# Episode 380 - York and Second Annual Bingo Row Wrap-Up 2016

**Source:** For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2016-10-08  
**Duration:** 54m 13s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://foramusementonly.libsyn.com/episode-380-york-and-second-annual-bingo-row-wrap-up-2016

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## Analysis

Nicholas Backbone recounts his experience at the 2016 York Pinball Show and the second annual Bingo Row event, where he brought five bingo pinball machines and debuted his Multi-Bingo homebrew creation. He discusses the logistics of transporting and setting up the games, technical issues encountered (power failure, SD card corruption), community participation, and positive reception from both new and experienced bingo players. Guest Ryan Claytor shares his first York Show experience and newfound appreciation for bingo and flipperless pinball games.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] The Multi-Bingo currently contains 40 games and is planned to eventually hold approximately 130 total games — _Nicholas Backbone speaking about his homebrew Multi-Bingo: 'And you've got 40 games in there. There's what 130 total that you're going to try to put in there.'_
- [MEDIUM] Broadway '51 was the second modern-style bingo pinball machine produced (after Bright Lights), and is extremely rare with uncertain production status — _Nicholas Backbone: 'it was actually the second. So, Bright Lights came out. And then they tested Broadway. As far as anybody knows, it never made it to full production.'_
- [HIGH] Nicholas Backbone brought 5 bingo machines to York in 2016, down from 6 the previous year — _Nicholas Backbone: 'So this year, instead of the five bingos that I brought down with a sixth joining me at Straight Down the Middle: a pinball show, I just brought down five bingos.'_
- [HIGH] A power infrastructure failure at York Show caused cascading issues with the Multi-Bingo including display reboots and SD card corruption from log file overflow — _Nicholas Backbone describing the power incident: 'one of the main power feeds to the bingo row had actually come partially unplugged from the ceiling' leading to 'power cycling the Raspberry Pi' which 'filled up the SD card with logs'_
- [HIGH] Nicholas Backbone gave away t-shirts designed by Ryan Claytor to people who achieved a four or five in a line on bingo games; he brought 60 shirts and returned with only 2 — _Nicholas Backbone: 'I went to Straight Down the Middle: a pinball show with 60 shirts to give away and I came back with two.'_

### Notable Quotes

> "He just did a great job. He was really digging into the rules of every game. I was very impressed. And I was impressed with all the winners this year and last year... these games are very exciting."
> — **Nicholas Backbone**, ~10:00 mark
> _Reflects Backbone's passion for bingo pinball and pride in introducing new players to the format_

> "It's a labor of love, and as such, it's nice to be able to enjoy it. I enjoy the gameplay of it and I've only been in bingos for a few years but I really love them"
> — **Nicholas Backbone**, ~12:30 mark
> _Demonstrates Backbone's genuine enthusiasm for the bingo pinball niche and commitment to authenticity_

> "I had a very mind-expanding pinball weekend. It was great. That's good. So as far as bingos go, what was the best machine that you played all weekend?"
> — **Ryan Claytor**, ~38:00 mark
> _Shows conversion of skeptical new player (flipperless games) through hands-on experience at York_

> "Nobody could believe you completed that thing and the amount of time you had and the amount of games you had in it, that it was fully functional all weekend long."
> — **Ryan Claytor**, ~41:00 mark
> _Validates the technical and creative achievement of the Multi-Bingo homebrew project_

> "I really found myself fancying a number of flipperless games and now, again, those are on my radar too. I should probably shut up about them so they don't get discovered."
> — **Ryan Claytor**, ~35:00 mark
> _Humorous acknowledgment of flipperless pinball's emerging appeal despite initial dismissal_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Nicholas Backbone | person | Host of For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast; bingo pinball enthusiast and homebrew Multi-Bingo creator |
| Ryan Claytor | person | Graphic designer and pinball enthusiast from Michigan; helped Nicholas Backbone transport bingo machines to York; designed t-shirt artwork for bingo row |
| Steve Smith | person | Pinball player who attended York; brought his Derby Day game to the show |
| Bingo Butch | person | Bingo pinball collector who brought rare Broadway '51 and United Showboat machines to York bingo row |
| Robert Madel | person | Bingo pinball enthusiast from Ohio; brought Carnival Queen and Silver Sails to York; helped load machines |
| Sal Mazio | person | Bingo pinball player from Ohio; competed in t-shirt challenge on United Showboat |
| Jeffrey Lawton | person | Bingo pinball collector who brought Miss America '57 and Broadway to York show |
| Jim Holder | person | Bingo pinball enthusiast; attended York and played Multi-Bingo but did not bring games this year |
| Vic | person | Experienced bingo pinball player; provided validation of Multi-Bingo gameplay; demonstrated nudging technique that influenced Ryan Claytor |
| Chad | person | Helped load and unload bingo machines at York; brought Beach Club and Big Time games |
| Len | person | Helped load and unload bingo machines at York; brought Beach Club and Big Time games |
| Pete | person | Bingo pinball collector who brought Circus Queen to both 2015 and 2016 York shows |
| Art Stenholm | person | Artist who designed pinball machine artwork for multiple manufacturers (Gottlieb, Williams, Bally); mentioned in correction at episode opening |
| York Show | event | Annual pinball and EM game show in Pennsylvania; hosts 'Bingo Row' exhibition of bingo pinball machines; described as excellent venue for EM and wood rail games |
| Straight Down the Middle: a pinball show | event | The official name for the York Show event; hosts various pinball machine exhibitions and gameplay |
| Multi-Bingo | product | Homebrew pinball machine created by Nicholas Backbone; contains 40 games currently with planned expansion to ~130 games; experienced power-related technical issues at York |
