# #37 High Speed - The Classic Pinball Podcast

**Source:** The Classic Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2020-09-08  
**Duration:** 69m 56s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/george272/episodes/37-High-Speed---The-Classic-Pinball-Podcast-ej2sbm

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## Analysis

The Classic Pinball Podcast explores High Speed, Steve Ritchie's landmark 1986 Williams machine that revitalized pinball in the mid-80s. Dave shares extensive restoration work (60+ hours) on a customer machine, discussing its innovative features (first full song, alphanumeric displays, broken-switch compensation, progressive jackpots) and notorious weak-flipper maintenance issues. The hosts play multiple games and receive insights from tournament pro Eric Stone via call-in.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] High Speed was the first pinball to play a complete song, first Williams pin to use alphanumeric displays, and featured first auto-percentaging, first jackpot available only during multiball, and first solid-state game with operator report. — _Dave, co-host, stating High Speed's technical innovations as the game's defining achievements in the era_
- [HIGH] High Speed brought pinball back from the dead during the early 1980s slump caused by video games. — _Dave: 'This machine brought pinball back from the dead. It had so much to offer.' George concurred with the assessment._
- [HIGH] High Speed sold over 17,000 units, placing it in the upper tier of game sales for the era, comparable to Bally Eight Ball with Fonzie (~20,000). — _George citing production numbers and comparing to other popular titles of the period_
- [HIGH] The restoration Dave performed on this High Speed required 60+ hours of work including playfield teardown, board inspection, ramp repair, flipper rebuilding, and cosmetic restoration. — _Dave stating work scope when customer inquired about restoration time and cost_
- [MEDIUM] High Speed machines in good condition sell for $3,000–$4,000 on average, with fully restored examples commanding $6,000–$10,000+. — _Dave and George discussing secondary market pricing based on recent sales they've observed_
- [HIGH] The weak upper right flipper is the most common gameplay-affecting maintenance issue on High Speed, often preventing players from consistently making the ramp shot. — _Dave: 'Upper right flipper is usually crappy.' Described as a widespread arcade problem; Eric Stone confirmed difficulty making ramp with weak flippers_
- [HIGH] The ramp is mechanically fragile and prone to cracking due to brittle plaster used in original production; aftermarket clear and translucent red ramps are now available. — _Dave discussing common ramp failures and available restoration/replacement options_
- [HIGH] Eric Stone holds a High Speed world record score of 42 million points achieved in a single 3.5-hour game. — _Eric Stone call-in segment confirming his record and describing the marathon session_
- [HIGH] Eric Stone dropped from #2 to #4 in WPPR rankings due to point decay from canceled tournaments during the pandemic/hiatus period. — _Eric Stone discussing his ranking fall and explaining that all players are losing points equally due to lack of IFPA tournaments_
- [MEDIUM] High Speed is currently ranked around #100 on Pinside's 100 ranking list, floating alongside games like Paragon (~100), Fathom (#52), Centaur (#60), Quicksilver (#74), and Stargazer (#70). — _George referencing Pinside 100 ranking data during discussion of the game's competitive standing in collector/community ratings_

### Notable Quotes

> "This machine brought pinball back from the dead. It had so much to offer."
> — **Dave**, ~5:20
> _Core thesis of the episode—High Speed's cultural and commercial impact on the pinball industry during the mid-1980s revival_

> "When in doubt, hit the ramp. Okay, we're ramping up."
> — **Dave (instruction to George during gameplay)**, ~52:00
> _Encapsulates High Speed's design philosophy: ramp shot is the dominant strategic goal_

> "I got the world record on that game. I think it was 42 million. Remember, that was my three and a half hour game."
> — **Eric Stone**, ~1:13:30
> _Eric Stone's High Speed mastery and the extreme time investment required for peak competitive play_

> "You didn't know it. I'm watching. Because you light that by... The game is high speed, and the ball does move at a high speed."
> — **Dave (explaining cherry light mechanic during gameplay)**, ~48:00
> _Humorous moment highlighting George's first-time gameplay blindspots and the immersive sensory design of the machine_

