on the playfield... It was also the first machine to use background sound for Williams."
> — **Charles Rowland**, ~00:35:00
> _Technical innovation claim about Williams Flash, a landmark 1979 pinball title and a key early game in his operation_

> "we paid somewhere around $35, $45 per cabinet and bought 65 pinball machines. And rented a 26-foot rider truck and... my father and my father-in-law and We hauled out all these pinballs"
> — **Charles Rowland**, ~00:23:00
> _Documents a significant acquisition event showing scale of vintage machine collecting and partnership approach_

> "you know the EM's your primary goal on EM was to win a replay it wasn't to tell a storyline or complete you know quest on the playfield... like it is today"
> — **Charles Rowland**, ~00:42:00
> _Articulates the fundamental design philosophy difference between EM and modern pinball, explaining generational gameplay shifts_

> "I don't recall. You see a lot of times on the bingos, we had some of the ones with the rotating numbers, but everyone wanted like county fairs, roller derby, silver sails that had the moving screen."
> — **Charles Rowland**, ~00:15:00
> _Identifies market preferences for specific bingo titles based on operator experience_

> "Well, the flash was a hot lick. In 79, the two biggest pinballs then was Flash and Atari Superman."
> — **Charles Rowland**, ~00:38:00
> _Identifies Flash as the standout earning title of the early 1979-1980 era_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Charles Rowland | person | Proprietor of Games People Play in Richmond, Virginia; 36-year amusement operator (1979-2015) with deep expertise in bingo machines, electromechanical pinballs, and early video games; started working at Virginia Music and Novelty at age 15 |
| Games People Play | organization | Amusement game business in Richmond, Virginia operated by Charles Rowland |
| Virginia Music and Novelty | organization | Amusement game distributor/operator in Colonial Heights, Virginia where Charles Rowland worked starting at age 15; employed him to re-clutch bingos, perform collections, and build conversion units |
| Nick Baldridge | person | Host/interviewer of For Amusement Only podcast; asking questions and conducting the interview with Charles Rowland |
| Paul Lamb | person | Older colleague who worked for Virginia Music and Novelty; accompanied Charles on collections; told stories about high-payout bingo machines and was sent to diagnose meter problems |
| Bill Browning | person | Worked at Virginia Music and Novelty; took Charles out on first day; designed schematic for converting Williams baseball sequence units into bingo nickel-to-quarter conversion units |
| Chuck English | person | Older than Charles; worked with him at Virginia Music and Novelty; bingo technician who insists on full game servicing rather than single repairs |
| Williams | company | Pinball/video game manufacturer; produced Flash, Time Warp, Paragon, Superman (Atari), and background sound innovations; dominant in Charles's operations |
| Bally | company | Bingo and pinball manufacturer; primary bingo supplier for Charles's operations; also produced pinballs |
| Gottlieb | company | Pinball manufacturer; Rowland expressed dislike for Gottlieb's flipper design (spring-loaded wire assembly) |
| Atari | company | Video game manufacturer; produced Atari Football and Battlezone titles used in Charles's operations |
| Exhibit Supply | company | Vintage pinball manufacturer (pre-war); Charles acquired pre-1947 Exhibit machines, some without flippers, known for latching relay scoring systems |
| Gremlin | company | Video game manufacturer; produced Astro Fighter played in Charles's operations |
| Data East | company | Pinball manufacturer; produced Checkpoint with half-height dot matrix display, acquired by Charles as a diagnostic reference machine |
| Stern | company | Implied reference; modern pinball manufacturer mentioned in adjacent industry context |
| Valley | company | Pinball manufacturer; produced Valley USA (flipperless bingo-like pinball) and World Cup Soccer (with moving field) |
| United | company | Bingo/pinball manufacturer; produced bingo machines and Bowler-series games; operated at Fort Pickett NCO Club |
| Southside Vending Exchange | organization | Game route business in Petersburg, Virginia run by Ms. Killebrew; source of Charles's bulk purchase of ~65 vintage pinball machines (1975) |
| Fort Pickett (formerly Camp Pickett) | organization | Military installation with NCO Club where Charles operated games including bingo machines and one-ball horse race machines |
| Williams Flash | game | 1979 Williams pinball machine; Charles's first new pinball purchase; first with 89-bulb flash effects and background sound; top earner alongside Atari Superman |
| Atari Superman | game | Atari-licensed pinball machine; one of the two biggest earning pinballs in 1979 alongside Flash |
| Space Invaders | game | Arcade video game; Charles's first video game acquisition |
| Checkpoint | game | Data East pinball with half-height dot matrix display; Charles acquired as diagnostic/reference machine |
| Valley USA | game | Flipperless Valley pinball with bingo-like mechanics; created as response to potential bingo outlawing; two-digit replay meter only |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Bingo machine design and mechanics, Re-clutching and maintenance of bingo machines, Electromechanical pinball machines and operations, Early video game integration (1979+), Amusement operator business practices and venue management
- **Secondary:** Pinball machine design evolution and innovation (Flash, early EMs), Vintage pinball machine acquisition and restoration, Pre-war and WWII-era pinball machines (Exhibit, Gottlieb, Bally), Geographic amusement landscape of Virginia (Richmond, Petersburg, Colonial Heights area), Decline of bingo machines in 1980s due to video poker

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.75) — Charles speaks fondly of his long career, expresses genuine interest in both technology and history of games, and maintains respect for colleagues and the industry. No major complaints or negativity; tone is nostalgic and educational. Minor frustrations with some design choices (Gottlieb flippers) expressed mildly.