| Miss America '57 | game | Bingo pinball machine with moving numbers and magic pockets features; brought by Jeffrey Lawton to York; played by Ryan Claytor |
| Broadway '51 | game | Extremely rare early bingo pinball machine (second produced after Bright Lights); single large back glass bingo card; brought by Bingo Butch to York; production status uncertain |
| United Showboat | game | Rare bingo pinball machine with six card format and long light sequence animation; brought by Bingo Butch to York; played in t-shirt challenge |
| Caravan | game | Bingo pinball machine with roto feature; brought by Nicholas Backbone to York; suffered head damage from ratchet strap failure previous year |
| Pinball Hall of Fame | venue | Arcade venue where Ryan Claytor previously attempted to play bingo pinball but found it confusing without proper instruction |
| Bright Lights | game | First modern-style bingo pinball machine produced with 25-hole playfield; preceded Broadway '51 |
| Turf King | game | Flipperless pinball game played by Ryan Claytor at Nicholas Backbone's home; noted for interesting mechanical animations |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Bingo pinball games and mechanics, York Show 2016 and Bingo Row event logistics, Multi-Bingo homebrew pinball machine project, Community engagement and introduction of new players to bingo pinball
- **Secondary:** Flipperless pinball and wood rail games, Equipment transportation and machine setup challenges, Power infrastructure and technical troubleshooting, Rare and vintage pinball machine preservation

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.82) — Nicholas Backbone expresses genuine pride and satisfaction with York Show experience, Multi-Bingo reception, and community participation. Ryan Claytor conveys enthusiasm and conversion from skepticism about bingo/flipperless games. Some frustration with technical difficulties (power failure, SD card corruption) but overall framed as manageable obstacles. Abundant gratitude expressed toward volunteers and participants.

### Signals

- **[event_signal]** Second annual Bingo Row at York Show was significantly successful with 14 machines on first day (12 after two departures), 60 t-shirts brought resulted in only 2 returned, indicating high engagement and demand (confidence: high) — Nicholas Backbone: 'I went to Straight Down the Middle: a pinball show with 60 shirts to give away and I came back with two'
- **[product_launch]** Multi-Bingo homebrew machine debuted at York Show 2016 with 40 games and approximately 130 planned total, receiving substantial positive reception from both casual and experienced players (confidence: high) — Ryan Claytor: 'Nobody could believe you completed that thing... it was fully functional all weekend long' and Nicholas Backbone noting consistent compliments on gameplay
- **[technology_signal]** Multi-Bingo experienced cascading failures due to venue power infrastructure issue: partial unplugging caused Raspberry Pi power cycling, SD card log overflow corrupted score display; issues resolved when power restored (confidence: high) — Nicholas Backbone detailed account of power failure causing 'power cycling the Raspberry Pi' which 'filled up the SD card with logs' due to logging not set to read-only
- **[community_signal]** York Show exposed new players to bingo pinball format, with documented conversion from skepticism to enthusiasm; Ryan Claytor shifted from initial confusion to tutorial provider by weekend end (confidence: high) — Ryan Claytor: 'by the end of the weekend I had really warmed up to the bingos' and Ryan now giving tutorials to new players; Nicholas noting new player who spent 3.5 hours to win t-shirt
- **[design_innovation]** Nicholas Backbone's Multi-Bingo successfully replicates authentic bingo pinball gameplay mechanics across 40 different games with Raspberry Pi emulation; gameplay validated as 'exactly like the real thing' by experienced bingo players (confidence: high) — Bingo players unanimously confirmed gameplay 'played very well, exactly like the real thing'; only minor changes needed on games with advancing odds
- **[sentiment_shift]** Ryan Claytor demonstrates significant attitude shift regarding flipperless/bingo pinball from initial dismissal ('what do you do with it?') to genuine appreciation after hands-on experience (confidence: high) — Ryan Claytor: 'I really found myself fancying a number of flipperless games... I was a bunch of wrong about those... There's this progression which I never expected'
- **[restoration_signal]** Extremely rare Broadway '51 (second production bingo machine, uncertain production status) and United Showboat exhibited at Bingo Row; Broadway '51 had unique blue back glass variant distinct from standard red version (confidence: medium) — Nicholas Backbone: Broadway '51 'was actually the second [bingo machine produced]' and 'it never made it to full production' but had variant coloring; brought by Bingo Butch who was commended for sharing rarities
- **[operational_signal]** Bingo Row required substantial logistical coordination involving machine disassembly/reassembly, multiple volunteer helpers, truck loading, weather delays, and venue setup; challenges increased complexity but community support made event successful (confidence: high) — Nicholas describing loading process: disassemble head, remove glass, extract balls, remove legs with bolts/balls bagged separately; weather delays meant 6:30pm arrival vs. intended noon; volunteers Chad/Len critical to unloading
- **[market_signal]** Limited edition t-shirt giveaway (designed by Ryan Claytor, 60 brought, 2 returned) drove significant engagement in bingo gameplay; players motivated to achieve 4-in-a-line wins; strategy proven effective for attracting attention to niche game format (confidence: high) — Nicholas noting 'a lot of people that were interested in competing for that' and one player spending '3 and a half hours but I did win a shirt' with positive feedback
- **[historical_signal]** Historical documentation of early bingo pinball production reveals Broadway '51 was second machine produced (after Bright Lights) with variant colorations and unclear full production status; samples may have reached New York markets (confidence: medium) — Nicholas Backbone discussing Broadway '51: 'It was actually the second. So, Bright Lights came out. And then they tested Broadway. As far as anybody knows, it never made it to full production'
