# I Traded Black Knight 2000...

**Source:** Cary Hardy  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2020-12-28  
**Duration:** 13m 33s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irODFYznBdg

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## Analysis

Cary Hardy traded his Black Knight 2000 for a Bally Judge Dredd superpin, viewing it as a significant upgrade due to Judge Dredd's superior design complexity and dual-flipper gameplay compared to Black Knight 2000's right-flipper-heavy mechanics. He documents the acquisition and initial inspection, identifying and resolving several maintenance issues including a missing backup battery, capacitor aging, LED upgrades, and a faulty opto sensor that was resolved through cleaning.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Judge Dredd is one of seven superpins released by Williams/Midway between 1993-1994 as wide-body games — _Cary Hardy defines superpins and lists all seven: Judge Dredd, Twilight Zone, Indiana Jones, Star Trek The Next Generation, Popeye, Demolition Man, and Red and Ted's Roadshow_
- [HIGH] Black Knight 2000 is right-flipper-heavy, leading to repetitive gameplay and extended ball times — _Cary Hardy states he played '20 minute plus long games because it was just rinse and repeat' and became fatigued with the game's limited strategic variety_
- [HIGH] Judge Dredd requires use of both flippers and has significantly more playfield complexity than Black Knight 2000 — _Cary Hardy emphasizes 'both flippers matter' on Judge Dredd and describes extensive mechanical features: four flippers, three-ball capability, wire forms, auto ball launcher, loops, ramps, magnetic crane_
- [MEDIUM] Current modern pinball games lack the design complexity and mechanical density of 1990s superpins — _Cary Hardy reflects: 'this one of those games where it really makes me look at current games that are out today and just go man why don't they make games like this anymore. They are just packed and have all kinds of cool stuff going on in it'_
- [HIGH] A single opto sensor on Judge Dredd's planet mechanism was non-functional due to dust accumulation, resolved through cleaning — _Cary Hardy performs diagnostics on both opto sensors, identifies switch 77 not being detected, tests with multimeter and finds all components functional, then discovers dust was blocking the sensor which was resolved by cleaning with isopropyl alcohol_

### Notable Quotes

> "Every Texas Pinball Festival, I look forward to someone hopefully bringing this game so I can play it. Because I enjoy the speed and the music and the difficulty of it."
> — **Cary Hardy**, 00:00-00:30
> _Establishes Cary's long-standing desire to own Black Knight 2000 before acquiring it_

> "I got the game and I was happy to have it and enjoyed playing it. But I did notice that like anybody else that has owned this title or still does, that it is a very right flipper heavy game."
> — **Cary Hardy**, 00:30-01:00
> _Identifies the key gameplay limitation of Black Knight 2000 that led to eventual trade_

> "I would play 20 minute plus long games because it was just rinse and repeat. It got to the point to where I was just like, okay i think i'm done with this game because it i don't want to say it got easy but it was rinse and repeat."
> — **Cary Hardy**, 01:00-01:30
> _Demonstrates gameplay fatigue from repetitive mechanics leading to decreased interest in the machine_

> "This game is loaded. Four flippers, you have a three-capped-a-ball system up here on the Dead World, and like wire forms galore a auto ball launcher on the far left i mean loops ramps i mean it goes on and on like a magnetic crane that grabs the ball."
> — **Cary Hardy**, 02:00-02:30
> _Describes the mechanical complexity and features that make Judge Dredd superior to Black Knight 2000_

> "this is one of those games where it really makes me look at current games that are out today and just go man why don't they make games like this anymore"
> — **Cary Hardy**, 02:30-03:00
> _Commentary on declining mechanical complexity in modern pinball design compared to 1990s superpins_