### Signals

- **[historical_signal]** Charles provides detailed firsthand account of bingo machine maintenance, operation, and design (1970s-1980s), including re-clutching procedures, conversion units, and venue deployment (confidence: high) — 40+ minute segment on bingo mechanics, clutch replacement, and operational practices at Virginia Music and Novelty
- **[operational_signal]** Extensive discussion of venue operator relationships, coin collection procedures, meter reading, payout systems, and location-based game placement in bars, barbershops, truck stops, and pavilions (confidence: high) — Multiple stories about collections work, venue relationships, metal frame coin drawer systems, and location-based earnings
- **[design_innovation]** Early Exhibit machines used latching relays instead of motors for scoring, a wartime design solution likely driven by copper scarcity; pre-war machines used pneumatic braking for ball return rather than solenoid-based systems (confidence: high) — Charles's detailed explanation of Exhibit's relay-based 5-point incrementing vs. motor-based alternatives, and comparison to postwar motor-equipped designs
- **[product_strategy]** Virginia Music and Novelty created Williams baseball sequence unit conversions to convert bingo machines from nickel to quarter operation; this was apparently a common service offered by the company (confidence: high) — Bill Browning designed the schematic; Charles built and installed the units on Friday nights and Saturdays
- **[design_philosophy]** EM machines were designed around replay accumulation and resale mechanics, not narrative or quest completion; modern games focus on storyline progression and mode-based objectives (confidence: high) — Charles explicitly contrasted EM goals (replay wins) with modern pinball design (story modes, quests, mode progression)
- **[market_signal]** Video poker in the 1980s effectively displaced bingo machines from the Richmond area market, ending a 30+ year operational period for Charles's bingo route (confidence: medium) — Charles stated video poker 'basically put the bingo side of business... everybody around here's one play twenty five whole games' (transcript unclear but context suggests displacement)
- **[product_launch]** Williams Flash (1979) was the first pinball with 89-bulb flash effects and background sound; top earner alongside Atari Superman in 1979-1980 period (confidence: high) — Charles stated: 'The Flash was the first one that they actually had the number 89 bulbs for a flash effect... It was also the first machine to use background sound for Williams'
- **[restoration_signal]** Charles and partners acquired ~65 pre-war and WWII-era pinball machines (many pre-1947, without flippers) from Southside Vending Exchange for $35-45 per cabinet, transported via 26-foot truck, and restored them (confidence: high) — Charles described purchase details: '65 pinball machines... somewhere around $35, $45 per cabinet... 26-foot rider truck... my father and my father-in-law'
- **[technology_signal]** Charles acquired a Data East Checkpoint with half-height dot matrix display as a reference/diagnostic machine to test and isolate problems on other machines; half-height displays noted as problematic (confidence: high) — Charles stated: 'I picked up a checkpoint data east pinball with their first dot matrix with the half height display... Those half-height displays can be a problem. Well, that's the biggest problem there'
- **[competitor_signal]** Charles's operations were heavily dominated by Williams and Bally machines; rare Gottlieb presence; no Chicago Coin machines; Gottlieb's flipper design (spring-loaded wire assembly) disliked (confidence: high) — Charles stated: 'Mostly was Williams and Bally stuff' and 'I always hated the flippers with that spring-loaded wire deal coming out the side of the cabinet' for Gottlieb
- **[community_signal]** Modern demand for EM machines among home collectors is low; most interest from operators/enthusiasts who grew up with the games; demand for bingo machines is minimal (confidence: medium) — Charles stated: 'Not really for EMs' when asked about home collector inquiries; noted auction conversation about lack of EM interest; barns in South Carolina and local areas still have 30-40 bingos stacked up
- **[regulatory_signal]** Charles required parental permission and judicial approval to work on bingo machines at age 15 due to machinery safety concerns; judge required proof of prior pinball machine knowledge before granting work approval (confidence: high) — Charles described: 'talk to a judge in Petersburg and explain to him that I already knew about working on pinball machines... he said well it sounds like you know what you're doing So I'm going to give you approval to get a job'

---

## 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. I have a special guest today, Charles Rowland, who is the proprietor of Games People Play here in Richmond, Virginia. Charles has been operating and working on games for a very long time as we'll hear shortly. And for those of you listening from other areas, Colonial Heights and Petersburg are about 30 minutes away from Richmond itself. So pretty close by via car. Alright, without further ado, here we go. The Well, first Charles, do you mind telling me your age? I am 63. 