# Target Alpha, New Toys for 2024!

**Source:** BlahCade Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2024-01-08  
**Duration:** 90m 1s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blahcade-pinball-podcast/episodes/Target-Alpha--New-Toys-for-2024-e2eutir

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## Analysis

Chris Freebus and Jared Morgan open their 2024 Blockade Pinball Podcast with extended discussion of their favorite films from 2023, then pivot to discuss Chris's unexpected acquisition of a 1976 Gottlieb Target Alpha EM pinball machine. They also analyze Stern's newly revealed Jaws pinball game, noting design similarities to Zen digital tables and discussing engineering innovations like disappearing drop targets and LED projection effects.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Keith Elwin designed Jaws as his third pinball machine and consistently pushes the boundary of what can be done in pinball design — _Chris discussing Jaws design philosophy and Elwin's history_
- [MEDIUM] Jaws pinball contains features heavily inspired by Zen digital pinball games, including disappearing drop targets and projection effects similar to Stranger Things technology — _Chris's analysis of Jaws playfield mechanics and comparison to Zen offerings_
- [HIGH] The Jaws pinball machine covers all four Jaws movies, including the poorly-received third and fourth films — _Chris's direct quote about Stern covering all Jaws movies_
- [HIGH] Chris acquired a 1976 Gottlieb Target Alpha four-player EM machine in 2023 through an unexpected connection — _Chris's detailed account of receiving the text message and acquiring the machine_
- [MEDIUM] Stranger Things pinball used Pico projector technology to project effects onto the playfield, which may be replicated in Jaws — _Chris speculating about LED/projection technology similarities between games_

### Notable Quotes

> "I find it interesting that some of the things that Zen has been doing for quite a while that we all just kind of wrote off as, 'Well, that's cool and all, but it wouldn't be able to happen in a real pinball machine' – starting to see some of these things appear in one form or another."
> — **Chris Freebus**, ~40:00
> _Identifies a key design trend: physical pinball increasingly adopting digital innovations_

> "If there was ever a table that was like a physical version of a Zen table, this is the one."
> — **Jared Morgan**, ~45:00
> _Summarizes the Jaws design philosophy and its digital-inspired mechanics_

> "Did you really need to reference 3 and 4? Especially 4? Nobody likes 4. Nobody watches 4."
> — **Chris Freebus**, ~50:00
> _Community opinion on unnecessary inclusion of poor sequels in game design_

> "It's a 1976 Gottlieb Target Alpha... And not only that, but it's a four-player EM?"
> — **Chris Freebus**, ~75:00
> _Excitement about unexpected vintage acquisition_

> "Well, I'm not interested. Yeah, this is going to be trash basically."
> — **Chris Freebus**, ~80:00
> _Initial skepticism about EM machine condition before learning more_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Chris Freebus | person | Host of Blockade Pinball Podcast, also known as 'Shut Your Trap'; discusses pinball design, acquisitions, and film criticism |
| Jared Morgan | person | Co-host of Blockade Pinball Podcast, based in Australia; discusses pinball games and provides analysis |
| Keith Elwin | person | Pinball designer; designed Jaws as his third machine; known for pushing boundaries of pinball design innovation |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; released Jaws pinball machine in 2024; known for innovative design features |
| Jaws | game | Stern Pinball machine based on the Jaws film franchise; features disappearing drop targets, LED projection effects, and digital-inspired mechanics; designed by Keith Elwin |
| Zen Studios | company | Digital pinball developer; has pioneered features like disappearing drop targets and projection effects that are now appearing in physical pinball machines |
| Stranger Things | game | Stern Pinball machine that used Pico projector technology for playfield projection effects, cited as inspiration for Jaws technology |
| Target Alpha | game | 1976 Gottlieb EM pinball machine; four-player game recently acquired by Chris Freebus |
| Gottlieb | company | Historic pinball manufacturer; produced Target Alpha in 1976 |
| AtGames 4K cabinet | product | Arcade cabinet that Chris is expecting delivery of in late January; planned for VPX installation |
| Blockade Pinball Podcast | organization | Pinball podcast hosted by Chris Freebus and Jared Morgan; discusses game design, acquisitions, and pinball industry news |

### Topics

- **Primary:** 2023 Film Reviews, Stern Jaws Pinball Game Design and Innovation, Digital-to-Physical Pinball Design Translation, Vintage EM Machine Acquisition
- **Secondary:** Pinball Designer Innovation and Boundaries, Zen Digital Pinball vs Physical Pinball Features, Projection Technology in Pinball (Pico projectors)

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.75) — Hosts express genuine enthusiasm for Jaws design innovations and the Target Alpha acquisition. Film discussion is mixed (some praise, some strong criticism). Overall tone is engaging and optimistic about pinball design evolution.

### Signals

- **[design_philosophy]** Unnecessary inclusion of poorly-received Jaws sequels (3 and 4) in game scope; community opinion suggests design should have been limited to first two films (confidence: medium) — Chris: 'Did you really need to reference 3 and 4? Especially 4? Nobody likes 4. Nobody watches 4.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Physical pinball designers increasingly looking to digital pinball (Zen Studios) for mechanical innovation inspiration, with Keith Elwin pushing boundaries through features like disappearing drop targets previously thought impossible in physical machines (confidence: high) — Chris: 'I can't help but wonder if any of these designers are looking at some of the digital offerings that are out there and going, Well, why couldn't we do...?'
- **[community_signal]** Keith Elwin continuing his trajectory as innovative designer with Jaws as his third machine; hosts emphasize his consistent boundary-pushing approach (confidence: high) — Chris: 'He always pushes the boundary on what can be done in pinball, Keith. And that's just it.'
- **[announcement]** Stern officially revealed Jaws pinball machine with new video and imagery showing innovative mechanical and visual features (confidence: high) — Chris: 'Stern went ahead and dropped some imagery and video of their latest pinball machine, which is Jaws.'
- **[product_strategy]** Jaws pinball designed as physical analogue to Zen digital tables, with multiple features mirroring digital game mechanics and visual effects previously exclusive to digital offerings (confidence: high) — Jared: 'If there was ever a table that was like a physical version of a Zen table, this is the one.'
- **[technology_signal]** Stern implementing Pico projector technology (previously used in Stranger Things) for LED effects and meter displays on Jaws playfield, representing adoption of projection-based visual effects in modern physical pinball (confidence: medium) — Chris speculating about projection technology: 'Maybe the Pico projector is the digital effects that we're seeing in Zen Studios tables? Maybe that's the way they compromise or implement that sort of thing'