> "If that right flipper is weak or not working, you're kind of screwed. Although I tell you, when I was playtesting this game, I did make the ramp from the lower right flipper once. Some weird shot I got up there, but it's not made to do that."
> — **Dave**, ~34:45
> _Describes the mechanical dependency on the upper-right flipper and the rarity of alternative shot solutions_

> "I've been driving a taxi the last few weeks. I've been up here, I'm going to pick up some people now. Hey, taxi. Yeah, I know, exactly. It's a crazy taxi."
> — **Eric Stone**, ~1:17:00
> _Humorous aside about Eric Stone's current activities visiting New Hampshire, playing on 'Taxi' game reference and 'Crazy Taxi'_

> "I just humming that tune sometimes I play this game so much I go to a store or whatever and I'm just humming the tune in my head."
> — **Dave**, ~1:00:30
> _Testifies to the memorability and immersive quality of High Speed's original sound design by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar_

> "There's, you know... I said you know. Uh, that's all right. This game doesn't have a lot of features, but the features it has are a lot of fun."
> — **Dave**, ~29:50
> _Characterizes High Speed's design philosophy: elegant simplicity with deep gameplay from a focused set of core mechanics_

> "I dropped from two to four... I was number two in the world for several months and I think the Pintastic tournament and maybe a couple of the Pinberg tournaments fell off of my card."
> — **Eric Stone**, ~1:14:00
> _Illustrates the tournament point decay issue affecting competitive rankings during the IFPA hiatus_

> "I don't have any ramps. You need a ramp, George."
> — **Dave (to George during George's early gameplay struggles)**, ~16:30
> _Humorous highlight of George's initial incomprehension of High Speed's ramp-centric design, becoming a running joke_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Steve Ritchie | person | Legendary pinball designer credited with concept and design of High Speed; known as the 'Steven Spielberg of Pinball.' Currently works at Jersey Jack Pinball. |
| Dave | person | Co-host of The Classic Pinball Podcast; pinball restoration specialist ('Dr. Dave's Restorations'); performing 60+ hour restoration on High Speed for a customer |
| George | person | Co-host of The Classic Pinball Podcast; playing High Speed for the first time during episode; learned tips from a neighbor about the game |
| Eugene Jarvis | person | Sound designer for High Speed and other Williams video games; known for distinctive sound design signature in Williams arcade games |
| Larry DeMar | person | Programmer and sound contributor for High Speed; designed the software and contributed to the iconic soundtrack |
| Bill Parran | person | Sound contributor for High Speed alongside Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar |
| Python Angelo | person | Artist credited with artwork on High Speed |
| Eric Stone | person | Tournament-level pinball player; High Speed world record holder with 42 million points; currently ranked #4 in WPPR; called in to podcast to discuss High Speed and competitive play |
| High Speed | game | Landmark 1986 Williams pinball machine designed by Steve Ritchie; revitalized the pinball industry during mid-1980s video game competition; featured first full song, alphanumeric displays, progressive jackpots, and operator report features |
| The Classic Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast series hosted by George and Dave featuring discussions and gameplay of classic pinball machines; episode #37 focuses on High Speed |
| High Speed 2: The Getaway | game | Sequel to High Speed designed by Steve Ritchie in 1992, mentioned as part of podcast's exploration of the High Speed franchise |
| Williams | company | Pinball manufacturer that produced High Speed in 1986; major publisher of arcade games in the 1980s alongside video game titles |
| Bally | company | Competitor pinball manufacturer; Eight Ball with Fonzie cited as contemporary comparison (20,000 units sold) |
| Skateball | game | Pinball title featuring cross-playfield shooter lane design; compared to High Speed's innovative ramp shot layout |
| Flash | game | 1979 Williams pinball game featuring cross-playfield shot design; referenced as precedent to High Speed's ramp innovation |
| Pinside 100 | organization | Community pinball ranking system that rates classic and modern games; High Speed currently ranked around #100 |
| IFPA | organization | International Flipper Pinball Association; tournament sanctioning body responsible for WPPR (World Pinball Player Rankings); mentioned regarding tournament hiatus and point decay |
| WPPR | organization | World Pinball Player Rankings; competitive ranking system used to track tournament players; Eric Stone discussed his ranking drop from #2 to #4 |
| Dr. Dave's Restorations | company | Dave's pinball restoration service; performed comprehensive restoration on the High Speed featured in the podcast episode |
| Sammy Hagar | person | Rock musician; Dave mentioned 'I Can't Drive 55' as thematic connection to High Speed's racing/driving theme (trivia reference during episode) |