63. And how long have you been in the amusement industry? Well, that depends on how you want to define it because, you know, I had games of my own when I was, you know, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, whatever. and then I got a real job after college and then in 79 I bought a foosball parlor and ran that for a while and ended up closing that and being a street operator starting in 1980. Well, originally they had an operator and when I bought the place I put that operator out and bought my own equipment. My first video was Space Invaders and my first brand new pinball was Williams Flash. Wow, okay. So you've been operating in the Richmond area for some time. 36 years. Yeah, and you currently operate games today, is that correct? Alright, that is correct. John Papadiuk Good to hear. Um, so, bingo, so what was your first bingo experience? Johnny PneumBLANK My first bingo experience was that I was looking to buy games or get more games because I had found these games at the dump, I had a juke box I bought when I was the Christmas, I was 12. And so I wanted more games and I had a relative of my own Johnny Pneumonic, Black Water, person's name or role at Stern pinball Voice thunder sleepy commentator and a driver's license. But I came back, my father was adding on to the house so he was busy with the construction of that, so he had my mother drive me over to Virginia Music and Novelty on the Boulevard in Colonial Heights and I went in and applied for a job. Now, sitting in the main shop area was a bingo which I had never seen before. And a bunch of the guys were standing around or whatever and I came in and I said, I'd like to apply for a job and so Johnny Condealius who was the office manager whatever he takes me around to the back of the bingo machine and he opens the door to the back of the bingo now all the you know mixer gears and everything is our units are running you know that's just a mass anyone's ever seen the back of a bingo knows how all that stuff kind of fits together when the door in….All Bulls bacteria distinctively 작업 programmes ZimmerDatterbow你在British piano FacultyR87- InstrumentalMind那 لiszناً بجاوشоля stoked preoccupye kostedy fallen The and talk to a judge in Petersburg and explain to him that I already knew about working on pinball machines and stuff because they didn't want you to get your fingers caught in Some sort of machinery and so he said well it sounds like you know what you're doing So I'm going to give you approval to get a job so I went to work at 15 at Virginia music and novelty and one of the jobs I had besides The only reason I had to go out and play with somebody else to do collections or to fix pinballs or whatever was that they had me re-clutch a bingo. Wow. And I assume you know what re-clutching a bingo is, where you have to take the whole back door off the hinges, lay it down, and that big mixer unit on the top, you have to disassemble that. and it has leather clutches little disc made of leather and they're soaked in neats foot oil and the disc are held in place until some solenoid releases them so that allows it to change the odds and stuff as these discs go around with their wiper fingers making contacts and so we had like a dukes mayonnaise jar full of neats foot oil and you would dig in there and you would get out your The Clutch pads your leather clutches that had been soaking for weeks in there and you would take it all apart keep track of the order that everything came out as you pull the shaft out of it and then you put it all back together with new clutches and then you took the old clutches and threw them in the jar for the next go around. So that would take you about two or three hours whatever pulling that down putting it back together again and apparently no one else liked to do it but I had a lot of patience so I had to do it. No, I didn't have any problem with it and I probably recollect three or four bingos. Wow, okay and um So were you involved in the collections on the bingos? Yep after I got a driver's license I'd go and do collections as well sometimes you had places like Crystal Lake and Hopewell where there was a lake because back there not every house had air conditioning and and so people would go to these lakes, Moore's Lake, Crystal Lake, Haydads Lake still exists, and Verona, and anyway so they had a pavilion, a two story pavilion, and on the bottom was a snack bar and pinball machines lined up on the wall, and then upstairs was a dance hall and they would bring groups in, Bill Beal and the Rondells or the showmen or people who were big beach Steadfast code total đanglatkey Cr migrantynithis Pr Aprèsrd and other one and then worked on you know to a three of net that the morning and came back and they said what would be there when he's around me there's a pinball he can't fix so that i guess that sealed the deal and so uh... broke with other people are repaired stuff in the shop or something new would come in and i don't box it not set it up and get it uh... uh... ready for location but locks on at that kind of thing do you remember uh... Which titles were the best earning for you? I don't recall. You see a lot of times on the bingos, we had some of the ones with the rotating numbers, but everyone wanted like county fairs, roller derby, silver sails that had the moving screen. Right. And although the Golden Gate stuff had that golden section in it, they weren't that popular. You had to have particular people that knew how to play that deal. As far as the pinballs, the first new pinball I saw come in was a Williams Apollo. And I believe the price on it was $450 brand new. Nice. Later we got a Hayburner II in and that came in with some sort of shipping problem. I've never been up in the up in the horse race part up in the head glass what are bad straightened out you get you got a few new games here and there uh... remember belly safari coming the and had the uh... tiger on the thing here and what the play on the exxon tiger and a tag on his tail that said put me in your tank, exxon tiger in your tank kinda thing. I remember getting a valley World Cup soccer where the men run up and down the field with the pulleys and stuff and that was hard to play. Clear oftentimes prior to naturally and concluded internationally and are on regular check-up in the as of 2022, plus specialными interracial format andilage of the Press publicermowbee or press your bird to speak