- **[content_signal]** Ryan Claytor served dual role as volunteer helper and podcast guest; provided audience perspective of newcomer to bingo pinball and documented experience of conversion from skepticism to enthusiasm (confidence: high) — Nicholas introducing Ryan as guest: 'my traveling buddy, Ryan Claytor' and conducting interview about his first York experience and learning arc

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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. Before I get started today, I need to make a really obvious, terrible correction. I recorded that episode about sing-along and completely I'm not going to say that I botched the artist. It was not Roy Parker, of course, it was Art Stenholm. And, um... he did a number of games for Gottlieb, a few for Williams and a couple for Bally. My apologies. Got that totally wrong. Tonight, let's talk about the bingo row. And let's talk about the York Show. I just came back on, uh... Saturday night, late, Uh... from the Bingo Row and the York Show. And uh... I will tell you I had an excellent time again. The York Show of course is an excellent event and uh... this year was no exception to that. Uh... there were quite a few wonderful playing wood rails there including uh... games like King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, Agenco Rocket, and sitting beside it and Genco South Pacific and both of those games have a very similar layout but play very differently. There was a Four Bells there. Steve Smith brought his Derby Day. That's a fun game. And Four Bells is really challenging. I've never played Dragonette but it's the same playfield layout just with different artwork. I really enjoyed that one. There was a Flipperless Stage Door Canteen. I've always wanted to try that one and uh... I thought that one was a lot of fun. Um... Let's see what else was there? One of the best playing games I thought was Gottlieb's Spotted Card and that's a wood rail. It's got uh... a kick out hole feature similar to many of the games that pass The ball from hole to hole like singalong. But instead of passing the ball from hole to hole, it kicks it down to a little post with a tiny rubber tee on the top that shoots it back up into the next hole. It's ingenious. I love it. The animation is more vibrant than those pass along the hole games and you have a greater opportunity of messing it up. The ball coming down, so your nudging skills have to be on point in order to do well. Aside from that, I pretty much stuck to the bingo row. I did play a few other games, but not very much. Instead, I wanted to be where the action was, and the action was with the The bingos. So this year, instead of the five bingos that I brought down with the sixth joining me at the show, I just brought down five bingos. Really slowed it down from last year. So I have a little interview coming up later in the show, but I had a helper that flew all the way down from Michigan and I was very pleased that he was able to I'm not sure if I'm able to do that. He and I loaded the truck by ourselves. Last year I think there were three or four people that were helping, but I've obviously chased them all off with moving bingos. So I have to fly them in from out of state now. But yeah, Ryan Claytor flew in and helped me load up all the bingos. The problem that we had was we were planning to load on Wednesday night, Fix hes internet printer, The loading operation is not the most efficient. What I end up doing is wheeling a game out of the garage, taking the head off, loading the head in the truck, taking the playfield glass down, removing the balls, taking the legs off, loading the cabinet up, and then loading the legs up. I'm putting all the bolts in one bag, balls in another, and away we go. Well, that's what took us so long, is doing all that. And I'm of the opinion better safe than sorry most of the time, and that tends to work out. Now last year, if you'll recall, there was an unfortunate incident where one of my ratchet The two composite straps came unhooked and the heaviest head in the truck fell down and it brought along another head with it. Luckily there were no casualties, nothing new was broken. There was a broken back glass in the smaller head and the glue that was holding the glass together broke apart. But no new broken bits of glass, everything was good. Nothing broken mechanically, everything was fine. So that was a miracle. And this year I took ticker tape, which I took last year, double up, that was the one that fell down last year, caravan, that's the one that met me at the show last year, the multibingo, and I also took gay time. So we got all those loaded up, no problem. Now the multi I didn't want to take the head off of. So we loaded it in Task N Out Pinball bittexüst posición Knapp producto,ieniить reverонь, Options Pneumemarkеннойáveis interrog trunk But my logic there was that I didn't want to test if my connectors were really good as far as taking the game apart. I have never done that since assembling it, so I didn't want my first test to be taking it out in public for the first time and seeing if it worked. I need to do that eventually and make sure it still works because at some point I gotta paint the thing. But I took it out I'm going to show you the pinball that I've created. I've got the pinball out there with its current raw artwork on the sides and I want people to be able to play it. So, we get loaded up, we drive up to Pennsylvania and it's raining, it's drizzling, it's not very nice Carl Weathers. We get there and it's still drizzling, it's not raining per se, but it's not super light There was water coming down and we get there and I'm, you know, going, man, this is, this is not good. We're never going to get these things unloaded in time. It was about 6 30 PM when we got there, which is much, much later than I usually like to get there. I like to get there around noon if I can. So it's 6 30, the hall closes at eight o'clock. And I just I just figure there's no way we're going to get these games in there and get them set up. But, as luck would have it, Chad and Len were there and they were able and willing to help and I was so grateful because they both came out with dollies and just whipped the games into the