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## Transcript

 BlahCade Pinball Podcast this is the BlahCade Pinball Podcast i'm your host chris freebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world it's jared morgan pop happy new year everyone I don't have a popper, but that's the best I could do. Welcome to 2024. So far, so good, right? So, normally I'll go ahead and stay up for New Year's Eve because, I mean, noise. Right. Do you get a lot of fireworks in your area? Do people set them off? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right. That's the noise factor. They like to set off what I call the concussion grenades. Yeah, the big mortars. Well, it's not just a big... All it does is just one giant loud kaboom! And it pretty much sets off every car alarm in the neighborhood. Yeah, right, okay. Yeah. So yeah, the intention is usually just, okay, fine, I'll stay up, no worries. Except for the fact that I was working New Year's Day at 5.30 in the morning. Oh, New Year's Day. Who would go to the park on New Year's Day? I guess probably everyone, because it's quiet. i wouldn't i wouldn't say it's quiet but yes um i mean quite sure we're open 365 so you can even go there on christmas day to escape the relatives and you can oh yeah go to the most wonderful place on earth i will say i have worked on christmas day there and it's a different vibe it's kind of like working thanksgiving um it's people are a little bit more mellow they're a little bit more thankful and understanding of the cast that is working on that day so it's like thank you for your service sort of thing it's it's a different vibe indeed and then the next day it's back to full-blown chaos right yes right uh yeah there's only two days a week where where they where they sort of like go oh yeah we recognize that you're doing something here thank you for doing something yes thank you for letting us get away from our well they're bringing their family but getting away from the extended relatives that's right yeah that's right the ones you don't have a choice about hanging out with um we're going to do the well i'm going to do and jared's going to comment annual tradition chris's list of movies from 2023 I'm not going to go through the entire list. But I did want to just kind of real quick. I'll see which ones I've actually seen this year. Movies? Not many, if any, honestly. Interestingly enough, I saw ten movies in the theater, and eight of them wound up on my best list, which is pretty good. That's pretty good. That's what I call knowing myself. Yeah, that's right. So the two that I did not see in the theater, the menu, which I thought was a – it's Anya Taylor-Joy and – is it Ray Fine? I think it's Ray Fine. um it's i thought it was a satire on the rich and right you know them spending ungodly amounts of money so they could have the dinner um right only to find out it's a horror movie and a really good one at that um oh okay yeah and when i say horror it's not your jump scare boo horror it's it's that that creeping feeling feeling of oh crap we're on an island we're not getting off like um the same sort of feeling you get with um uh that movie that was all about silence i haven't seen that one oh oh quite the a quiet place or there's a quiet place as above so below or something like that that just came at the quiet place okay yeah that was like a creeping sort of horror that like just got to suspense really as well yeah but this this is like a completely different kind of horror it's that horror of it's the horror of the situation it's right um you like i said you go for what you think is going to be a really fine lovely meal only to find out their diabolical intentions with the guest list. Ah, right. Okay. And it's just kind of watching people get their comeuppance, but it's mostly set in just the restaurant, you know. Right. I mean, it's not a chase movie. It's not a slasher film. It's not that kind of horror. It's that. Would have been cheap to produce. It's only in a couple of sets. Yeah. The other one that I didn't see in the theater, and there was no way to see it in the theater because it was directly to Netflix, is Leave the World Behind, which is – Julie Roberts is the star of it, but that's not why I watched it. I watched it because it's written and made by the guy that made Mr. Robot and Homecoming, Sam Esmail. And that guy, I love his camera framing. And how he tells a story and ramps up tension purely with visuals. And how he moves the camera about. it just gives you an unsettled sets you on the edge of your seat kind of thing makes you pay attention really, really quite interesting the other movies in no particular order John Wick Chapter 4 just greatest hits of the first three nothing new but does it need to be anything new? it's freaking awesome yeah Guardians of the Galaxy 3 which stuck the landing for the trilogy. I really enjoyed it. I would agree. Is it my favorite of the three? No, it actually is probably my third. It would go two, one, and three. But that's not a matter. Two, one, and three. Okay, interesting. Two is the most fun. One, I love the getting the gang together. It's the setup, isn't it? Number one. It's the setup, yeah. Yeah, it's necessary. Three was... again it's a culmination of the characters and and the fact that it stuck the landing is all that i really cared about um so uh it wasn't all unicorns and rainbows was it like it was no which you know if you haven't seen it yet we're not going to tell you why that is but probably you will have seen it by now but it's it's a different tone to the usual gog movies yes um spider-man across the spider-verse it's freaking amazing animation smoked anything else animated wise that was out there and told a pretty dang good story even if it did end on a complete to be continued um well they're going to keep the spider-man franchise going so they can keep up the uh license for it right so yeah but if they're going to keep it up in this way i'm all for it it's i mean great storytelling i really enjoyed the animation in the first one and the first one was presented in 3d and so i was really surprised that this one didn't have a 3d offering all it took was like the first five minutes of the movie for me to go holy crap there's a reason why they didn't do this in 3d you couldn't you would have you would have vomited if you saw it in 3d like there was so much motion in it well the fact that they have one character that is entirely made of basically pasted pieces of paper that are animating it wouldn't have looked right in 3D it would have looked very a view master so yes it would and then the animation style is insane there's a different style for each character and each world that they're in and where that character is from of the world it's mind boggling nuts yeah that's benchmark for animation right now really no yeah um and i purposely saw the new ninja turtles animated movie just because it kind of what you think it's serviceable um i'm glad that's what it says in the box what's that it does what it says in the box right yeah i mean i've never been a i've never been a turtles freak by any stretch of the imagination it's more like oh i'll watch it whatever um i definitely was when i was growing up i used to dress up in costume yes i could not tell you I can tell you the names. I couldn't tell you which weapon. I couldn't tell you what color bandana they wear. Oh, okay, right. You know what I mean? They're just, there's four turtles. They're interchangeable to me. But, and the animation was really cool in that it was very rough. It wasn't trying to look finished. It had style, and that I enjoyed. But story-wise, again, compare it to, compared to Spider-Man. It's just like... No contest. You're just a second. Yeah, yeah. You're not in last place. You're not in third or fourth. You're just a distant second. Yeah. There's a lot of air between you and Spider-Man. Yeah. Next up, I picked Sisu, which I don't know if you've heard of that. I haven't heard of that, no. Okay. So, Sisu is about a Finnish miner during World War II, at the end of World War II. And he is out there all on his lonesome, and the Nazis are basically, know they've lost the war, and so they are traveling back and pretty much just torching everything along the way, because they're like, why not? And they come across this guy. Little do they know, he used to be an insane marksman for the finnish army and he goes on a basically john wick style one-man army wrecking ball just killing the ever-loving snot out of nazis left and right so if that's your kind of movie and why isn't it um it's it is a hard-hitting good time that sounds like a wild ride basically think John Wick mixed with Mad Max oh wow okay that's quite a combination that sounds pretty good anybody I've recommended to that saw it then comes back to me and is just like what? I'm like I know right speaking of sticking to landings Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny thank you for completely washing out of my mouth the taste of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. That movie can go and die a horrid death and never be viewed again because I'll just watch this one instead. Not that I needed anything beyond the third movie, but since you made it... Sure, let's watch it. Let's watch it. And I honestly... I had a good time watching it. I didn't feel like it was trying to set up the next version of the franchise. I didn't feel like it betrayed the character at all it works it was another Indiana Jones romp to me as well it's like yep this is absolutely within the canon of Indiana Jones for sure yep believe it all Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning part 1 which they're apparently going to retitle the next movie and it won't be called part 2 which is just dumb okay hopefully you just take off the part one then on dead reckoning if you're not going to say there's i mean they're making the part two they're just not going to call it part two because it didn't do well enough in the box office and they don't want then people going well i didn't see the first one so i won't see the second one right okay ingenious but here's the thing you should watch this movie right um okay it okay my favorite game uh opening of any game is uncharted 2 with the dangling train sequence of drake climbing his way out of this train that is slowly falling off a cliff right it's fantastic