### Topics

- **Primary:** High Speed's historical significance and industry impact, Pinball machine restoration techniques and best practices, High Speed gameplay mechanics and strategy, Maintenance issues and common failure points on High Speed, The 1980s pinball industry revival
- **Secondary:** Secondary market pricing and collector demand for High Speed, Tournament play, WPPR rankings, and competitive pinball, Sound design and audio engineering in classic pinball, Design philosophy: ramp-centric gameplay
- **Mentioned:** Pinball arcade culture and operational challenges

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.82) — Strong enthusiasm for High Speed's design, innovation, and cultural impact. Dave's restoration work is praised. Some friendly frustration from George learning the game but overall celebratory tone. No negative sentiment toward the machine itself; only technical criticism of common wear/maintenance issues is constructive in nature.

### Signals

- **[restoration_signal]** Dave completed 60+ hour restoration of High Speed including full playfield teardown, all board inspection, ramp repair, flipper rebuilding, insert cleaning, LED backglass work, and cosmetic refinishing (confidence: high) — Dave: 'Everything, about 60-plus hours of work on this one... totally play field, tear down both sides, go through all the boards, all the assemblies, you know, optimize it.'
- **[historical_signal]** High Speed is positioned as the machine that revitalized pinball industry during early 1980s video game crisis; revived arcade attendance and home collector interest (confidence: high) — Dave: 'This machine brought pinball back from the dead... people started paying attention to pinball again' and discussion of High Speed's 17,000+ unit sales as strong numbers regardless of era
- **[design_innovation]** High Speed introduced multiple industry firsts: complete song playback, alphanumeric displays, auto-percentaging, jackpot-only-multiball, broken-switch compensation, operator report feature (confidence: high) — Dave comprehensive list of innovations: 'first pinball to play a complete song... First Williams pin to use alphanumeric displays... first jackpot available only during multi-ball, first use of broken switch compensation...'
- **[product_concern]** High Speed ramps are prone to cracking due to brittle original plaster; upper-right flipper frequently wears and weakens, becoming unplayable; diverters loosen over time (confidence: high) — Dave: 'Typically in this game for problems is the ramp gets cracked and broken because they didn't really make good ramps back then... Upper right flipper is usually crappy... diverters up there get kind of loose'
- **[market_signal]** High Speed machines in average condition command $3,000–$4,000; fully restored examples sell for $6,000–$10,000+, with recent sales exceeding $10K on high-end restoration platforms (confidence: medium) — Dave: 'Maybe average... high-end pins... Did one of these recently... got to be ten. That seems to be the case' and pricing discussion ranging from 4.5K to 'pushing maybe like 6 or 7K'
- **[collector_signal]** High Speed machines are in steady demand despite high production run (17,000+ units); restored examples are scarce and command premium prices; collector interest remains strong (confidence: medium) — George: 'Is this game in high demand? I mean, they made a lot of them. You don't see them very often, and if you do, average price from what I could see, $3,000 to $4,000?'
- **[competitive_signal]** Eric Stone dropped from #2 to #4 in WPPR rankings due to canceled tournaments and point expiration; all competitive players experiencing equal ranking decay during IFPA tournament hiatus (confidence: high) — Eric Stone: 'I was number two in the world for several months... I dropped from two to four... everybody's dropping... everybody loses points until... the IFPA gets going again'
- **[gameplay_signal]** High Speed's central mechanic is ramp mastery; all major scoring (multiball qualification, red light runs, jackpot opportunities) depends on consistent ramp execution; weak upper flipper makes ramp nearly impossible (confidence: high) — Dave: 'If that right flipper is weak or not working, you're kind of screwed... you can't get multiple without hitting that ramp' and 'You need a ramp, George'
- **[content_signal]** The Classic Pinball Podcast episodes on High Speed and related titles (Taxi, Coin Pusher, Frogger) are generating listener engagement; hosts cross-promoting back catalog content (confidence: medium) — George: 'If you haven't listened to those podcasts, this is... That's a good list. I'm being such a shill today... But thank you, everybody. You keep listening to all our back podcasts.'
- **[design_philosophy]** High Speed exemplifies design philosophy of focused feature set with deep strategic gameplay; minimal number of goals (ramp, targets, spinner) creates elegant, replayable experience with high skill ceiling (confidence: medium) — Dave: 'This game doesn't have a lot of features, but the features it has are a lot of fun... This one, they said, okay, let's try one more time. Let's put everything in this game and then some'
- **[technology_signal]** Aftermarket ramp options available for High Speed restoration: clear ramps and translucent red ramps offer cosmetic/functional alternatives to original brittle plaster; common solution for restorers (confidence: medium) — Dave: 'Someone does make a nice new clear ramp up there and also a translucent red ramp, which also looks nice on this game'