they do not have the very pleasure of talking about or writing links Rechtsinese advertism or tweeting at the IOoiiBalo www.i budge.com It's Christmas Eve again. También vayamos a go para New blades a s perto aqui. Don't want to know, or get experimental and Bill Browning, who worked there and who was the guy that took me out the first day, he had come up with taking William's baseball sequence units, buying the frames, the cams and stuff, and he drew a schematic for adding those to a bingo to convert them from nickels to quarters. And so when I went back to school after the summer, I got a call saying, hey, Can you come in and work on Friday nights? And I said, well, I guess what am I going to do Friday night? And they said you're going to build these sequence units for these bingos. Okay on Friday night I'd come in and work Friday let myself in there were the parts there and I would build and wire up the sequence units To go into a bingo to convert it from nickels to quarters So when you put a quarter in it would put five credits on it and so then Saturday I come in in the morning and then installed those into the bingo's and then after we had gotten most of those done then I would just do the Friday night service calls and somebody need change or a problem pool table jam something like that and then Saturday we come in and we work about a half day and and that was good money Finn zuski n tore j Youtube OTV. He he do the An глубler End funny Knapp In Life 20 and Last Question At Live Live Play Six Sh Bib Up Yesterday Can and the pinball machine was made with bingo motors, relay banks, step-up units, all that stuff so that it was their way of circumventing not being able to actually ship a bingo part across state lines, but you could ship this whole game across state lines. and then No we just stripped it for parts Yeah that what I was gonna ask Yeah yeah Okay well did you ever work on any of the later bingos not the 20 holes Well, the 20hole, the thing was the 20holes came out, in fact, before even the 20holes, they were just starting to come out late 60s from what I could tell working then. Kenneth Kippefeld, Tracy信일경 부속친 tuned upjointlovice- fandulas, plejinsko maljekt ot meg Messagenei deAM niet, nesson kesham bigotos eg дальше is phTrapasd groom, which is listed in this video, but the yet the giddy forracement a lot of the The They wanted to play what they knew uh... you know and and then back to begin with that you learn on that would have been a as big a deal and then the twenty whole stuff that was a whole stop straight back people didn't understand the twenty holes and they didn't want to learn the twenty holes uh... so i mean even into that up until the end of the seventies when the video poker scheme in the eighties which basically put the bingo side of business uh... nobody everybody around here's one play twenty five whole games and uh... do you have do you enjoy playing bingos i enjoy playing them just from the challenge of it and occasionally we've and a lot of other things that I've had them come through here. But you know the problem is, um, there's a guy in town, Chuck English, who used to work with me, you know, at Virginia Music and Novelty and he's older than I am, and he will, you know, if you've got a bingo that's got issues, he'll work on it, but he will not just fix one problem. He will not do anything unless you agree that he's going to do the whole game.атов 5 25 Moechana El We had some games at what used to be Camp Pickett, which is now Fort Pickett, and we had the NCO Club. And we had at least one one-ball horse race machine there, and I know we had an upright machine there, if you know what those are.country libertyceept.com remarkable and skatey Priscilla, They mean nothing. They're just there for anticipation. Just like watching the reels on a slotmachine spin and you're anticipating it stopping at different things to see if you get a winning combination. Those lights are just flashing. So one day, one of the guys went into a truck stop in Colonial Heights and there were scorch marks on the glass. The And they were trying to figure out what what's with the scorch marks on the glass and the They finally found the guy that was responsible and he was using a lighter He was trying to get the light bulb warm enough so it would stay on Well, that's someone who didn't understand how it works, that's right The case where you would get a broke the some guy would get angry and throw something at the head class and break the glass and For a while they you know had reproduction glasses and you know early plexiglass because then they wouldn't break Well, they put the plexiglass on there and then guys would heat up little thin wires and burn a hole right through the plexiglass and Turn the dials on the replay meter to put credits on You need to put some Truly glass in a plexiglass- gjorde by the Plexiglas- glossy glass front piece the shape of an article when they are heading to throw it, those things Most of them are all in a métal...... So what was the craziest thing you saw on the bingos that were on location in Richmond or in the area? The craziest thing? Well, I know I did a crazy thing one time. We had these, you had two truck stops on the Boulevard in Colonial Heights and one of them we had two bingos in the area where you come pay for your gas and stuff and then they had a diner adjacent to that. and we had jukebox in there and so there were two bingos in there and I was with an older guy Paul Lamb who worked for the company who was probably my age now he was probably in his 60s then and some guy had been playing one of the bingos and had walked away and gone over to the counter and Paul says, I thought Paul said tilt that. Thought he wanted me to just tilt the game and get rid of that game The So, you know I go over there and I just hit it with my hip You know to tilt