> "And I swear to god all I did was just simply like lean over and like blow a little bit of dust evidently that was in there and that cleared up that issue"
> — **Cary Hardy**, 15:00-15:30
> _Key troubleshooting discovery that an opto sensor failure was caused by dust accumulation rather than component failure_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Cary Hardy | person | Pinball collector and content creator who traded Black Knight 2000 for Bally Judge Dredd |
| Steve Ritchie | person | Designer of Black Knight 2000 |
| Black Knight 2000 | game | Steve Ritchie-designed pinball machine with right-flipper-heavy gameplay; traded away by Cary Hardy |
| Judge Dredd | game | Bally-manufactured superpin acquired by Cary Hardy in trade; one of seven superpins released 1993-1994 |
| Williams Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Judge Dredd and other superpins (1993-1994 era) |
| Bally | company | Associated with Judge Dredd superpin (shared manufacturing with Williams/Midway) |
| Twilight Zone | game | One of the seven superpins created between 1993-1994 |
| Indiana Jones | game | One of the seven superpins created between 1993-1994 |
| Star Trek The Next Generation | game | One of the seven superpins created between 1993-1994 |
| Popeye | game | One of the seven superpins created between 1993-1994 |
| Demolition Man | game | One of the seven superpins created between 1993-1994 |
| Red and Ted's Roadshow | game | One of the seven superpins created between 1993-1994 |
| Texas Pinball Festival | event | Annual event where Cary Hardy previously sought to play Black Knight 2000 |
| Marco | person | Aftermarket parts supplier mentioned for playfield stickers |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Game acquisition and trading, Gameplay mechanics and design comparison, Machine maintenance and diagnostics
- **Secondary:** Superpin era (1990s Williams/Midway wide-body games), Modern pinball design philosophy, Opto sensor troubleshooting and repair
- **Mentioned:** LED and component upgrades

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.82) — Cary Hardy expresses satisfaction with the trade and excitement about owning Judge Dredd. He is pleased with the machine's design complexity and views it as a clear upgrade. The tone is enthusiastic throughout the restoration and troubleshooting segments, though tempered by technical challenges that were methodically resolved.

### Signals

- **[sentiment_shift]** Black Knight 2000 widely recognized in collector community as right-flipper-heavy with repetitive gameplay, supporting Cary's decision to trade (confidence: high) — Cary notes: 'like anybody else that has owned this title or still does, that it is a very right flipper heavy game' indicating this is a known community characteristic
- **[design_philosophy]** Cary Hardy contrasts Judge Dredd's mechanical density and dual-flipper design with modern pinball games, expressing nostalgia for 1990s superpin complexity (confidence: high) — Quote: 'this is one of those games where it really makes me look at current games that are out today and just go man why don't they make games like this anymore. They are just packed and have all kinds of cool stuff going on in it'
- **[product_concern]** Judge Dredd acquired in average-to-above-average condition with maintenance issues requiring immediate attention post-acquisition (confidence: high) — Missing backup battery, aging capacitors requiring replacement, opto sensor malfunction, non-functional LED configuration, incandescent flashers, worn stickers