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## Transcript

 🎵 Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and today we're in the basement again and I'm joined by my co-host Dave. Hello Dave. Hello George. today's game is a game outside my comfort zone but it's a game dave is doing for a customer the game high speed dave why don't you start and tell us a little bit about the background on this game and then go into what you've worked on on this game and we'll play a game how's that sure Sounds good. Well, George, pinball, as you know, was in a slump in the early 80s. Video games were coming in. Pinball was kind of on life support. And Steve Ritchie came along and made high speed. And this brought pinball back because it had so much innovation to it. And they really, you know, put their A game out. It is the first pinball to play a complete song. First Williams pin to use alphanumeric displays. first auto-percentaging in a solid-state game for replay scores, first jackpot available only during multiball, first use of broken switch compensation programming, and first solid-state game with operator report. Sometimes in these games, they'll be set on in an arcade that if something's wrong, a stuck switch, whatever, when you turn them on, they'll go whack, whack, whack, whack, whack with a credit knocker, like, I don't know, about 10 times or so, really get your attention, super annoying in a home environment, and say, what is wrong with my game? And yeah, it's trying to tell you there's something wrong with your game, but I typically turn that feature off so that it'll still give a report, but it won't be doing all that noisy stuff. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the people involved in this game? All right, so we have Steve Ritchie, concept by him, designed by Steve Ritchie, art by Python Python Anghelo. Sound, awesome sound, especially for the Williams video games era, is Eugene Jarvis. He was known for that, and you can tell his sounds are in this game as well. He has a unique sound that Williams had back in the day, especially their video games. It transferred over to High Speed and other games. Who programmed the game? Let's see. The program software by Larry DeMar. He also did some of the sound, too. Sound was Larry DeMar, Eugene Jarvis, and Bill Parran. It also So it was the first game to have multiball jackpot carry over from game to game. So if you didn't get your jackpot, it would be a progressive jackpot. So when you get a multiball and you keep missing it, and it keeps going up and up and up, like right now the jackpot's at one million points to get the jackpot on this one. It's kind of tough to juggle a three-ball multiball and hit that ramp. Anything else about the game before we get underway and let you start? I'm going to play for the first time. I tried to remember if and when I've played this game, and I couldn't recall. I'll tell you, a lot of times this game would suffer in the arcade environment. It got beat to death, and what would happen is you'd get weak flippers, especially the upper, there's three flippers. The upper right flipper is used to go up that ramp. If that was weak or the game was set too steep or both, you can never make the ramp. The other thing that was a problem with the game was the shooter spring had to be really strong and not broken or have a problem because you initially shoot the ball up and it goes up that ramp from right there. You also get your multipliers by going up that ramp. It's very important to hit the ramp. Let's talk about the shooter lane for a second because it reminds me right off the top of a game I own, which is skateball, where the ball actually travels across the play field instead of up the right-hand side of the cabinet. Yep, Skateball has that. Williams Flash had that as well. It's kind of neat. It goes across the playfield and up the ramp. Neat cross-playfield shot there that these games did. Interesting concept. I actually took the time to go out and watch our neighbor play this game, I guess, from about six years ago. and one of the things that he had said is that this was the resurgence or putting a big focus back on pinball in the mid-80s because there wasn't anything on the market like this game the total package of playability light show and sam would you agree that this kind of was the yeah rebirth of pinball in the mid-80s after the whole video I concur. That's what I was saying early on. This thing brought pinball back. This machine brought pinball back from the dead. It had so much to offer. Basically, they kept taking features away in the early 80s. They kept just making stripped down games. This one, they said, okay, let's try one more time. Let's put everything in this game and then some and put new technology in there. and they really had a winner in hand. Actually, people started