when they made the actual uncharted movie they chose to go with the sequence of drake flying out of an airplane that was in uncharted 3 dangling off of a cargo chute which was a cool sequence in the game but it wasn't it wasn't the train it wasn't the train it was trying to be the train but it couldn't be the train um so i was kind of a little bummed that that's what they put into the movie well mission impossible dead reckoning does the train sequence and it's right freaking amazing all right it's i literally afterwards it just went well uncharted now what are you going to do because you just you just got trumped by a completely different franchise doing your sequence to the point that the director of that game commented and was like hey imitation is the greatest or sincerest form of flattery so even he recognized yeah he got it yeah he got it it's and that's just one part of a really good movie um right this franchise is it's been firing on all cylinders since three it's yeah i love it it's great so this is this is the next one directly after three is it no no we've got to know this no we've got a couple more haven't we? Or seven. I have to go back through the filmography and just see where I might have dropped off. I re-watched the first three before watching this. The first one is so completely different style than what comes after. The second one is a John Woo movie and unfortunately John Woo's movies have not aged well. They're very 90s. Like, very 90s. and then the third one was kind of hey let's get it back on the on the correct path because the second one had next to no team up and so it was hey let's bring the gang back together and do and it's a good starting point and then just from there it just keeps on going bonkers and bonkers and getting more and more uh it's become like that first one or the third one introduced the hey look at tom do a crazy stunt and then each movie after that has been up in the ante on the crazy stunts but what's amazing is that the stunts are all working in service of the story yeah they're not just there as a showpiece no mi3 was the one where he dove into the computer underwater wasn't it that was four that was four okay that's where i want to i remember that one vividly yeah but i don't think i've seen oh no i've seen the one where hanging off the side of the plane as well. That was five. Okay, so maybe I'm up to like six or seven. So, yeah. But I'm foggy on the details of those stories. I mean, they do start blending together. Yeah. I know that there were two separate big pieces in each movie. Yeah. So I know there were two separate movies. I just didn't know which order they were in. So, yeah. Next one to talk about is The Creator, which is a gorgeous-looking movie. it's a sci-fi movie um filmed for an 80 million dollar budget and it is looks like what these 250 million dollar budget movies are doing wow it also is going to challenge your geopolitical stance on invading armies um right depending on what country you are from i think this movie is going to hit you differently but i think it's going to hit no matter what country you're watching from that's the amazing part it doesn't feel like oh well this is just a story told from this perspective it kind of covers multiple perspectives and really makes you think and challenges your thoughts um it's it's really good it's on uh disney plus right now it recently game on uh give it a watch crank the sound system um it's yeah like i said it's really gorgeous movie and then the uh last movie that i saw for 2023 was godzilla minus one and or in the theater i should say and i'm not a godzilla fan like i'll see i've seen the monster verse stuff i have no desire to see any of the the Toho Studio Japanese movies right you don't that much of a fan no yeah right I couldn't get into the man in suit wrecking a model this is Toho Studios it's CG it is freaking amazing ultra low budget like apparently 19 million for the budget for anime for cgi that's nothing yeah right what they get right um is the humans you really care about the humans they tell their story amazing so that when all the destruction is actually happening you care it's not just oh look at godzilla smash no you're legitimately invested in the characters and what's happening and uh that's the main triumph of this um that being said okay the monster stuff looks pretty awesome and if you compare it to literally the trailer for the new monster verse which is godzilla x kong watch the trailer for that and that is just garbage hot garbage so there you go well i will have to add that one to my list of things to watch as well because i was curious about it yeah if it's if it's if it's more story driven less oh look this thing's getting smashed up and now that thing's getting smashed up that might actually be worthwhile checking out yeah And then if you're looking for movies to avoid, because it's always fun to talk about the worst, Black Adam is god-awful. Terrible, terrible, terrible. The Banshees of Inisharen, which is a drama, I just don't get why there was any appeal. It's a very unappealing story about a friendship that breaks, and the one guy basically says, if you come and talk to me or speak to me in any form or capacity, I'm going to cut off a finger. okay wow and it just continues from there and you're like what is going on turns out it's an allegory for the war that happened in the civil war that happened in ireland hey great okay evil dead rise blows absolutely every wrong choice a character could make they make that's not fun right i don't i know that that's a trope in horror that that somebody has to make a wrong choice but literally when you've seen a character have their neck snapped they're still alive you kick them outside of your apartment you close the door you think you're safe and 10 minutes later there's a knock on the door you look through the peephole there's the character talking to their child through the people going please mommy was just slightly mad could you please open the door and the child does you're like who makes these dumb decisions come on uh why is my mother just reanimated and is talking to me again. And it's not like she's got fresh peach rosy skin either. It's literally like black tendrils going down the face and blood in the eyes. Any kid will be going nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Yeah. But this one goes, okay. Yeah. That's like unbelievable. Unbelievable horror really, isn't it? Yeah, it's laughable. Fast X or Fast 10, whatever you want to call it, it's the latest Fast and Furious franchise um same as the other nine no somehow it wound up being the worst of the lot wow that's quite an achievement i didn't think that was a possible to be worse than too fast too furious it is completely nonsensical the action is completely just like yeah whatever um they try and retcon themselves into fast five which is the best of the series and it was like nope don't touch that movie thank you very much um you have characters that either are completely over the top acting or other characters who you are like practically can see them going you're paying me for this right yes okay here's the lines pay me thank you bye right um yeah i'll check as soon as i deliver the line basically pretty much uh and then meg to the trench i really enjoy the meg i think it's a fun silly but good again monster movie with a giant shark right and it but it at least looked like they paid some attention to science and the pressures of the deep and what kind of submersibles would be able to go to that depth This movie is like well that no fun We want our people walking on the bottom of the ocean with glass screens so we can see their face. Oh, and then, and then the logic just continues to cease throughout and it's not fun at all. It's like way to ruin. Not good. So anyway, I just wanted to touch upon those because we like to do that every year. But let's talk about another giant shark, Jared. Well, before we do it, I actually did see some that aren't on. Yoltham was. Am I still there? You're still getting me? Yeah, I'm still getting you. Oh, good. Okay, sorry. I will phrase up. So one of the movies that I, it wasn't released in 2023, but I saw it in 2023. Yeah, that's my rule. Yeah, it's when you watch it. Exactly. It could be years old, but it's when I watched it. Yeah. So I watched a really, really wonderfully done anime called Suzume. It's a movie, obviously, set in Japan. It's about this, it's around this 17-year-old girl who just runs into this guy on the street. But it turns out that, without any spoilers, obviously there's some sort of power about this person and it turns out that he is like a gatekeeper basically he's responsible for making sure natural disasters don't happen in Japan so the thing that really my kids absolutely adored this movie as well they gave it a solid five stars when they were watching it. It actually makes you think at the end of it, like, you know, a lot of stuff. We actually talked about it at length at the end of the movie, which, you know, for kids doing that of, you know, 11 and 13. Yeah. No, it actually is really thought-provoking. But the thing that really gets you is the way that they represent the natural disaster in the movie. It's like a being. And it's like nothing I've ever seen before. So if you haven't seen it, just do it because it's a really, really well-crafted movie and you get drawn into the characters even though it's animated. Really good. Would solely recommend that. It released in 2023, but I saw it in 2024 just the other day, is the rom-com Anyone But You. Okay. Now, this looks a bit gross, and it's like any other rom-com, but it's got some, I guess, new and upcoming stars in it. There's Sidney Sweeney's the main sort of... Yeah, that's right, Glenn Powell. And they really do a good job in the movie, honestly. I don't know why it's getting, like, you know, 52% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's actually not that bad. but there is one thing that will that everyone will tell you about when they see it was no no not even any surprise and it's almost like a warning it's like there is full frontal male nudity in this movie so just strap in for that so but it's it's done like i just laughed my head off when i saw it it's funny because that's it's probably predictable in the way that you know couples get you know it's like a unusual couple that get