fairgrounds there and had the legs on them Subtitles by the Amara.org community Thank you. We get everything assembled except for two heads on the games. One was Caravan and one was Double Up. Double Up has an incredibly heavy head and I was a little concerned about that. Next morning we got there bright and early when the hall opened and got Double Up and Caravan's head bolted on. Everything was good. So that was exciting. fired up the multi major everything was good on there and the lifter for whatever reason wouldn't lift the first ball automatically it would lift every other ball but wouldn't lift the first one and i thought that was pretty odd and the score and Instruction displays were rebooting themselves after a period of time you know it might have been twenty minutes might have been a little less might have been an hour whatever the case was i ended up having to reboot The uh... game several times uh... just to get the score and Instruction displays back Now most people you know, didn't notice that I think but uh... and if if they did they were too polite to say anything which is fine too um... but at first I thought there was some kind of problem with the voltage you know, to the game and so I tried to preempt that by uh... running a cord out the back and playing the ups that powers the computer and so forth directly into a power strip that didn't resolve the problem though so basically i was bypassing the service outlet which i have wired to the power switch uh... so at this point i'm saying well you know i hadn't tested it in a low voltage condition so wasn't sure how it was going to react But that actually wasn't the problem. As it turned out, as we found out in the evening on Friday, one of the main power feeds to the bingo row had actually come partially unplugged from the ceiling where it was dropped from. And this was causing all kinds of weirdness and finally it came unplugged enough, I suppose, that everything started misbehaving on the row. He had lights dimming and flickering out and all kinds of crazy behavior. At that point I had been cruising around the show playing some wood rail games. I played a beautiful Godly Buneiverse. Played a, I think it was a wagon train. And then I was playing a big inning, two player with Ryan Claytor. I get the call over the PA, Nick, return to your game. There's something wrong with the bingo. So I go over there and uh... powers acting all crazy so I shut the thing down and unplug it just to be sure. Let them know at the front desk what's going on and they came over and fixed it really quickly. I was incredibly impressed and uh...grateful that they were able to get that over there and Get it fixed, get a huge ladder over there and get it fixed. They did and I fired everything up and everything was fine. One of the score and Instruction displays, the Score one, would no longer come up though. And unfortunately, one of the key components that I left at home was the keyboard that allows me to check and see what's going on with the actual computer that's underneath the game. Luckily I didn't really need it. The whole time we were there and once I got home I took a look at the score Display and I thought maybe the SD card had partially cooked or something and it wiped out some of my data but that wasn the case Actually what had happened his because of the low power event uh it was power cycling the pie that drives at the raspberry pi and uh... every time it did it would log a whole bunch of junk and then it would come back up and log a whole bunch more and what eventually happened is that it filled up the sd card with logs i hadn't set it to read only so Uh... because I didn't do that that's what caused the problem with the score Display, but otherwise the multi behaved very well the whole weekend. Also when they got the power fixed suddenly my lifter problem was fixed which is great. Um... luckily that was in the evening on Friday and things were winding down. All day Friday we had a ton of people come through playing the games and trying to get a t-shirt. Uh...this year for a four or five in a line we were giving away A t-shirt that was illustrated by Ryan Claytor. Beautiful bingo row t-shirt. So we had a lot of people that were interested in competing for that. That's always great. Last year worked out really well too with autographed copies of Jeffrey's books. What ends up happening is people end up really digging into the games trying to get that four or five in a line. We had one person there who worked incredibly hard for it and he left me a little feedback on the Facebook page. So I'm going to read that anonymously here. He said, Thanks for bringing your games out to York. It really made the show for my friends and I. None of us had ever played a bingo before but we discovered they're much more exciting than we thought. It took me three and a half hours but I did win a shirt. And I want to say The eye and really proud of that guy he uh... was really eager to win a shirt and he did a fantastic job he really understood the rules and uh... he is group of friends were alternating on miss america fifty seven and uh... he'd been back and forth with a few different games but wound up winning on caravan and uh... He just did a great job. He was really digging into the rules of every game. I was very impressed. And I was impressed with all the winners this year and last year. I mean, that's just an example of a new bingo player that's really excited. And I've said it before, I'll say it a hundred bajillion times, but these games are very exciting. and specially when you learn all the different ways that you can make an inline win you'd think that just placing some numbers beside each other would not be that exciting but uh... thing is when you're trying to make that last number that you need for a really nice inline win uh... the tension in the drama that's created in attempting to do that or failing to do that I'm really happy to share them with people. I think that's an important thing. I certainly didn't know they existed until my friend Steve showed me and since that day I've been kind of bingo crazy. But it all worked out. At any rate, that was kind of blending together Friday and Saturday. I'm very proud of all the winners. Everybody did a great job. It's not an easy thing to get a four in a row. There's a reason I set that goal. It is