paying attention to pinball again and it brought pinball back again from the dead. What also helped back in that time is video games started going in the home market as well with Atari and so forth, so that was kind of drawing people back into the home. Pinball, like this one, brought people back to the arcade again. Well, if you look at the sheer numbers of this game being sold, it's above 17,000 and looking at other games from the era, that's good numbers period not just from you know the rebirth as people have called it of pinball in the mid-80s those are strong numbers regardless of when the game was released would you agree with that yeah i agree with that um some of the games like that like uh bally eight ball with fonzie that was around 20 000 they made uh so this is right up there with that game and that game was very popular too it's still so popular today i have people asking for that game for me to find one restored for them um i've sold out i had two beautiful ones i sold out of mine so now the quest is on to find another eight ball that i can uh restore up for a couple clients that are looking for one well without further ado why don't we get two games on and uh play a little bit sure well one other thing too uh i believe we're on the same time frame i'm gonna look it up and you can do this in post-production george is uh sammy hagar i can't drive 55 I can't drive 55! so this is his kind of uh story to tell about his encounter with the cops going that fast so much for my trivia questions you got every one let's uh let's get started let's start it up here and put the key in ignition and we'll uh go here I can do it louder too. Right there I just lit the kickback. The kickback is lit. I got it by the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 orange targets. Now I'm going to head right into the loop. Missed the loop. And I lost the ball. George, you can do better than I know, because I didn't do too well there. Okay, here's what I know about the game after having watched Our Neighbor. It's all about freeways and the ramp and the lights. And in order to get multiball, what I'm told is that you have to light all three stoplights, which obviously has three lights each for a total of nine. And those can be lit by going up the ramp or by hitting the targets directly. So here we go. First time. You missed the third upper flipper there, George. And I did. Wow. Oh, my God. That is a new low. I never 2,120 points for ball one for George. And I'm continuing to be a really poor player. Just going to hit the ramp, George. Just hit the ramp. Yeah. That's all you're going to do. I don't have any ramps. So do it right here. I don't have any ramps. No ramps? You need a ramp, George. Gee, George, you're real smart, aren't you, George? Yeah, yeah, real smart. Oh, boy. Ball two, lousy. I think I'm rubbing off on you. It only takes one ball, though. That's what they say. Let's see how we do this time. Who set this game up, anyway? Okay, so I'm going to try what our neighbor said. Whack it with that flipper. Nice, George made the ramp shot with the upper right flipper. Okay, now I want to try to hit that. Oh, boy. That came. Oh, he's right. Wow, this game's fast. Oh, it's fast. Okay, freeway. You're in race cars, so you're going fast. Freeway. Oh, almost freeway again. Almost hit that twice. He got once around. He was a good teacher. Can he go around the horn? No. Might go around the horn this time. I also want to hit that spinner, that middle spinner there. Oh, I have. Is that? That'll set you up for that ramp shot. Is that kickback operational right now? Yeah, kickback's on right now. Yep, there you go. Boom. Now you can shoot it. Shoot the ramp. Too early. Too early. Now you've got to re-qualify that kickback. Oh, no. Come on. Oh, that's good. There you go. Almost got the yellow light. And the kickback is lit again. Oh, this is a lot harder than watching it on video. Jeez. It's a lot different in person. Oh, my. But the flippers are all totally rebuilt and powerful. It plays great. There you go. He made the ramp. What did you have to do to, oh, jeez. Everything, about 60-plus hours of work on this one. Where, how long you own this game? I bought this game from a guy in Rhode Island. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. About, oh, I don't know, seven years ago, I think. Oh, so you've just been holding on to it? Holding on to it for the right buyer. Then someone asked me what I have for games available. I have a whole list of very nice tours, 432. That's better. That's way better. I'm at 125 right now. Our neighbor taught me well. He did. Either that or you listened well, or both. There we go. So, I'm going to try to connect some of the dots from our previous shows. How would you say this game compares, spinner-wise, to some of the other games? Terrible. Oh, my score is terrible, but the game is not terrible. Okay, let's see. Let's see if I can... Dave's going to want to rematch. George just kicked my butt, so I need a rematch. There's, you know... I said you know. Uh, that's all right. This game doesn't have a lot of features, but the features it has are a lot of fun. Yeah, it has that one more game thing going on. You really want to best this game, because you want to get that jackpot. And a lot of times, it's very elusive. Also, the spinner shot. Oh, so I only need... That will feed the flipper, too, that middle spinner. So I only need two red lights to start multiple. That's it, yep. Well, kind of, to start you going, yes. Then you've got to hit the ramp. Okay, there we go. Now you've got to run the red light. You've got to go up that ramp shot to make the red light. Where do I have to go? Up the ramp. The ramp is right there. Ramp shot, bang. Oh, almost. You almost got it. Come on, come on. You've got halfway up the ramp. You've got halfway up. This thing is fast as could be. Oh, there he goes. Left flipper, hit the freeway, and qualified the kickback just now. That's good. Oh, nice. Set up. Oh, that could be a shot. Ramp. Nice. Do it again. Oh, all right. I got to do it again? Do it again, yes. One more time and you're good to go. Come on, yes. There you go. Now. Hit the ramp now. Bang. Got it. There you go. Now Georgie's rocking and rolling. Now you're going to shoot the ball again. Now listen to what he says. Okay, hit the ball. I have to punch. You shoot and get up. He won. You won, George. See? The dispatcher said you won. But hit the, you've got to go up the ramp. Okay, I'm getting there. There you go. Now one more time. Oh. Now it's going to be three ball, multiball for you. Oh, I missed this part. I didn't, I thought the balls came out automatically. Oh. Oh, you've got to set them up. Now it's going to. Now you're having a party. Now you get three ball, multiball. Oh, my. So do the old hold one ball. I'm going to try to hold one, but. There you go. One, two ball. Oh, there we go. Nice. Good. Look at you pro tools here. I told you, I watched our neighbor. All right, George. Look at him go. He's holding the ball. He's cradled the ball on the right flipper. One cradle, one ball is out in the pop bumper nest there. So what do I want? You want to hit the ramp shot. The ramp is worth a million points. Okay. So you want to, oh, don't do that. Now it's not. Now you're done. Oh. Now it all goes away. Oh, I didn't know that. That's why the ramp, that's why that bonus keeps building up, the progressive jackpot. So I can't light these lights again? You can light them all. You've got to start all over again. Now you've got to light the green. Okay, I'll do that. Yep. It also spots one light every time you go up the ramp. So it's one light for you. So the one... There you go. That's one light. The one thing I like about this game is that if the ramp doesn't work, like you said earlier, because that flipper shot is weak, at least you can hit the targets down and get to the multiball. You can't get... Well, you can't. You have to run the red light. The red light is the ramp. You can get set up to run the red light, but that red light to run is the ramp, and so you can't get multiple and shit that ramp. So if that right flipper is weak or not working, you're kind of screwed. Although I tell you, when I was playtesting this game, I did make the ramp from the lower right flipper once. Some weird shot I got up there, but it's not made to do that. Probably our buddy Eric Stone could do that. So how did I do for a first time? You did pretty good here. Let's see here. I'm going to wait for your score to come up here. Oh, I like that. Dr. Dave's Restorations. Thank you. Oh, you made one million points, Jordan. Nicely done. A million eighty-six. A replay at 1.4. Okay. That's not bad. You did good when you first came out. Okay. What didn't we talk about in this game? What didn't we talk about in this game? Well, let's see. Typically in this game for problems is the ramp gets cracked and broken because they didn't really make good ramps back then. They were kind of very brittle. The plaster they used wasn't too good. This one was a good original and had very little cracking, so I got to repair that, and that worked out great. Someone does make a nice new clear ramp up there and also a translucent red ramp, which also looks nice on this game. Typically, this game will suffer from the diverters up there get kind of loose. They're going to be adjusted. And what else is wrong with this game? Upper right flipper is usually crappy. We both know that the Pinside 100 changes on a regular basis. nothing stays static so this game's floating around 100 we did a multitude of other games and i just want to talk about them in context so paragon came in at around 100 fathom came in around 52 centaur at 60 