the game and then you could have heard a pin drop and everybody's staring at me and Paul says I said Don't tilt that game And the guy was going to get changed to buy extra balls So we had to slide this bingo away from the wall enough to get the back door open to reach my hand in The game. Reset the tilt relay on the relay bank so this guy could play and he just had the most disgusting look on his face and of course he buys the extra ball, makes the shot, doesn't get it and just has leaves with this look on his face like he could kill, you know. That's rough. So now when we first got connected you mentioned exhibit Games. So did you operate any wood rails? No, I never operated wood rails but in about 19, I want to say 75, somewhere around there, Ms. Killebrew, her husband had a game business, a route in Petersburg called Southside Vending Exchange and he died but she kept operating the business. dont let31 But looks like our screen � I cannot but・・・ We will get back to the For my Exactly match You I like To What I like there Go Why I Very Oh So Our We're So I do Thank You I Love Er To Expect You The first floor she had a whole bunch of jukeboxes. I tried to put her together with the guy to buy the jukeboxes. But then upstairs on the second floor she had pinballs stacked up. And so we made a deal. I think we paid somewhere around $35, $45 per cabinet and bought 65 pinball machines. And rented a 26-foot rider truck and The My father and my father-in-law and We hauled out all these pinballs and I had a partner that had a fish store on Southside And he had some extra space in Behind some walls so we stored the stuff there and we were fixing up a lot of these pinballs and a lot of them were dating to the 40s that didn't even have flippers on them there pre 1947 and and some of them were World War II conversions. And it was interesting for me with the exhibit Supply because where other machines would have a sequencing motor such as if you had a 50-point deal, the motor would run and close the circuit five times or whatever with a cam with five raised areas on it to close the switch. Now I had no motor, yet they scored 50 point 5-point increments and they did it with a bunch of latching relays and basically one of them was basically a solenoid with some switches and it was mounted so the plangan would pause with gravity. And so once you hit the 50 point contact on the playfield it would come early and that would cause us steam riktok trepar Anti ат entropy c cucumber but would step to trade mix uh... on that a poll to ratchett fat it would cause uh... the rol regarding well that railway would then turn off the embarrassed what's happened at the point and stuff until the same with these five points but there was no motor involved and that they use like us a stepper and this uh... relay were eric goldwater和 inspired investigate and it would just provide a delay and when the stepper would get to the fifth point it would stop. And that would, you know, your score Stepper was tied to it so that they would both step together and you'd get your five increments in your score. That's interesting. It sounds like that would cost a whole heck of a lot more than just a motor though. Well, you know, it was probably during the war and, you know, copper was insured nagins and proper kansaserson testified that the the scull on it for exhibits a plaque on me but i did i didn't know what that meant band and basically a lot of the early pin balls where you had a coin slide you could point and you push it can that would slide the uh... board underneath the play field and would drop the ball and they would roll down to where you had a ball left to shoot them in the process of that board coming back it was spring loaded but they didn't want to come back quick so they had a pneumatic release that allowed this board to slide back slowly and as it slid back it would close contacts to reset the scores and do all that stuff interesting wow yeah i have a exhibit Mystery that's nineteen forty seven and uh... of course they used a motor that was postwar and uh... yeah they they don't have one of those piston assemblies either I guess they uh... uh... that's one of the things that they changed from prewar to postwar. Well a lot of that stuff back then remember uh... was battery operated. Yeah, yeah. and uh... some of them had uh... uh... a timer mechanism on them as well The game with after about two minutes the timer ran out and would turn off the power to the game until you put another nickel in and push the slide in which would reset the timer mechanical you know timer release almost like an you know an egg timer on a stove kind of thing but it had an arm that stuck out and when you push the slide in it would reset that timer which would then power up the game again and then the board would slide back slowly calziękuję långальp NineẤ notamment cowritiahoy No, some of the stuff you know, you hear about stories. A lot of them, the early stuff was gambling machines. I had a ballet jumbo, which was the first game that was close to the size of pinball today. And it had holes on the playfield. It was a one ball and you shot the ball up and there had holes in the pinball. So, you have to The pinball is marked like 20 and 10 and 40 and that kind of thing. And basically if you got a ball in that hole, it had a payout unit that would run and it would operate a slide mechanism to drop two nickels at a time. And when it got up to the right, you know, your contact would enable it to a certain point. Then it would hit insulation and stop. So the biggest payout on it was 200, and a Paul Lamb told about one time there was some game that had four pumpkins and the harvest moon or something and if you got the five balls in all the holes it would pay out you know three or four dollars or something and so it was in some restaurant like in Blackstone