achievable, but you do have to work for it. It seems to work out very well. Now I've got a good amount. I went to the show with 60 shirts to give away and I came back with two. So I think everything worked out there. I think I got just enough. So that's pretty great. Now Chad and Lynn had to leave on Friday night and they had brought Beach Club and Big Time. Beach Club is I believe the second Valley game with Select-A-Spot and Big Time has Magic The game has magic lines on all five columns, which is something to see. Both games have super cards and both games have rollovers. So those are both excellent games and they were great additions to the bingo row. We had 14 games this year on the first day and when those two left we were down to 12. But all the games I just saw a ton of play over the weekend. I know a few of my games had over 2,000 plays. The multi, I felt like I did more explaining than people playing and I'll get into the numbers for that later on, but I think that went really well. So let me talk about, you know, kind of how that went from my perspective. You know, I'm not going to spend a lot of I'm not going to spend a lot of time patting myself on the back or anything, but I am very proud of what I was able to accomplish. I know it didn't look like much as far as the cabinet goes, but it will. Give that time. I also know that I probably didn't have your favorite game programmed in there, but I will give that time too. This is a labor of love, and as such, it's nice to be able to Orman而且 Koi Pink Jr. Tim uski reapside watch film skit well Oro na that's the as a I enjoy the gameplay of it and I've only been in bingos for a few years but I really love them and I didn't want to do them a disservice by messing with the gameplay. And in that regard I think I've succeeded. All the bingo players, I asked them for their honest opinion of the gameplay and after they got through the I can't believe this is or this is amazing I'm not sure if I'm being sarcastic or incredible or whatnot. They said unanimously that it played very well, exactly like the real thing, which is precisely what I was going for. So I think I've succeeded there. Again, I was just floored by how much positive response there was. And I met bingo players which I had never met before. There were people who drove down to the show just to see It was very proudu. Stand there and shake their hand say hello meet them. You know I am just thrilled with the reaction so again I don't mean to pat myself on the back too much but I am pleased. So thank you to everybody who came out and Ch??????? bezpie for I forgot how easy it was last year. So a big thank you to all the following bingo guys who brought their games, came out there, helped load or unload, or were generally just available to talk to and give tutorials and all that good stuff. We had myself, Ryan Claytor. We had Jeffrey Lawton who brought his Miss America 57 and his Broadway. Jim Holder came out and tried the multi and got to play the games. This year he wasn't able to bring the games, but I appreciated him coming out. Steve Smith played the games. I couldn't convince him to bring a bingo this year, but he did bring his awesome Derby Day and that was fun game. Um... We had Robert Madel and Sal Mazio, both of which have been on the podcast before. They came all the way from Ohio and it was great to see them. Sal worked really hard on United Showboat to get his t-shirt and Robert helped us load up on Saturday. Robert brought his Carnival Queen and Silver Sails and Carnival Queen sold at the show. Chad and Len, I mentioned them before. Thank you again guys for everything. They brought the Beach Club in the big time. And then Pete. Pete last year brought his Circus Queen and this year he did as well. That's a great game. I love playing it. There was a guy playing it this year who only played it for a short time last year I'm not sure if you can see the pinballducts on the screen, but he played it a lot this year and that was cool to see. I think he's generally a flipper guy. So that was again very neat to see. And Vic Camp! Vic Camp drove all the way out to the York show and I really appreciate him coming down and trying the multi. I was hoping to get the seal of approval from him. You know, as a fantastic player I wanted to make sure that it played well. And he gave me the thumbs up so I'm pretty pleased about that too. And Bingo Butch and his son Mike, they brought the Broadway 51 and the United Showboat, both of which are excellent rare games. It was really nice to have them as a part of the Bingo Row, and it was great to meet both of them too. Thank you to all the Bingo guys that came out to play. Again, I met a ton of people and uh... I would name everybody if I could, but I can't. So thank you all if you came up and said hello. Thank you if you came up to get a tutorial. Thank you for playing the games. That's why I brought them there. Thank you for winning shirts. Thank you for asking questions. Thank you for being a great part of my show experience and I really appreciate everybody. collector whomever you are uh... if you came down and just gave him a shot that is much appreciated uh... next year let's do it again uh... again on i'm gonna say that i'm scaling back now in order to do that i'll have to rent a smaller truck though so we'll see if that actually happens but uh... If I do, I certainly hope others take up the mantle. I've been talking with folks already, and I think there's going to be quite a few there. So next year should be great. If you didn't make it this year, definitely come out next year. York is a fantastic show no matter what you're into, but most especially if you're into EM games and, of course, the bingos. So, before we call it a night, let's hear from my traveling buddy, Ryan Claytor. How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. I've recovered and I'm doing really well. You ready to move some more bingos? Yes. All right, that's good. So, I guess first, what did you think of your first York show? Oh man, it was everything I hoped for and more. It was, so I don't know how much you've prefaced this conversation with your melodious podcasting voice, but I live in Michigan which is not close to York so And I heard about your bingo row last year and I was really bummed out that I didn get to experience that and really wanted to be a