together but it's a fun it's look just switch your brain off and go and see it it's actually not that bad so yeah that's uh yeah it was actually 26th of december it was a boxing day special this one it was released here in 26th of december so probably earlier over over in the u.s i'd say yeah it had a little bit of wider release before then but not i think maybe by like a week yeah so yeah it's it's inoffensive it's an an offensive movie. It isn't that bad. So if you just want a bit of a, you will laugh a lot in it. It's quite a funny movie. Um, and it's not forced, forced humor. It's actually like genuinely, it catches you by surprise. So it's good. You know? Yeah. Apparently it's based on much ado about nothing. Um, so yeah. Um, anyway, so what I was going to say, big sharks, big sharks. Stern went ahead and, uh, dropped some imagery and video of their latest pinball machine, which is Jaws. And I'll let you guys search it on your own, take a look at it, see what it is. There's plenty of coverage out there. Right. What caught me most was, well, there's a lot of things on that table that look like they did in the Zen version of Jaws. Oh, yeah. Oh, there definitely is a lot of stuff on that table that looks heavily, it's i actually commented on the video one of the uh the videos that released the launch trailer i said hmm it's really interesting to i'd be really interested to see the engineering behind that disappearing drop target um oscillating disappearing drop target you put in the game because that's a zen that's a standard zen game feature for about 10 years now yeah you know and and this is where this is why i kind of want to bring it up i find it interesting that some of the things that zen has been doing for quite a while that we all just kind of wrote off as well that's cool and all but it wouldn't be able to happen in a real pinball machine yeah starting to see some of these things appear um in one form or another and it's very interesting and i can't help but wonder how many of these newer designers, because this was Keith Elwin, who this is only his, what, third machine? But he always pushes the boundary on what can be done in pinball, Keith. And that's just it. And I can't help but wonder if any of these designers are looking at some of the digital offerings that are out there and going, well, why couldn't we do? Because obviously they're looking for something new. They've got to do something to shake up the landscape of what has been being done in pinball for years and years and years. so why not look to what digital is doing and going hmm we can see about that honestly i look at i look at the jaws table and i say if there was ever a um a table that was like a physical version of a zen table this is the one like if you like there's even you know like the with the like they obviously can't do this yet where they have the disappearing play field with the uh the radar thing on it that drops down and something else pops up that's quite an engineering feat to do that but they still got things that spin that you shoot the ball through and it curves around just like that that mechanism does in zen and you know you've got the you got the the boat which from what I've read looks very similar to the boat from Sopranos pinball machine oh no but this is an allegation but people are saying it looks quite similar to that boat which hey why not reuse a mould and colour it differently you may as well it's a boat you know it doesn't need to look identical and people are saying well it's not the main boat that was used to actually hunt jaws but it was like the second the other boat that they went out on first um and people were being the internet was correcting the internet on that so you know as as the internet likes to do but like there's a lot of a lot of stuff going on in there that one of the yeah one of the one of the things i noticed was uh again normally we'd say oh digital only the uh right below where the arc of the rotating uh stand up or pop-up uh drop target excuse me guy gotta get my terms correct um they also have led lights underneath to give a glow a red glow um on like a meter um i don't know exactly how they achieve that um i don't believe it's a projection but maybe it is a projection uh onto the play field but again it's that thing of you're doing something different. That isn't just an insert light. So is there like a shimmering sort of a look on the playfield? I didn't see that in the video. I'll have to look. Is it in the premium? Look is directly below, I mean it's in that arc because it's like a meter. And there's a red glow that will change and alter on it. And like I said, I don't... I wonder if they're using similar technology that they did in Stranger Things where they project like a little Pico projector onto the play field. That's what I'm wondering. Because that was so effective in Stranger Things. But again, that's the very kind of thing that would be no problem to pull off in digital. Because that's essentially so maybe the Pico projector is the digital effects that we're seeing in Zen Studios tables. Maybe that's the way they compromise or implement that sort of thing. Like painting painting the play field like they did in Stranger Things. Because that was, it works. The technology works. And it's kind of cool. I'm also wondering, because they specifically said this covers all of the Jaws movies. And I'm like, did you really need to reference 3 and 4? Especially 4. Nobody likes 4. Nobody watches 4. And 3 was pretty terrible. It was unnecessary. Yeah, let's be frank. It had 3D. That was – and not good 3D either. It's like laughably bad 3D. But it's like did you really – you could have just gotten away with just doing the first two movies since Roy Scheider was in those two and called it a day. That would have been just fine. Just fine. Yeah. Anyway, I thought that was kind of funny. I would love to – I'm going to address this right now, folks. Okay. There was not a problem with my microphone or the audio levels during our Mel interview. It was merely I was having to talk in a much lower tone to keep my voice from projecting outside of the room. Because my wife does daycare and we were shooting that midweek. So, yeah. Sorry. There needed to be a reduction in Chris's normally loud projected voice. Yes. So, it was a, yeah. I wasn't using my normal radio voice. I was using my ASMR voice. I don't know. I can't. ASMR. ASMR. I hate that stuff. Yes. You can remind me of the others. Let's get into this story now. So let me tell you about my new toy. Got it in 2023. But we'll call it the new toy. It's officially received in 2023. That's not what you're thinking. The new toy for 2024. The toy that I had, zero, like, it wasn't remotely on my radar as a possibility for me to get a new pinball machine. Just, the only thing that I've been focusing on is the AtGames 4K cabinet, which apparently we're getting at the end of January. um i think that's what they've uh alerted everybody to so hopefully i'll have a nice gift on my porch at some point at the in a couple weeks um but that was all that that was all i was thinking about i'm thinking about uh upgrading my video card on the computer that'll be connected to it for my otg and upgrading my ssd card and i've been wondering about doing vpx install and Just, you know, all that. That's where my headspace was. And I wake up on a Saturday and I've got a text message from a camera assistant acquaintance, who I hadn't seen or heard from in years, who basically was like, Hey, do you know anybody that would be interested in a pinball machine and being able to pick it up? Because that's the big thing. It's like, I'm interested in a pinball machine, but pick up? Yeah. Right? And so I messaged back, and I went, well, what's the location, and what is it? And so he tells me that it's not far from where I'm at. I mean, it's in a central location in the L.A. area. And tells me that it's this, he said 1977, but it's actually 1976 Gottlieb Target Alpha. so immediately i'm going oh it's an em em yeah great and not only that but it's a four-player em well see i don't even greater that wasn't even a factor i didn't know i know nothing about ems other than the fact that i've rarely played on em yeah i i've rarely played on one that was in good condition they're usually just beat to hell planking peeling paint um it was one of those things immediately in my head i'm like well i'm not interested yeah this is going to be trash basically um and so my first question was does it work and he goes yeah it plays it just needs new rubber which is what they all say yeah yeah um yeah so he goes well let me send you video in pictures i'm like okay uh meanwhile i'm sitting there thinking who do i know that would be even it's gonna pick up yeah that would be even remotely interesting and there's only one person that i know of uh in that realm and that's the the guy mike who we used to do the wizard amusement uh oh yeah plunges because he does em repair and lives in the la area and travels okay does that So I was like, well, if there's anybody that would know anybody that would maybe be interested, it'd be him. It'd be Mark. So I also, well, so then I get the pictures. And I look at the pictures. And, yeah, it's playing. And he has a picture of the coin door. And the coin door is nice and shiny. Like chrome. And I'm like, yeah. On the inside, it's chrome. And on the outside, it looked pretty good, too. But I'm like, well, that's not what I expected. I was expecting a rusted Hulk. I'm like, huh, okay. The wheels are turning, and I'm like, maybe I'm, I don't know. I can't afford a pinball machine right now. So I ask the inevitable next question. When do you need it sold by? How much are you looking to get for it? and he tells me, well, it's because this was his childhood home that it was in. His mom had recently passed. He's cleaning out the house. Right. And tells me it needs to be gone by next weekend because the realtor is coming with his guys and a trash bin and are just tossing anything that's left in the house. Oh, wow. Okay. So now we're just going to get the place and just get it ready for sale. Yeah. Wow. And now I'm in, ooh, pinball rescue mode. We can't have that happen. No, we can't let that happen. No. And so he goes, well, that's part of why I was contacting you. I don't know what a fair price is for this. And again, I've not paid any