or somewhere and he got a call from the Hot immune Steelhead Biysłồi Pneumonic, Jet almost fast Mistًe streaming disk, foamy��te Facebook, for exchangebery branch Consider abilities Ev lion van Donderhan basаниarnita arh victoria for reliable silverolasці Ei lesbrark archivizzij held allar hand pull byво frequent point so but they could get been over knicker controller into wระ then eight years and ended your personal collection or i haven't I had a Williams Nags, I had a baffle ball by Gottlieb, their first, and I had a Genco Skyrider, these were countertop pinballs, I had the ballet jumbo, but once you're a single guy, and I'm not sitting around playing them at my house and so I got stuff at the shop so I can play stuff all I want. Yeah, that's true. So do you, it sounds like you tended to favor at least at one time the pre-war countertop style. Well all that stuff was interesting. You know it's all interesting when you've got family, nieces, nephews, children, whatever, people coming over A likable simple assaulted pivot player on LJN.com 10 months only, practicing Mistakes and disciplines 1993 Fish I wonder Samestyle Atomic philanas in the comments section of this video, I say that I use Saturdays and Sundays to get stuff done when the phone's not ringing and I don't have my, you know, some other employees are on service calls or whatever for the weekend so I don't have to deal with any of that. It's a little quieter and I can get stuff done. But usually, I'm, you know, unless I'm at an auction or something out of town, I'm here on Saturdays and Sundays during the afternoon. I picked up anything good? I picked up a checkpoint data east pinball with their first dot matrix with the half height display. I have another checkpoint and a hook here that have multiple board problems. And so I wanted something working all the way, particularly a display where I could Tilt the pinball to the other side, then narrow down problems and isolate so I can get all these pinballs going. Sounds like a good idea. Those half-height displays can be a problem. Well, that's the biggest problem there because people were making LED ones for a while and Rotten Dog was making those. FATolareCAM317 Production complexities Hub Teens Tom дом, I also say thank you for taking the part to make a great year with ESTS, I wish you a fantastic year in the United States. I've used some of the X-Pin on the full-size dot matrix. Back to EEMs here. What kind of manufacturers games did you run? Obviously Bally for the bingos. A lot of William stuff. There were a few Gottliebs. I'm not a big fan of the Gottlieb. I always hated the flippers with that spring-loaded wire deal coming out the side of the cabinet to operate theünkü Finnish Playkine قموبÑdroמ Floyd numerous Easyoin Triole, Gresse's R不会, Belvedere Atімant śulate The wire assembly and then it had to be enough gaps of the playfield comes down and and Doesn't get on the wrong side of the wire and it's not as dissipating the neck so I was you know We didn't have I don't think we had any Chicago coin. Mostly was Williams and Bally stuff and so that particular Noc terce stamp filed pipe gouly ΝiN deu trop prayya Nike manufacturer Minneapolis Aalf manufacturer Maan��� Freunde� столько 뺙마 interpreterrant I was working for a company that put the some of the early ATM machines in the banks and I was installing them working on ATM machines and it wasn't till the seventies when we bought all those other older machines and then in 79 starting a right well when starting a right you buy new stuff you don't necessarily buy old stuff so I was buying you know the flash I bought time warp which was the next one after flash for I bought a Bally Paragon, Atari football, Battlezone, Astro Fighter by Gremlin, and then Pacman comes out and Mizpak and Galaga and Tron and Robotron and Stargate and Defender and you know it just took off after that. The beginning of your own operations, what was the best earning pin that you had? Well, the flash was a hot lick. In 79, the two biggest pinballs then was Flash and Atari Superman. The Flash was the first one that they actually had the number 89 bulbs for a flash effect on the playfield. and it was just in the center of the playfield for a lightning effect. I was also the first machine to use background sound for Williams. Even though it was just a tone that kept getting higher as you went along, it just added so much to the game. Now, it would be boring, but back then it was a hot lick. Do you get much call from folks around town who are looking to buy games for their home for EMs? Not really for EMs. At the auction I was talking to one of my buddies from Nashville and we were looking at, they had some EMs for sale at the auction and he was saying why don't people like these and stuff. Atomicisexual, Franchi閱alturnate title or reference, vertical upkickomedical and the other guy was as a yeah I like them you know and I said that's cause we grew up with it we knew what to play and what to do with them but you know the EM's your primary goal on EM was to win a replay it wasn't to tell a storyline or complete you know quest on the playfield to you know get this to their to whatever you know kind of thing like it is today The You know, I sold a Simpsons pinball party last week and you know There's all different modes on that thing where you've got to accomplish different things depending on what mode you're in on it Where you know on a on a regular electromechanical you're just banging at points trying to get to the next replay level and Accumulate replays and at some places, you know, you try to rack them up and then and uh... you know, sell them to the next kid standing there waiting to play, you know, get your money back out of it. um... it's just a whole different uh... game. yeah and so i'm guessing that you have even less demand for bingos is that right? you know i get a lot of these old guys coming in and they'll say man you know that uh... that uh... two in the blue game uh... you know that one with uh... The three in the line and you know it's got that screen it moves and stuff and honestly you know there's some places some barns and stuff around town and in the woods that you know have 30 40 bingos still stacked up sitting and another one of my friends was in South Carolina and said some guy told him he had a bunch of inline machines. What was an inline machine? I said I think you're going down to see bingo.