part of it this year Uh, somehow, if for nothing else than just experiencing it. Um, so Nick and I, who have become fast friends over the past year and a half or so, uh, we decided that I would Fly to Virginia, pack up a bunch of 400-pound plywood boxes in a Penske and unload them all at York and yeah, get to experience bingo row. So I'd also heard that York was a great show for EM games and wood rail games and I've been getting really into EMs and wood rails recently and so I spent a healthy amount of I was in daddy vacation heaven for the weekend. My lovely wife said, go have a good time, see you at the end of the weekend and a good time was had. That's good. That's good. Now, when you got here, things were a little hectic but we got it all taken care of I think. But that was your first experience playing a bingo and having someone there talking you through it. Yeah, yeah, it was in your garage. I think I played it one other time, which I kind of don't even consider playing it. I was at the Pinball Hall of Fame and despite listening to your shows, I was super duper confused. And so having you there talking me through some games really helped. But I think it really started to click in the bingo row at York when I could see a different I'm thinking of course about Vic, you know this, but VicCamp showed up and he's got this different way of like holding the machine and nudging the machine which really sort of fit my body type I guess. It felt a lot more comfortable to me and to my surprise at the end of the weekend I was even giving tutorials to new people walking up to the bingos and just having a great time. I'm a really good excited about some of the hits of people were making and to know course we have the shirts and so by the end of the weekend I had really warmed up to the bingos. I gotta say when we played in your garage I understand conceptually that there are a lot of decisions to be made but I was still like I don't know I still feel like I'm just sort of lobbing the ball up and like hoping for the best, Plinko style when it comes down. I was really excited about the weekend. I was too and I was really happy to have help moving the machines. No, that worked out very well. Yeah, you'll have to send a thank you card to your wife who helped us unload them all. Yes, I couldn't believe that she did that but it was much appreciated. I was pretty flabbergasted. I mean just to fast forward to the end of the weekend, you know, we made our way back through torrential downpours and Yes, some of the items that we went through tiresome to make a groceries how to create and almost regret but anyway we made miracles in our life. I will speak as a romlung dimensional Business who has painful experience in order to maximize어 and I try and find out a few words I could not glass to see lying down. That's true. So, we sent you back with about a half dozen bingos, if I recall, and how are those pairing now? You know, once I got them out of the overhead compartment and reassembled, no, I took home zero bingos. But they are definitely on my radar now, as are a lot of other older I think one of the biggest revelations of the weekend was that I enjoyed flipperless pinball. I kind of expected to warm up to bingo pinball, but I had always sort of written off flipperless pinball as, again, what do you do with it? There's no way to control the ball and they can't have interesting rule sets. I mean, what are you going to do? I'm just hitting a couple bumpers, but I was a bunch of wrong about those. I really found myself fancying a number of flipperless games and now, again, those are on my radar too. I should probably shut up about them so they don't... Scott Rocket. Exactly. I hate flipperless pinball just as I did before. In fact, it's worse than I thought. They should be less money. Yeah, it's pretty interesting once you get the idea that you are essentially the flipper, you are the ball control. It makes the games open up, you know, and the rule sets are pretty interesting because they're always vertically stacked, so you got to figure out the best way to get the ball down hitting the most stuff to complete your sequence and eventually collecting those specials. There's this progression which I never expected. I thought it was just lobbing the ball up and then hoping it hits a big target, but there were rule sets in these flipperless games too. It's just I had a very mind-expanding pinball weekend. It was great. That's good. So as far as bingos go, what was the best machine that you played all weekend? So, I think you and I talked about this a little bit that I really kind of gravitated toward the moving numbers games and I wasn't as hot on the six card games although I hear that they get more complex in the later six card games and then the magic screen games maybe I just didn't put enough time on them but I felt like the moving numbers aspect was at least visually from an aesthetic perspective I'm going to be a little more creative, much more interesting, but I also felt like it was fun to... Like, I could see the numbers moving around in my head before I moved them and I was able to, like, think of ways to make inline hits from moving those numbers. I don't know, I just gravitated toward those. So there was a Miss America, I can't remember what year, I know there's a few of them. The game was a bit of a challenge for me, because I had not only moving numbers, but also magic pockets, and that is just such a cool mechanic to see all the balls sort of catapult to the next hole, and yeah, those are probably my two favorite games of the weekend, bingo-wise. Excellent. Now, on the Magic screen, I know I said I needed to get you a more thorough tutorial, because I think you only saw them from afar, really, but Okay, so we're sort of talking about that range of Goldmansthةtive Tib Near S geekmaker's job, which has become What I Tomorrow NeaW omslovery, just because neutro!". What I Tomorrow NeaW omslovery has been claiming, I agree, is that when one Gothic gains is tied to the know more about popular pun, fin케이етров Republicans are often used to fight by changingivamente things are lost or go wrong you call them Ram fanatics other precis-??? to happyULL ich new online serious actions are immediately to fonctionne of organisation himunen ith buddies Filовали there and a investir step up and Jackie Devilsky, fake 