attention to the EM market. Last time I even looked at EMs, it was like $600 would be for a stellar machine. You know, there was like $250 to $400. Yeah. Now that was a good six or seven years ago. Obviously the market has shifted quite a bit since then. But so he goes, I don't know, does 150 sound fair? It doesn't sound fair, but it sounds nice. At which point I go in my head, I'm like, for 150, I might take this as a project or take it off your hands and turn right around and flip it to somebody else that wants it as a project. I don't care what the state of it is. 150, that sounds like... I can either make money on it, or I can have some fun with it. Right, because I saw him playing it, so I know it does actually function. And that was my big thing, was I don't know the first thing about EM repair. Not that I know really anything about solid state repair either, but I felt like I would have a better grasp of at least that than EMs, because I've seen the interior of an EM, and I was just, like, flummoxed. So anyway, I'm like, tell you what. I'm going to bring a truck down tomorrow. I'll take a look at it. Would you be interested in a trade? I'm not going to go into what I would be willing to trade here because technically we're not allowed to. Some instruments changed hands. But it was like I knew that there was something that would be of value and it would be worth more than $150 because I did look up on the pinball database or on Pinside. They were saying these were selling. $150 is a low ball. It's a low ball. They were saying these were selling between $1,000 and $1,300. But I knew that in that time frame, all anybody would do was lowball the guy. Yeah, they would absolutely just lowball the poor guy trying to get it. And because he's not a pinball person, he wouldn't have a leg to stand on. He wouldn't, no matter what argument they threw at him, he would have no answer. Comeback for that. Yeah, no comeback. No. So negotiation would go. So I'm like, hey, if anybody's going to lowball him, it's going to be me. yeah because you know what's going on well at least he'll maybe feel better about it right so anyway i go over there i go to check this thing out yeah and again expecting the worst yeah i walk into this room and i lay eyes on it and right off the bat i'm like it's not a dusty mess interesting and then i start looking and he like immediately lets me take off the uh the playfield glass that's very good and i put my hands on the the playfield and it's smooth and not planked and there's no paint chipping oh okay in my head i'm going because i like watching car shows and of people finding and restoring even the barn finds yeah zero ability to do anything but it's always that holy grail barn find yeah yeah i'm like oh my god this is a barn find this in stellar shape. This is low mileage. This is like super low mileage, yeah. So why don't I share some pictures with you all? I think a picture pays a thousand words. A picture pays a thousand words. And I'll do a little audio here for our friends that are just listening. Target Alpha, if you've ever played El Dorado in Farsight's Pinball Arcade, you've played target alpha target alpha is just a four-player version of that it's a reskin instead of western theme it's a space uh via 1976 so you know antenna on the top of helmets kind of space um and the uh but it's the 10 drop targets at the top of the play field five uh on the sides a very asymmetrical layout um gottlieb liked it so much they reused this layout four different times and there's a reason because it's a really fun game to shoot yeah 7800 of these were produced a big run big run for an em yeah um this is like the adams family of of ems just towards the end of the em um era i really think they said that what i was doing some research this was possibly one of the last ems that basically for another year gotlieb uh doubled down on the em experience and then quickly realized whoops this is not where we need to go this is not where we need to go because bally went and ran with it uh they started converting all of their ems like bobby orr and six million dollar man into or six million or evil kenevil i can't remember which evil kenevil from EMs into solid state. So, anyway, up on your screen there, there's the target alpha in my very messy garage. Look at that back glass. Look at that thing. There ain't a pinhole in it. Now, over on the left side of the screen there up at the top, you can see that there's like a chunk missing. Remind me never to show you the back of my back glasses because let me tell you that's very clean yes very clean believe me i have my firepower back glass and it is cracked and looks nothing like that yeah so this is like almost fresh like a new one that you would buy for 400 right fresh right that is so unheard of and gotley back glasses of certain eras are known to peel and and just all the paint gets off them really quickly um this looks flawless yeah there is no other way to describe it Next pick here Whoops that not the pick I wanted There we go. There's that coin door. Now, I do believe the coin door has been rebuilt because on the right-hand side, it's got a plastic mechanism for receiving coins instead of the metal mechanism that's on the left-hand side. Like a coin mech? Yeah. Right, okay. So... They probably just chucked a new coin mech in, probably? Probably. Yeah. That's so clean. Jeez. Look at the... The interior with the tilt bob. Those are usually... And the ball's not even rusted. No. Normally those balls are absolutely pitted and normally you take them out because they're actually a maintenance nightmare. Right. But this looks new in box. Yeah. It's Yeah Quit doing that I gotta refresh the There we go, hold on There we go Look at that That's the relays You can see the colors of the wires That's what blew me away I was just like, there's not dust all over the place That's insane Wow another little just kind of a close-up of one of those jones plugs um yeah just i know exactly what color wire is going where um the transformer or something that transformer looks very clean yeah it's not even there's no evidence of heat on the um because you can tell you what on mine yeah the paper is black you cannot really make out any of the voltage labels on it. You can if you look at the right angle. Yeah. That is like, wow. That's the scoring count mechanism, whatever it is. That's normally, in all the EMs I've seen, I literally just saw one the other day, so I was over at Ed from the Pinball Shacks place, who has one, that's normally like a gold-yellow color based on all the contact grease that's built up on it over the 50 or 60 years it's been in operation. This thing looks like it's hardly been used. Like, that is so clean. There's the entire bottom of the playfield. Or not the bottom of the playfield, but the interior of the cab. Yeah, it's mint, basically. But yeah. So. Have you had, I was going to say, what's the backbox? There's the backbox. That's a hideous picture. It's really dark. I was taking these at night. So let's just go on to the play field itself. That looks like the original factory Mylar is still in place on it. Yes, which I will say that Mylar is really annoying because, boy, does it alter the Bolcher directory. Yeah. Like. But. It's necessary. um the only piece of rubber that was bad bad you can see it right there next to on the left of the bullseye target um that was a hardened piece of rubber i took that piece of rubber out and replaced it with a rubber from the upper portion of the play field that the ball almost never will hit in the so that i had something there in the meantime it could play um and i rotated all the rubber so that it wasn't the black side yeah um the playfield itself does have ball swirl in it um but it's smooth so the ball swirl if the factory mylar is still installed will be on the mylar no there's ball swirl all over the the playfield like in between the flippers okay because there's no mylar there in between the flippers okay right no And then the same thing with, by all the drop targets, there's ball swirl there. So you can see that there's a little dirt on the playfield. I tried using a Mr. Clean magic eraser. It didn't do anything. Yeah, that stuff will be ingrained based on bitter experience. But once you step away from it a little bit, it looks pretty vibrant. You don't even see it. It's very vibrant. all the colors haven't been uv affected so the and they they also haven't been affected by a common problem that ems and games of that era have where just the amount of plays has just changed the color of the paint altogether to a different color uh both my slingshots the plastic is chipped at the corner that's the only bad plastic you can buy replacements i'm pretty sure you buy a better kit if need be that is I don't know what that is I think that was just a Jones plug looking at it and more of those because I was just kind of blown away by how clean they all were those aren't plugs they're terminal strips there's no plugs on there Jones plugs are like these little pins that you can put in it's a whole bank of pins it's just It's like 10 pins per side, two rows, and it's just a solitary pin, and you just pull out the entire bank in one go. It's all on a piece of Bakelite. Oh, so that whole piece just unplugs. Yeah. Right. Okay, so it's a solid terminal. Right, right, right. Again, that's the interconnect between the top and bottom play field, so you can take the head off, basically. There she is lit up. Um, gotta love incandescent glow. Yep. Now, things I've known since. The head unit, the frame, has been repainted. How do I know this? Because there's a little bit of paint on the score reel for the zeros. That's just on there. And then there should be a stencil, like, that was on the very front of the cabinet with that little yellow explosion. um that should also be on the head unit but it's just white it's just white which again i'm not going to restore this you don't need to can do it well there's not really much to restore on a chris honestly like looking at that like even the drop the drop targets and everything look there's your top down perfect like they're not yellowed no no the drop targets aren't there and they're not beaten no all the stencil is good all the way across the board yep um that was a video there's uh another side cabinet art typical overspray yeah that's yeah it's normal um that's