quicksilver at 74 and stargazer at number 70 or the pin side 100 okay What do you think? Warranted for all those games? I think so. Yeah, I think they should even be higher. Okay. But, you know, I'm kind of biased. Is this game in high demand? I mean, they made a lot of them. You don't see them very often, and if you do, average price from what I could see, $3,000 to $4,000? Is that... Maybe average. If you get a nice restored example like this, you're talking more... No, they go for more. I saw... I'm sure you saw it, too. high-end pins. Did one of these recently. What was his going for Like nine If it not five figures Yeah it got to be ten That seems to be the case The one my customer that wanted this one I gave him a whole restoration queue and I got about 14 games in there, and he saw this one, and the price was right. And I had different prices on it, you know, for like fully gone through, totally restored, soup to nuts. And it was, I don't know, pushing maybe like 6 or 7K or so. And then, you know, this one came in around 4.5, somewhere like there. but all, you know, totally play field, tear down both sides, go through all the boards, all the assemblies, you know, optimize it. Again, 60-plus hours of work. And as you can tell, it plays like it. It plays like a nice new game. Oh, no, this game plays great, and it looks great. The play field looks great. The play field's awesome. Nowhere in the play field has a factory marlite in really nice shape. Oh, I didn't even notice that. I did a little bit of trim on it here and there because it's kind of lifting a little bit here and there, so a little trim. I was going to pull the whole thing off, but once you do that, you can pull paint, you can pull, you know. I notice it now, but if you didn't mention it, I wouldn't. I see a couple of spots, the inserts, but it's where they are. That's zero for how old this game is. It's great. And what I did for this is some of the inserts were really lifting up bad and pushing the mile up really bad. I would actually trim that out, get the inserts out of there, level them and so forth and that kind of thing. But the other ones looked pretty good, and again, I wanted to save the customer some money. And the customer kind of wanted originality anyway, so it all worked out well. that he's going to get the game he wants, and I did what I wanted to the game to make it nice. The one thing I just noticed is the three-dimensional aspect of the plastics with the trees and the bushes. Don't usually see that on the games I collect, so that's neat as well. This is a... I could see somebody owning this game in a collection, even as a single game. There's a lot of fun here. I think a lot of people would enjoy this game. It's very immersive, especially the soundtrack of the game. It gets you pumped. It gets you a lot of tension when you run the light, when you get multiball. Even when you finally win the game, the after soundtrack when you're done just kind of keeps pumping there. So it gets you going. It gets your blood going. You mentioned earlier that it's the first game with a full song. What's the song? It's their own tune. I don't know what the song is, but they actually made a tune. I've actually been humming that tune sometimes I play this game so much I go to a store or whatever and I'm just humming the tune in my head It's an infectious game Unless there's something else that we need to talk about I think we can conclude unless you want a rematch I'll give it to you I'll do a rematch One thing too is I put all because I clean all the inserts lenses underneath there and I put all, there's all incandescent in this game, so I think it looks really nice with incandescent. Although I did, the back glass is mint too. It's a nice new old stock back glass in there. And it even has a mirror there. It's like a rear view mirror. I just noticed that. You know? It has, I put LED, I put some common LEDs behind the back glass, all LEDs back there. It looks really nice. It looks stock. The reds pop nice. I put red LEDs back there to make them pop. Did I miss something when I was playing and not focus on it? How do you light the cherry on top? Oh, that there? Yeah, that was going. You didn't know it. I'm watching. Because you light that by... The game is high speed, and the ball does move at a high speed. So, no, I was not looking at the back glass or at the cherry on top. Whenever that siren you hear is going, that light's going. Just like you mean pulled over by a cop. Okay, now I'm going to pay attention. Let's start another... All right. Let's start another game, and I'll give you the chance to show us how the game's played. I won't bother you as much as that. You can concentrate. Okay. Here we go. Shoot the ball. Up the ramp. Yes, made the shot. Get that green. Two green targets down. Looking for the third one here. Back in it. Up the freeway. Okay, so Dave's got all the green lights completed. And it looks like one of the yellows, I'm not standing in the right spot, and I'm not going to move. But he's moving along through the spinners. Spinners work well, as one would expect. I juiced them. Of course you did. You're known for that, and they do. They rock. Oh, a spinner shot. I wanted that shot. That's good. Take that. I need another yellow target. Come up there. So I can aim. I can aim. Okay. Let's see. What's the maximum bonus on this game? Let's see. 60? 