33 Oh my gosh, I'm blanking on the name. Broadmade, Showtime. It was the Caravan. Oh, Caravan, yeah, that's the roto feature, the ultimate Magic Square. Yeah, exactly, yeah. So, what did you think about those really rare games that showed up, the United Showboat and the Broadway 51? What do you think of those as far as gameplay and maybe differences between the other ones? From a historical perspective, I couldn't believe that they showed up. I was just so thankful to Bingo Butch that he was willing to bring out such rarities and let everybody hammer on them for the weekend. And, you know, Bingo rose pretty well, man. I don't think anybody got out of control there. But, yeah, it was just a treat to see those there. As far as gameplay was concerned, I think it was the Broadway, I'm flipping through my bingo row pictures here. Yeah, Broadway that had the single gigantic bingo card in the back that, you know, there's no moving numbers features, there's no odds, it was, maybe you can tell me a little more about it. Was it one of the first bingo pinball machines ever produced? Yes, in the modern style with the 25 hole playfield. Yeah. It was actually the second. So, bright lights came out. And then they tested Broadway. As far as anybody knows, it never made it to full production. But what was unique about that game is that it had a different playfield from the Broadway that's pictured on IPDB. It had a blue background instead of the red, which was used in Bright Lights. Even though it uses the same playfield, it had different coloration, which was kind of odd. So, there've also been reports of people having played it. Now, they might have all been samples, but it's kind of odd because a lot of them were from New York. So... And they probably wouldn't have sent samples out there. Right. All the way to New York. Yeah, that would be a little odd, I think. Yeah. But, you know, I don't know for sure. So yeah, it was awesome. I can't believe he brought those either. That was great to play those. Yeah. Yeah. If we're talking about gameplay though, I liked I was just having more control over how I get my wins rather than everything being static. The back glass is static, the holes are static, and then, what was the other one, Mississippi Showboat or just Showboat. Showbot was a six card and as I mentioned before, I didn't gravitate to the six cards. So that's how I felt about that. I really like the coin animation when you push the button. Yeah, was that the one that had the really long light sequence? Yeah. Yeah. The machine made this cool noise too while I was doing it. The Yeah, that's something that I Was really taken by on Not only the bingos, but you know you and I got to play turf King while I was at your place And I just thought that was such a neat Aspect of the game that I didn't really Realize was even a part of it because I'd never played them before Yeah, so what did you think of the multi bingo? Yeah, it's okay Alright better scrap it No it was dude you know it an absolute tour de force Nobody could believe you completed that thing and the amount of time you had the amount of games you had in it that it was fully functional all weekend long Yeah I heard comment after comment from so many different folks walking up how amazing it was And even if people didn understand what it was you know I think people don't understand bingo pinball very well and consequently I saw despite bingo row being really well populated, there are a lot of people that also walked right past it. I was looking at a number of wrap up videos online about, you know, here's wood rail row and here's some wedge heads and I don't know what these are, let's walk past real quick. It's like even if people didn't know what it was, they stopped and took notice. And yeah, it's it's really incredible, man. And to have it available all weekend long for people to play super cool. And it's not even a third of the way done. And it's already impressive. I mean, you've got 40 games in there. There's what 130 total that you're going to try to put in there. Yep. And then yeah, you're The I've been following this very closely so I feel like I'm probably not the person to talk about it but I was pretty enamored yes that's good let's keep it that way your cash payment is in the mail so yeah it's uh... it was pretty gratifying to to get you over here and and let you play it actually that was the first bingo I had you try The Yeah. Yeah. So, what about you? I want to flip this interview on you a little bit. How did you feel about the reception of the Multibingo over the course of York? I was actually quite surprised. I didn't think that it would be quite the hit that it was. I thought it would be one of those sleeper kind of things, but practically everybody But today, I am very grateful to the people who came up to bingo row and got a tutorial or was a long-time bingo player, could not believe it. And that was really gratifying because I got a lot of compliments on the gameplay from long-time bingo players, which was something I was hoping for but I wasn't holding my breath for. So, there's a couple of areas, especially on games with advancing odds where I just need to make small changes to the portioning, but that was really the only comment that I had that was in any way negative. And of course, everybody wanted Magic Scream games in them. I did get that comment frequently. Where's the okay games? But... How come you only have 40 games in here in less than a year? I'm sorry. Yeah. But, you know, it went incredibly well. I couldn't believe the response and got response from all different kinds of people too. You know, there were players and operators and all kinds of people who wanted to talk with me about it which was also gratifying. Told me I was on the right track anyway. So... What are some of the comments that stand out in your mind about reactions to the multi? Well, there was a lot of, this is absolutely insane, repeated multiple times. There were, you know, most of the comments were very similar in that I can't believe you've done this. This thing plays very well. Yeah, I can't think of anything that really sticks out as unique that I have permission to say. Right. So, I don't want to name names here, but... Can you rattle off some stats real quick about when did you conceive of this, how did you conceive of this, how long have you