part of the issue it's not white it's then they like took black paint and they flecked it yeah they they do they spatter it yeah um it's really common all mine as well. They've got like a spatter effect and it's really hard to replicate, by the way. They must have a special sitting on their air gun to do it. So anyway, that's the target alpha. I have put in a few games. It's since then I've realized it's not perfect. Absolutely not. A lot of it has to do with time sitting and not being played because as I've played it, when I first played it, It was automatically playing two players every time. Since I've played it, it's almost like the dust got shaken off of whatever contact needed, and now I can actually play a single game. Although sometimes it inexplicably makes you play player one and four. But it doesn't... It scores on player one and four as reels, but as soon as you're done, you only get three balls in total. So there's still some dirt causing some interference. the score match was not moving at all it was stuck on 90 and then at one point it got stuck on 80 and it was 80 every single time i have since watched a video there's a guy that did a full restoration on a nasty ass target alpha um right uh two years ago he posted this video he's winning chunks so i'm starting to watch and learn that way um because that's how i learned and uh I didn't know what any of the parts were on the mech. I didn't know how to disassemble anything, pull out a score reel or whatever. Since then, it's like, oh, you push a tab and you just slide the thing out. Hey, isn't that nice? The elegance in design that got me put into their assemblies is just beautiful. Yeah. Like, they are meant for operators. They know what bits will fail all the time. Yeah. And they make them so you can remove them so easily. Yeah. So I've located the score match system, and it sits vertical. Like, there's a, what do you call them? A bank-like disc. A what? Well, it's like a relay. A bank-like disc. You know, it spins. There's one on top, one on bottom. The one on top is completely caked. Just caked. And there is a thin groove that you can see around. I manually operated the mech, and it's like sticky. It's like... So I'm like... It needs a good cleaning. It needs a good cleaning. Fortunately, again, watching this guy's videos, cleaning doesn't seem that terrible. Like, you take off the gunk with isopropyl alcohol, and then you get some thousand-grit paper, and you just do a light polish on the copper. You just burnish the pins. Right. And you're golden. Golden. Good to go. And what I've noticed is some of the, so the player three and four reels were also, some of them were kind of sticky and stuff. So I keep on playing four player games. The more I play it, the less they're sticking. It's like, these things want to be played. One rule is the worst thing you can do with an EM is leave it. you have to if you own if you own a flick any ems at all you have to make sure you put at least 10 games on them a week because they do not tolerate being left as you're finding out now like yeah i mean i've done zero cleaning and it's like fixing itself it's yes it's self-repairing that's what they do which is wonderful for somebody that doesn't want to do repairs um so with the cleaning i was again i i it's the same thing that happens to me every single time it happened with me with firepower it happened to me with a ball deluxe i start reading and you start reading people and they're doing one or two things they're either like don't turn on the machine until you do this okay and then you do it or me i turn on the machine anyway play a couple oh place fine turned off okay so i can only make it better and i do the thing that they say don't do anything until you do this i do it and then it doesn't work as it was before i'm like yeah thanks guys i'm i'm not listening to the internet anymore is what you're saying right i'm just gonna do my own thing with it and so i again i you know did what i do and i start well what let's learn about this and let's see this and there's people doing that don't you dare do anything until so i'm very much just was like i don't know a thing about any of these switches any other positions what any of them do i'm not going to touch anything but now watching this guy's video i realized that well i need to place an order with pinball resource yes you do um the main thing i need to buy is one of these little flex stone files to just do a quick burnish on every single one of those switches so their contacts are good um and then and there's god how many do you think are in em jared there's hundreds 500 probably 500 yeah like if you're talking about contact points points and you're talking about relay contact points as well yeah easily 500 yeah um and then uh he was using this grease and it's i looked on it on pbr's site about it and they were talking about how it was unobtainium for a while they were hoarding it was like these little tubes that would be just put into pinball cabinet and people like what are these and he was just like collecting them all dumping into a bucket essentially and finally ran out and then was annoyed that there was no good solution out there and so went and commissioned a company to make... Yeah, Steve Young from the Pinball Resource, he's an absolute legend. He's the reason why Gottlieb machines are running today. Right, and so he has made this stuff, he says, it works exactly like you knew it, it feels exactly like you knew it, it just smells a little different. Um, but I guess it's specifically for those metal on metal contact points, uh, for the relays. Um, absolutely. They actually, after you cleaned all the gunk off them, the reason, okay. So the reason why there is gunk on them is from the grease, right? Cause the, the grease will harden over time. Yeah. But the grease is really important because it's, it's an electrical lubricant. So it will help the wipers move over the different rivets, but it lubricates them, but it also kind of cleans them as it's doing it. I did notice some of my rivets had a little bit of a groove in them. Yep. Which I'm sure is normal for as many times as something has been spinning over them. It will definitely be normal. You could probably just get a little bit of light sandpaper and just reduce that groove a little bit. obviously you know it's reductive it's reductive so just be careful with it but you can you could smooth them out yeah so i will be doing a bit of cleaning um just to get it functioning in that matter and see how many of the problems solve themselves i don't think my play count counter works it's been yeah there's a it's stuck on the same number it's probably a reason why it's not working and I'd say I've already told you this but at the moment there is a really excellent video series that a YouTube channel called Technology Connections is doing. This guy has a Williams four player I forget which one it is but he's got an EM and he's going through he's up to part two and he's just realized he has to do a part three, but he's going through the theory of operation of an EM and showing you the schematics of the EM and actually explaining, tracing back the schematic to the mechanism. And it was fascinating. It is absolutely fascinating because there's about 10 or 12 different things that happen when you insert your coin into an EM and they all happen in about a second. so that's the complexity of what's going on inside these things and he explains it so eloquently and clearly that even if you don't own an em and you like pinball you'll actually learn something from this video i after watching part two and in part one i'm less afraid of ems now and i i would go okay this is just logic paths that's all it is and once you learn how to trace them back and read the schematic then it's actually not that difficult to diagnose the problem okay um because it's either it's either a contact issue or it's um like it's really just a contact issue well and that's what i'm quickly learning that i rather am enjoying about this machine is these things are built like freaking tanks um and you're not having to worry about oh is the capacitor dead is the rom not working is you know you're not electrical chasing bugs it's literally going to be is the contact making contact or not um yeah and and most importantly should the contact be making contact because because there is an important difference some are open some are closed at certain points and that's why you've got to have the schematic because and got to leave schematics are like you know the pinnacle they know how to write a good schematic so um yeah i that's the one thing i do have i don't have the manual which i can order off pbr for like five bucks um which is worth it but i do have the schematics um other things that i'm look i am by no means an em person if i've said it once i've said it twice i like multiball i like ramps um the three machines i own only one of them does multiball and none of them have ramps now um what i really am enjoying though with the with this em uh the pure noise it makes it makes amazing noises when it operates they're just wonderful noises and it's just all just it's yeah it's visceral it's amazing to hear them um it's really you know it's doing something yes and in fact those noises as you get more comfortable with diagnosing faults the noises it makes are important because you'll as you start playing it and after you get accustomed to the noises it makes when it stops making those noises it's almost like a musical soundtrack to the machine and when it doesn't make a noise that you're expecting you go why didn't it make that noise there so it's really interesting there's a there's another podcast out there which i've mentioned on the show a number of times before um uh by um a guy called nick baldrick it's called the what's that sound the em and bingo pinball podcast and he details a like he will i think he's had like 300 episodes but they're like seven minutes each and he will go through describing how to like understand ems from start to finish and i listened to the entire podcast from end to end like the all the episodes and again i learned a lot about the theory of operation of of ems and what does what and it's uh nick has now gone on to work and develop his own game to p3 um the p3 pinball platform he's got a number of games on that platform now that he's produced