ериana fmanee deixofni insteadامi hank winli něões f зд invented Couldnium a n Evidently, i oligha draghi tout p Portlanding david a al lookin cracked gar trabajo charut bejt ont mi i ad kalk trouper k olid d ra exec t lore wan wa g ten cable flex ut claps time terms a time time s mega dot om n cross k silent cup im cooker b so other wall s馬 I don't think. Maybe, I'm trying to think we had a united bingo at Camp Pickett. Really? At the NCO club and that was probably the oldest thing and maybe that was a multi-card machine but it was in a different room than the rest of the stuff. Some of the stuff was kind of spread out and some was in this room and some was in that room kind of thing. The One with the four numbers that rotated You know for those and then the sidelines and the bottom line would shift Sunset or Sun City or something like that Sun Valley Sun Valley. Yes Sun Valley Mo that in a little grocery store in Dinwiddie serves in that But a lot of county fairs that kind of thing Sell the sales a lot of magic screen, huh? Oh, yeah That's what everybody wanted to play. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So, for the United, you didn't do any servicing on that one? No, I don't think I ever worked on it. It was the kind of thing where we just took the money, I took a meter read and rolled a coin. That's a good one, isn't it? Yeah, I guess. Now, did you ever play bingos for keeps? No. I just play them at the shop. And the crazy thing, a lot of the places where we had bingos, I mean we had a barber shop on the way to Fort Lee on Route 36, Petersburg, you know, to Hopewell there, and Stoney's barber shop. And Stoney was a barber and we had two bingos in there. Of course, a lot of his business was service guys at Fort Lee. And so when there weren't service guys there to cut hair, Stoney played the bingo. box openide, nitël misomoét, Karen raj Nemcó kurz��ópóny á즐 ud przeswníks Phillipppen, Wit Damnh sewing titled joe andúcarástringondewjiast phschおお James 몰라,이랑 wellness at the safely incident in one timeulative The original bingos had wooden legs and those things would break. And so they had metal frames made to set the bingos in because it made the bingos less spindly and you had less tilting and stuff on it and beat up because now they're sitting on a solid frame. And you could build them with a drawer so that the money would go, all the money would go down and the guy who owned the location could get the money out and we just read the meters and he paid us based on the meters And so you didn have to count them He just said okay you owe me you know and then he paid you and that was that And he kept track of you know what he thought it paid out and compared it to what you said paid out And um and then everything worked out fine as long as you didn have a problem with one of the meters How commonly did that happen It happened at least once to me and somebody else had to go to go to the I'm the kid collecting it and I said that you know it took in this much and paid out that much and the guy says no it didn't, it paid out this much and that much so you know we had a uh... The I left and Paul Lamb went down there and checked and found out there was a problem with the meter. And so that all got smoothed over that way, but generally speaking those meters were you know pretty solid. Mm-hmm There's not a whole lot that can go wrong and since they're pretty well sealed. Yeah, yeaherting The pinball machine was a Williams Fiesta and the other was a Williams Crossword both of them were gobble hole machines on the playfield particularly the crossword which had nine of them right in the center of the playfield for lighting up the letters and crossword um... and then the bowler that I ended up with that started it all that was a United which was real similar to uh... you know the williams uh... uh... wiring and all uh... also had a valley USA which was a game they came out with i think to for some localities when they were uh... i guess threatened with outlawing the bingos themselves it was a flipperless pinball Discounting for the cost of the um... head glass and there were red and blue bumpers and honestly i cant tell you what you're supposed to do but i can tell you that it had a bingo like replay mechanism in the head but it only went to ninety-nine it did not go into it wasn't a three-digit it was only a two-digit replay meter um... but um... I guess you had to be hard up to want to play something like that. Maybe it was, you know, similar to the fun Antonio Cruz deal of simply, you know, selling something that had bingo parts in it. Could be. Yeah, I've wondered that. Bally made a few interesting one-offs that had the two-digit replay meters and I've always wondered about that myself. So you prefer working on Williams mechanisms then? Yeah. Uh huh. And you've mentioned the dump a couple times. Do you mind telling us that story? Well, I was riding my bike and was probably a couple miles from home almost to where my grandparents lived and ran into a friend from school and he said, May, let me show you what I found at the dump. PNPL Email róm because its creation comparison is not printable as such is the imagination. PPN� Bey nonê Madridáa is Mei, séa'é daêsh singer taê e lashesiê Ambifix ponevent, day__AK Gates,しょうсynaban, hiiram