actually been working on it? Yeah. I conceived of it about the first time I opened up the back of a bingo. And I looked in there and said, this computer is amazing, but you could replace it with basically a single chip nowadays. And so as I grew in my understanding of bingos and learned more and more about the gameplay and the different types and so forth, I said, you know, this is probably actually really possible if I sit down and think about it some more. Talk about how clipboarders fail to deal with it. This week ski personnes have a tolust alert, Knappzhara Start 對不對4, I'm going to look into these frameworks. Let me look into the boards that are available and see if there's something I can put together here with the existing Hobbyist stuff that's out there. And I settled on the P3 Rock after looking at the capabilities of a bunch of different boards. And I realized what I wanted to do is have LCD in the backglass and be able to change the backglass dynamically and swap playfields and so forth. More information, please see review Ku desper Opera atório sandboxop.com Well, we look forward to seeing you again. They've been seeing a lot more of me, yes, although I do most of my work late at night. So, it's time when they're sleeping. I try not to impinge on our family time too much, although I'm pretty guilty of doing that from time to time. Yeah, it was, you know you and I have been in very close contact over the past I remember you looking into these boards and finally taking the plunge and following your thread on pin side about the multi. So if anybody is interested in following this, it's very well documented and I'm assuming will continue to be very well documented when you get back into it. Maybe you should put a show note, man. You think? I'll bet you could make a show note. Can I use the bingo note if you tried? I don't know how these computer things work. You just make it emulate every bingo in the universe. You're still trying to figure out show notes, huh? How do URLs work? I don't know. Yup, I'll pop that in there. All right, yeah. Let me know your Libsyn password and I'll put a show note for you. That's what IT guys like to do is share passwords. So yeah, it went really well. We only had a couple of funky breakdowns, but I think that's pretty darn good for the first showing of the thing, you know, publicly. We had over 2,000 plays. I went back and checked the counter just on the multi. So that is pretty successful. And as we've talked, a play counts as a red button press. So if it's a game that Translating that into pinball layman's terms, you're probably dividing that number by about what seven or so on average, maybe? Something like that, yeah. So let's see. Several hundred plays over the weekend. Yeah. And out of that time there was that power fluctuation which I mentioned earlier in the show and what happened with that I've actually already fixed the issue um... the logging system for one of the score and Instruction displays filled up the drive and it couldn't boot properly anymore so I fixed that and now it plays very well. So yeah, 2000 divided by 7 looks like 285 or so. But a lot of those games are single card or you know, odd things, so who knows. So maybe even more than that. Yeah. Okay, cool man. Well, I was super proud to be a very small part of Bingo Row. I was happy to help you with the t-shirt and be there to pick up some of the slack when you guys were busy, I was just such a great group of guys. You know, that's said about the pinball hobby all the time, but yeah, the bingo guys were very, very helpful. And it's like they know these boxes are gigantic and heavy and we're just so willing to help out. Yeah, it's a really special group of people. And thank you for becoming part of it. Yeah, man. I was really proud to have your design there. It was beautiful and a lot of people were made very happy by us giving those away. So thank you for your design work. It was amazing as always. It was pretty gratifying to see those red shirts walking around all weekend. I can't I can't believe how many you decided to print. There were a lot of winners. I thought going into the weekend, you know, he's going to walk home with a gang load of these things. And man, thanks to your guys' tutoring sessions, I don't think you had many left at all. I have two left. That is crazy. That's just about right, I think. So yeah, and thank you again for helping to heft all those things. It was a lot of work and There's a lot of wait, let's figure this out. A lot of rain, you know, a lot of fun stuff, but we got it done, and I'm pretty proud of the result, so thank you very much. You got it, man. Like I said, happy to be a part of it, and I think we figured out, what do we have like a ton of bingos in the back of the Penske? Something like that is a large number. I try not to think about it too hard. Uh, whatever makes us feel more masculine. Yeah, maybe it was five times. Yes, yes. I think that is what we figured out. We took all 130 ballybingos with us. Yep. It was hard to fit them in that 12 foot truck, but we did it. Oh man. Well yeah, thanks again for taking me along for the ride and I really hope we can do it again soon. Absolutely, I'll see you next weekend. See you in Michigan. All right, Ryan, talk to you soon. Have a good one. You too. Bye. Bye-bye. So one last thing before I go. I just wanted to finish up here and say thank you again to everybody who came out and made this such a special York show for me. It'll forever live in my memory as the public reveal of the multi-bingo. Thank you to everyone for your kind words. Much appreciated, everybody. Everybody who helped us load or unload, incredibly appreciated. You don't know how much I appreciate it. Thank you very much. One last thing I did want to mention. Loaded everything up, made it all the way back home, nothing broke. Best kind of trip. So can't wait to do it again next year and I hope to see you all out there and play some bingos in the interim. Well, that's all for tonight. Thank you very much for listening. My name again is Nicholas Baldridge. You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast 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, Pocketcasts, Thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time.

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 998f422b-962d-4aa6-9f68-3e3fe30e8179*