um because he's actually quite technical um and uh i think the podcast is still published and available um so again another really good one if you're looking for a pinball podcast and you haven't come across this one yet he explains things very clearly and it's uh really fun to just listen to um and you'll learn something yeah i equate the noises to it being just a giant adding machine that's all it is it's just it's just a computer but instead of using transistors very satisfying sound from my childhood um from the early 80s you were still hearing that in adding machines you know people still had those before calculators were affordable um so i like that i also it's totally what it is yeah i also like uh there are things that have happened while playing that you go wait how did that happen because in digital pinball the collision mech wouldn't allowed it to happen um i had a i've had the ball a number of times just jump right over the top of my slipper um oh yeah yep i have had i did a shot that was i don't know how it was so perfect i literally shot it back into the shooting lane even though it's got the little stopper to prevent the ball from doing that it hit just the perfect day went right into the shooter lane i went what i just had it completely jump the the the bank of targets into the shooter lane i'm like yep okay um the random again the mylar if that ball is rolling slow oh it's all hands on flippers because you don't know what direction the mylar is going to send it when it hits the edge of that mylar um i've also got um so i wouldn't i probably most of the the uh inserts are a little bit cupped which is yeah very common on a gauntlet oh yeah of that era it's just how those inserts were designed was not the greatest um and the bulbs run hot they're all incandescent they melt the plastic right it's easy and uh so i've had a couple of times where the ball just nestles in because it was a slow-moving ball, and it just sits there. Oh, yeah. That's a classic old-school game problem. That's part of the charm. Again, balls rolling very slowly, hits an insert, goes, just takes a right turn. Yep. You're like, okay. That a J for the insert Now you know my initial gut reaction is oh well I going to have to replace those No you not I not going to I not going to You don need to replace those If I take those out, then we're dealing with the paint on the play field. Yeah. And making sure that you're leveled and making sure that no glue got up on it. I'm not going to. Just don't do it. I'm not going to dab some clear coat and smooth them. I'm just going to leave it as is. Because. Play is conditioned. It's player's condition. But here's really why I'm not going to touch it in that manner. I've got three machines now. Really, two machines. Yeah. If I will ever get off my butt and I'm going to hand stencil or hand draw all the score numbers on Firepower. Right. Because the decals didn't work for me. Right. I'm going to wind up doing that and then clear coat it. I'm dreading doing the clear coating again. Eh, it's not that hard. I've done it four times. You were using rattle can. I'm using the actual spray gun. Doing it wrong, man. It's too hard. Just get a rattle can and do it. It works for me. And then the polishing and buffing, the clear coat, got to get rid of all your orange peel. I didn't do that either. You didn't do that either, huh? I know. Jared has a much different approach. Jared is a, let's just dive into the deep end and make it work. I mean, every single time I've seen you do anything, that's what I'm like, damn, he's fearless. He just goes and makes it work. I'm in there and get it done. Although I must admit on timeline, I did spend a little bit of time doing a little bit of sanding between coats. Just a little bit because there were some rough bits on there. And it does make a difference. It's worth taking a little bit of extra time just to do a sanding occasionally. But I'm not talking about sanding between coats. I put eight coats of clear on my playfields now because that's about the right amount. And I'm not sanding between coats. I'm sanding maybe four coats, six coats, and then doing one more layer on top just to level things out. I don't believe you do sand between coats. I believe it's just your final coat that is really the issue. you've got to really hone it on the final coat. That's where you're doing the polishing, the cut and buff. Because you want to actually build up the layers. Yes. Because if you're sanding after each fine coat, you'll probably sand off the coat anyhow. Yeah. So my point is, if I can get Firepower up and running, I will have three tables. What are the odds that I could trade a bulk of three for something modern or more modern? you could sell them and then use that money to buy something new there's that option too so i'll tell you a story right i've got i've got my three got leaves right i got pink panther forced to um star races back with me um last year uh and i got approached by one of the uh the pinhead local pinheads here saying oh i'd really like to grab your pink panther for a bit and I'll loan you a game. I'll loan you one of mine. I said, oh yeah, swap. That'd be nice. New game in the lineup. He already loaned me. Fish Tales. Oh, that's why you're not working on it. Yeah, that's right. So I got it. It basically came from another person's house. So this is a thing probably everywhere in pinball that a lot of pinball owners, they will just loan games between a network of trusted people. Yeah, because they get bored of the game that they have I want to try something else. So I think I might actually be in that network now. Oh, nice. And I know people love my three games. I've had a couple of offers to buy them. Like they say, if you think you're selling that, you come to me first because I want to buy it. Because I put a lot of effort into them and a lot of money into them. And they are basically new in box games when I've done them for all intents. so like this guy was he's been loving loving Pink Panther he's been kicking my butt every single time and I love it and so we're going to do the same thing again he's got so I did I helped him out a lot I replaced the belt on the the real assembly which is a bit of a pain in the butt to do but really needs it I've redoubled all the pop bumpers and I just did a bit of tuning on the flippers and stuff like that. It's working beautifully now. Really playing well. Like, very well. So he said, well, I'd like to have another one of yours for a bit as well so I'll linch a Corvette. Oh, okay. A game that I have not spent a lot of time on at all. And it's reportedly a really fun game once you get into it. um so i'm really looking forward to having a go at that that's a modern dmd like you know so yeah i'm it's it's the start of like a new sort of lineup i'm using these as like bargaining chips now because i think um i figure i posted on there's a uh uh em repair got leave em repair group on facebook um and everybody's been saying the same thing where they're just like, oh my god, what a find, what a steal. Yeah. And a lot of people, I've already had one person ask, are you selling it? Yeah, it's like... And people just basically commenting about how they're like, oh, I owned one of those a long time ago. I sold it. I really wish I never did. So I'm getting the impression that this is one of those EMs that... It's sold out, though. Yeah, it stood the test of time and people like it. And again, it's because it's drop target city. That's great. Because a lot of EMs, it's freaking zipper flippers and just pop bumpers everywhere. Where's the fun in that? Yep. And a few stand-up targets here and there. They're usually pretty boring, their layouts. And then I feel like 8-Ball Deluxe, mine's not in, like the play field's not in great shape. There's cracks all over the place. If I was to do that overlay, that plastic overlay that you can buy, you've heard about that. Oh, yeah, just say it. That's the machine I would do it on. Yeah. It's a popular game. But again, it's a popular game. Yeah. And so Firepower, I think, is like, eh, whatever. I don't think anybody's like, ooh, Firepower. I mean, Firepower with the drop target mod would be interesting, but, you know. Yeah, but then it's sourcing the drop target mod. You've got to source a couple of three banks, and that isn't easy. Yeah, it's a panda mod. Yeah. But point being, I'm just like, well, if I have two sought after, would it be possible to trade into – I'm not talking about some spike to Stern. You could get a 90s DMD. That's what I'm thinking. Like a second tier – like you could get a Fishtails easily, for example, for getting rid of those two, I reckon. Yeah. Like direct swap. Or you could sell and then buy with the money you get from it, I reckon. Because ideally, and again, this is what I've learned about myself, I'm not a tinker. I just want to play these things. Yeah, you don't want to restore them. I don't want to restore them. I don't have it in me. I don't have the patience. No, you're not like me. I don't have the skill set. I don't have the tools. Yeah, and you need all those things to want to actually do it. With my four, I don't think I'll be doing another one after Timeline. That's it for me. But I would love to have a machine that is built solid, that you don't have to worry about. If somebody has done it correctly or maintained it correctly, then you're not going to have an issue. That's why a lot of these new machines are so appealing to me, because I'm like, ooh, the electronics on them. If I could get one of these new Cactus Canyons, I would, because I know the electronics are going to be way better than the original Cactus Canyon. any of the what Chicago has been doing would be fantastic so I don't know it's kind of like that's why I'm feeling don't do anything other than cleaning up the bare minimum on target alpha so that somebody else could see it and see the potential of what they would want to do to it. You want to go does it flip? Yes does it but does it operate correctly? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. If you can get it doing that, then it's over to you, Restorer, to go and do what you need to do with the play field. And it seems like you could get a grand for it without too much trouble. Yeah. Based on the condition of it, because it is a very good specimen for its age. So that would actually probably add another 250 on it. But this is where I'm saying it's a difference between selling it, what you can get, versus trading. Because there's plenty of people that have more modern machines that they just go, it really doesn't do anything for me. But that is something that I've been seeing. I want. I want. And maybe it might be trade with a bit of cash your way. You know what I mean? Right. Because that happens fairly regularly too. It's like, no, it's a trade. But obviously, we'll fix you up with a bit of extra cash if the price isn't quite right. So anyway. And pinball people love that. They will do that all the time. So that means I'll have to get into a whole other arena because I don't have any of these circles right now. Because I'm long out of my pinball league. I don't have any contacts from there. Actually, I never had any contacts. You don't need contacts. I mean, obviously, you don't want to just put it up on Facebook Marketplace or whatever. because you're just going to get everyone and their dog coming in low-balling you. No, it's more about venturing back into pin-side waters. Or private Facebook groups. We've got a lot of those here in Brisbane where there's collectors who... There's actually one called Reasonably Fairly Priced Pinball Machines in Brisbane or something like that because the only people who post there are not daylight robbers. They understand the value of the machine. to flip quick sales. No, they're looking to find the right buyer and they're willing to offer a fair price. And I've seen some tables coming across that, you know, of the 80-0 tables are going, that's A, a really good specimen of a table and B, a really fair price for this. And if I had that money in that space, I would probably buy that. Thank you very much. So the prices are dropping a little bit, I think. They're softening after the pandemic here. So not a lot, but I've definitely noticed the prices are coming back to what I would expect to pay for some of these tables. So, yeah, it's good to see the market correcting. Of course, it also means I need to, well, I've got to replace my drop targets on Able Deluxe. You buy the entire batch as it is, so I'll just replace every single one of them when I place my PBR order. Yeah, absolutely. PBR will be able to sort you out with those. And then I need to source... I have two lamps that don't work. One of them, I think, is the bad socket, and the other one, it's got to be a bad connection. I don't know. There's where the electronics side just go... Look for charring on the connectors. It'll probably be charring, or there'll be some oxidization on pins. It's also got another issue where the music track basically no longer plays. And then it was doing a thing where once I knocked all the drop targets down, if I did one more shot on there, it just started doing an automatic score. Scoring. So again, it's something with a contact. So I'll clean the contacts and hope that that solves. before I call somebody to go, hey, can you come over here and service this, get it working? Yep, just give it a once-over. Use all your new tools and equipment you're going to be buying from PBR. Because it's the same stuff. They're all just contacts, so they work the same. Okay, quick question. Do you throw LEDs on this thing? Yeah. Or do you just throw LEDs on, Or do I just buy nothing but 47s bulbs? Because right now it's nothing but 44 bulbs, which are the hotter bulbs. 47s are the cooler. The PBR sells them for $2.80 a 10-pack box. I would buy warm LEDs. They sell a kit on Marco. Supplies for $1.20. an LED kit so you should be paying down here for decent quality LEDs like 44's like 44 socket LEDs about a buck a bulb so you do the math that's Australian dollars well I got about 80 bulbs so that price on Marco is purely for the convenience of the fact that they've assembled a kit for you right you could pretty much go to any LED bulb reseller. We've got a couple here in Australia, but there will be some in the US as well. Or a bag of 100, and you'll be good. Just warm ones, though, not warm. Yeah, definitely warm, not cool. Yeah. I've actually got, I've got cool, I think I've got cool in a lot of mine, and they're not terrible, but I think warm, it has the glow that you'll want with an EM. Like early solid state, I think you can get away with white, but EMs definitely need that incandescent feeling. Because I cannot put LEDs on a bulb deluxe without doing a conversion. Correct, because it has controlled lamps. Yes. The thing with like most system 80 Gottliebs, but definitely EMs, is the lamps are literally driven by relays. Yeah. So you don't need to worry about, there is no problem with ghosting. in an EM. So you can put whatever you want in there, basically, and it will work just fine. Next question. Do I replace all the rubber with super bands? You replace them with Titans, yes. Because an entire rubber kit is going to run about $70. Yeah. So, but it makes, I mean, on the one hand, they don't wear as badly. Right. Correct. And they don't perish. Okay. On the other hand, aren't they way bouncier? Yeah, they are. But I don't use gum wrapper ones anymore because they degrade. And as long as you're rotating them every two months or so and actually just change position, they don't get any memory in them either. So there now, I don't even look at gum wrapper ones. In fact, I had the Star Race that I had effectively in storage for four years until I bought it back. It had the original gum rubber on them, and they were still all right, but they definitely wouldn't have lasted for another year on there. whereas the the other ones that i've restored i i say rotate the rubbers because i realize that they do get a little bit of like a notch in them if you don't rotate them but if you rotate them they're not showing any signs of wear and these games have got you know thousand plus games on them each and they're just fine even the flipper rubbers are hardly worn so they're really hard wearing and the thing is you get white ones you don't get don't worry about like getting colored rubbers for ems and early solid states they benefit from white yeah um and they they they look great they stay cleaner because they don't get like micro cracks in them where the the dirt gets in um and they're hard wearing so yes they will be a little bit bouncier but honestly that can kind of be in a bit of an advantage with an em given the the flippers are usually a little underpowered. So you get that little bit of extra oomph from your flipper from them. And yeah, they're definitely the silicon bands are the way to go from my perspective. Because you won't have to replace them again. You won't have to lift the playfield protectors off and put the new ones on. So it's going to save you time and money. All right, there you go. I think we, well, yeah, we've reached maximum distance on this. I'm going to break it down real quick. Jared's going to talk about it next time. So it's not just stuff and things that you can be talking about. He actually has something that we're going to talk about next time. There is a mod called the Prey Dog mod that apparently turns any Unreal Engine 4 or 5 game into a VR experience with 3D. That's it in theory. Jared has had a crack at it, and can't get it working. No. It doesn't really need to be kept for next time. I'll tell you what it's like now. Because I got tipped off by a friend of the show, BowlingMan88, who is on our Discord. And he shared with me that this exists now and it's out of beta. And so the documentation's there. You can follow it and get it set up. His experience was that he got it working. He had to turn off ray tracing and HDR, which is recommended in the thing and it's working for him he can play pinball effects in vr but i can't right i cannot there's a number of rough edges in this at the moment which is expected because it's open source implementation um and i yeah i can't get it it's got a really active discord i could if i had the time and the patience i could go onto the discord and sort it out. But I don't have either of those things at the moment because life is busy. So at the moment, this is the reason why in 2024, VR needs to come to Zen Pinball officially because this is a way of doing it. But with anything that you have to roll your own on, it's like getting visual pinball set up to a level that is satisfying to play. a lot of effort needs to be invested by you the user to do it and I just I don't want to have to I have limited time to play video games at the moment I don't want to have to spend 50% of that time tinkering to try and get it to work I just don't have that time so it's not for me at the moment people with the patience it does let you do it but it's just not for me at the moment but the fact you can do it is amazing and I did get the game started, I got pinball effects started and rolling and it is proper VR, like it's very, it's not like 2D screen in a 3D room, it is, you are in there and it is rendering VR properly in the game room and it looks really good, so if you want to have a tasteable in 2024 then try it out because it's going to wet your appetite and you're going to be you won't be able to wait until it comes because it looks good already but having it natively supported will be even better alright well there you go guess we won't see you up for next time well we just did it then because that's pretty much all I have to say about it because I haven't really had much success with it unfortunately but I'm sure people will comment in the show notes in the premiere and tell me that I'm wrong and I'm okay to be wrong because I know I'm wrong it's obviously going to be something easy to fix that I just don't have the cycles to actually invest in at the moment alright so there you go folks that that does it for this episode our first of the year 2024 many more to come lots more stuff coming around by the time we well no I don't think I will have that I won't have the ad games unit next time we record I don't think depends we'll see anyway that'll be exciting when that happens though because I'll make sure I do some unboxings and whatnot what we got in store for next time not sure but hey surprises do happen and until then it's everything that Jared loves to talk about stuff and things until then bye bye see you later Thank you.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 9ff7831d-6581-433c-a934-bec388e9fbd4*