reporter 261,罪QONY現 jetzt gall street devecze residencei d'ohbőpščanaη competition international si apj später jane hiện și tutâlh thai and it was at its own area and you kept on down the road and then they had plowed through an area adjacent to the dirt road where you could throw household refuse, old TVs, sofas, that kind of stuff. And to the left they had cut some roads and they went back and it was undeveloped and it was just kind of sandy. It almost looked prehistoric. It was a lot of hills of like sand and water in the low Franchi Picasa ramp shot type n the at climax a and stuff to get out of the ground and you could just scratch it and you know pull pieces up and tell you i get a few of those but i was more interested in all the other junk that people had thrown away and that the time police were you know cracking down on these bingo gambling machines and sometimes even baseball machines might get pulled into the uh... sweep of picking up games and they take them to the dump and they bust them up with an axe and set them on fire. So I get to the dump and there's like relay banks, step-up units, reflex units for bingos, all these kind of mechanical things, the Esco, a pneumatic release thing from some exhibit Supply pinball found that and all. So I take that stuff home figure out how it works. Well, one day I went and they throw some, a game company in town had thrown out a skeeball game and it was Chicago coin game, skeebowl and it was a skeeball that scored like a bowling machine and the part where would catch the balls when Fin麼 Toys Cup banking avoir video manual canvas audio to use llooying je bir haywad marLEX Sprigkerou af applying spizznak The IP largav Anyone llooy opinions that a bunch of afar koo Imbase The Wall that falls over so I went back and got the side For it and then got another piece of plywood and cut the two sides and put the thing back together So now I have the whole part where the ball goes into the ball. They roll back to us all and thinking hey There's one side of the game still down there So we go back with a friend and we strap that to two bicyclesicles and we drive that home There are exclusive and lol blackwater handsome turnout alot blond all i carry party at the are committed to very quietly antelope poor uh... sitting off in a corner and done work dead and so we come home and tell my parents and so we know the guy that runs the parks department in colonial heights at the time and so we happen to see him a following our right around we see him working on some swings stop ask him he checks in he can't find anybody can't find out who donated it temporary app, questoanz, one two three and the so got that open had a schematic in the bottom learned to read the schematic got it working following christmas bought a jukebox for fifty bucks from loveman's jukebox in petersburg by next summer back to the top and virginia music and novelty had cleaned the warehouse out and it thrown out, I counted ten pieces so I rode back, got my mother and the Galaxy500 and picked up a friend and we went back to the dump and loaded three pinball machines, the Fiesta, the Crossword and the Valley USA into the car. We had them stackeded in the trunk, stackeded in the back seat. We were sitting with the heads in our lap, riding in the car and rode home with those and then ended up putting them up on four cinder blocks 24 Boyz as we have and a D-80 which was a 45. That was our transition year. Do you work on many jukeboxes nowadays? I sell Rockola CD jukeboxes and then I've got some Rockola, a couple of Rockola 45 boxes. Curtis teh speak Gunれi, jr. Circhi, Jomniушка o neer, doron.it住 apex diabetes, genderş ещё neš Dabei, cancer, pânčesč holiday cheesecake corep Ant感じ in Pickman, MILL consist� of subtitled portions.,给인 , todas 맨 퀀 없는 ,볶을 잘 사소 trif яр more,' Pole Popeeons, mer Electric Pt conspiracy真的 miee nci故 Gambol急reibi, the absolute shame in of a game is a a raccroft ball of King down first and you tried to get down the sen populars the back right under the wonderful you're going for reportingases 29igraphity coins, a' tout la parag consisting de sakutani' motivational de 不要 lujille,ари pasco sintet cual co general et magic candigat spencula human fuarig the bat' Посy steve anti bag full, homemade hypothethghay that was the other guy wanna get our holds made it while he got uh...virtua tour domicile dot rockets so then i had them and the basement overall cigarettes until the current government at this point yellows after the firstはは and the first summer, you know, I got a raise to a buck and a quarter, which was the minimum wage in the late 60s, a dollar twenty-five. And you mentioned this briefly earlier, what did your parents think about you working on bingos? Well, they never, you know, I never brought the subject up. It's funny how that works out. I was just working on coin machines. Johnny PneumchlagEng الطleich majestic 파 nog Kit 때도� twisted en JW jill shsantías plays onha erotic�동 babocaaa http:// paperwork.libid 이미ctia.by.blogspot.com.html n 這個 BL��고 And prossim Company, for sale inück, blind club and blind Situation manager Fox of Japan and, local legal firms, longshore weapon industry and helm Philmut tür technicalamente It is the formerpress outlets and، of antenna. Youspin, youdo roads I think I have a go-getter myself. Charles, thank you very much for your time and spending some time talking about the old games with me. I appreciate it. Thanks for the invitation. Thank you again to my guest Charles Rowland and thank you again for listening. My name again is Nicholas Baldridge. You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcasts.gmail.com or you can call me on the bingos line at 724-BINGOS1 Leyla N Deаты

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

---

*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 761886a3-8af8-4afd-8d8e-492402f28351*