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## Transcript

 Black Knight 2000, a Steve Ritchie game that I was wanting for years. Every Texas Pinball Festival, I look forward to someone hopefully bringing this game so I can play it. Because I enjoy the speed and the music and the difficulty of it. I got the game and I was happy to have it and enjoyed playing it. But I did notice that like anybody else that has owned this title or still does, that it is a very right flipper heavy game. I would play 20 minute plus long games because it was just rinse and repeat. It got to the point to where I was just like, okay i think i'm done with this game because it i don't want to say it got easy but it was rinse and repeat there wasn't much to it because once again it's a right flipper heavy game with that being said it became my game in my collection that was going to be on the chopping block whenever i saw something else that i was wanting and so be it a game did come up for sale slash trade and i was like man i mean i wonder if this person would be interested in trading for my black night 2000 and evidently the stars aligned in my favor because black night 2000 was a game that he was wanting in for a trade we did basically it was an even swap trade no cash or anything else like that an average condition black night 2000 like you see here for a little bit above average game. And that game just happens to be... Oh yeah. Bally's Judge Dredd. One of the seven superpins that were created. For those that don't know, a superpin was any game that was released by Williams and Midway between the years of 93 and 94 that was a wide body. Now this is typically the body of the game is almost about the width of the actual backbox. Other games include Twilight Zone, Indiana Jones, Star Trek The Next Generation, Popeye and Demolition Man, and Red Ted's... Oh, wait. Red and Ted's Roadshow? Yeah, that's the other one. So you have a total of seven Super Pens, and now I own one of them. This game is loaded. Four flippers, you have a three-capped-a-ball system up here on the Dead World, and like wire forms galore a auto ball launcher on the far left i mean loops ramps i mean it goes on and on like a magnetic crane that grabs the ball this is one of those games where it really makes me look at current games that are out today and just go man why don't they make games like this anymore They are just packed and have all kinds of cool stuff going on in it Anyways I believe I traded up in this case because this game has many different ways to go about playing it and both flippers matter i got some footage here of me going over the game now all right so let's turn this thing on and see and make sure everything works i did not do this as per usual whenever i buy a machine um i want to say when i got it home when I first turned it on. Yes, we've got that. So already I know that I've gotta get in the backbox to make sure that we don't have any issues with the MPU. Let's do that real quick. All right. Okay, so it looks like it's got remote battery. Oh, okay. That must have been lost in transit. So there's that problem. Okay, so that should be an easy fix. Okay. Other than that, I think the boards are looking pretty good. Chances are I'll probably end up changing this capacitor. It's about time for it to be done. And this one here too. let's see here other than that quick glance over the board it's looking pretty good all right so battery's on there now i have set the date and time let's turn it on to see if we still have that issue all right that's resolved let's go through all the settings make sure all the switch is working all right let's go into our settings here hmm now we are in switch edges mode and we are going to start playing with things to make sure everything is reading correctly like all there's a lot of optos in this game so so that looks like all those worked so far so good to not enough to right there here okay let's try this trough so I make sure they're working all right I've removed all six balls and we're just gonna make sure that all these troughs which is work I'm just gonna try to block the beam focus camera focus my goodness so draw six four three two top trough and trough one all right so all the trough optos down here are working accordingly so that's good to know I shouldn't doesn't look like I'm gonna need to clean them or anything all right so I'll lift the plate filled up and see what else we got going on all right up underneath the plate filled everything looks to be in order just a little dirty nothing big still have my matrix on the side over here And then up under here the LEDs that were chosen to be used on this are doable Not my preference but they will work for now. And when it comes to the flashers, it looks like none of the flashers are LEDs. They are all still incandescent. So that's something to be changed later on in the future but not necessary right now these LEDs I'm gonna be using the flex bulbs that can point directly up instead of these right here that can not a lot of the light can be showing up through the insert to the other side so I'm gonna get different kinds of bulbs for those but underneath I mean everything looks pretty good in here. So looking pretty good over here. Nothing's burnt out. I mean the game plays. Everything's nice and smooth. It was one of those trades where I was actually very surprised that the trade went through and stuff. Now doing the all lamps test looks like I've got one bulb out right here that's all I can see so far everything else looks to be working I know these light up I'm gonna get some new stickers though these look like they're not very opaque anymore when I get some new ones I've seen Marco sells those this has got the modded crane. Very good job. I love this. This looks really good in comparison to the original. All right, so let's let the plate fill up, see if we can get that bulb going, and then this baby should be good to go for a while. There we go. Just needed a little bit of adjustment. The bulb wasn't burned out or anything. All right, there we go so I'm literally editing this video right now and I've decided to take a break and play some Judge Dredd in between this and I got an issue when I first booted it up telling me that there was you know for me to check this switch and that switch is under the planet right here and I was like well let me mess around with it and so I'm still learning this tool this tool like I'm at work I'm still learning this machine how everything works and where everything is at so once I figured out how to take off the opto board that is underneath the planet right here that is now right here you have two opto sensors that are right there now whenever I was testing them out and you can test these opto sensors I just pulled a debit card like a you know little gift card from my wallet and was just putting it in between the slots right there like this to see if these sensors were actually working and here is the planet you know how I gonna be able to tell so as I When I was playing with these I noticed that only this switch 77 was actually being detected and working appropriately whereas the other one was not and I was like okay time to bust out the multimeter so I busted out the multimeter now typically when you have just a couple of components like you know this one has a resistor a diode and an opto that's pretty much all you're dealing with on this board right here so first off i check my voltage and yes i am getting my 12 volts to the board then i check my diode my diode is good so i'm only able to get current to go one direction my resistor measures the appropriately and that's a good thing when you have something like this guys because this is the same circuit so you can compare a good to a supposed bad so if i'm getting readings of like you know 470 off this resistor which is the was the suspected bad one and my readings are different over here then that may be your issue although all my components are reading correctly my voltages were all reading correctly on the actual opto sensor itself as the same up here i'm like okay if all my voltages and all my readings and all the components are there why am I not getting the signal and I swear to god all I did was just simply like lean over and like blow a little bit of dust evidently that was in there and that cleared up that issue just a little bit of dust was enough to make it to where this sensor wasn't reading so that's when I got my isopropyl alcohol and q-tip and actually clean both sensors really well and since I clean both sensors you will see that both are working correctly now so all I got to do now is put that board back on there again and play some more and I'll get this video out to you guys all right got the board back in there we'll start the test yeah both of them are reading there we go all right Now I know some of you out there are probably asking, Hey, Kerry, what's the condition of your topper? I don't want to talk about it. Outro Music

_(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: b34a3abe-9673-4317-82bb-7610b4da9675*