60,000? I don't know if it's cumulative. I don't know if it adds or not. And that's the other thing I didn't ask you. How do you get the multiplier? Up the ramp. It's all about the ramp game, George. We're ramping up. See, I'm not used to all that. So everything's focused on the ramp. When in doubt, hit the ramp. Okay, well, as I said, our neighbor taught us well. You've got left freeway feeding the right flipper. It's really the way to go and try to kick the ball from draining between the flippers. Yes. And hit the red lights. Oh, come on. And this game does move. It does. You're at high speed here. We're high speeding. Pop up Ernest. Trying to set up my shot for the ramp there. There it is. Okay, set the shot. Well, he's already over half a million, so I have a feeling... Vengeance. I'm, uh... I might be cooked as they say. Oh, I lost the ball. Okay. Well, that's not bad. I'll take that for a first ball. No, that's real good. Let's see what do I have first ball about 800,000 I'll take that 850 nice and bonus held oh so that 40,000 that you had for bonus carries is there a threshold or is it everything if it's 1,000 or 40,000 it carries over not sure on that aspect I don't know okay I haven't paid attention on that one. Okay. Good question. I'm good for asking crazy questions and I think that was even worse than the first ball. It is, but again, you kicked ass on ball three, so. Let's see if we can do it again here. Yeah, the flippers are very strong on this game. That upper flipper, I can't imagine playing this game with that thing being limp. All right, now, get up there. Yes, there we go. I love the sound of this game. Look at the red light above it. Oh, there we go. Oh, that's cool. Oh, that must have been wild back in the day. Oh, yeah. No one saw that back in the day. Yeah, that must have been. That's why everybody was playing this game. They'd leave the other games behind and say, I've got to play that game. So when this game came out in the arcade, was it a quarter or half a buck? I think it was 25 cents still. I think it was 25 cents still. There you go. Okay, Dave. I got my word cut out for me. Here we go. Up the ramp we go. Up the ramp we don't go. Halfway up the ramp. Okay. Now it's going to... Too early. Stop that. Got to shoot late. A little later. Oh, almost. There we go. Okay. Oh, out she goes. Yeah, I'm not doing so well this time. Although you're ready to run the red light. I'm playing like I normally do. You get two red lights to go and you're qualified. So what I'm going to do now, I'm going to run the red light here. See around there. Up the ramp. There we go. Now we're going to kick- Okay, so now- multiball is going to happen now. It's weird that it's not an automatic multiball. I'm not used to that. There goes one of them. There goes one of them. So you have two. So you need to hit the ramp to get a million? I do. And you need to have both balls in play in order to do that? No, it's not going to happen again. It's not going to happen. Okay, give me a chance to come back. This game is ferocious. Wow. I do have it set kind of steep, too. No, I think it plays nice. It plays nice. Oh, you didn't even get the... No, 14 was the free game. I got 13.59. Okay, well, I'm probably not going to fare any better. Oh, and the poor pole. That was awful. And that jackpot just keeps growing. Oh, come on. I want that red light. One more red light to go, I think, to Georgie. There it is. Okay, now you've got to hit that ramp shot. Get set up for it. Middle spinner is a good way to get it. Or that way. Okay, here we go. Let's go. Oh, halfway up again. Come on. But he qualified the kickback. That's good. You get that qualified. How did I do that? By hitting that little orange thing. Not that way. Not that way. Okay, that's it. All right, well. You slayed me. Looks like almost an inverse of what was the first game. Yes, pretty much. Okay, I'm not going to ask for a rubber match But that's a great game This song goes in my head when I go shopping sometimes You know Catching it Let's sing along to High Speed Doing what all the other idiots Do on their podcast Bad, George, bad Bad, bad Well, we might get a call in later from Mr. Eric Stone, who wants to weigh in on high speed. And he's actually in the area today. He's actually... No, he's up in New Hampshire? Well, yeah. Oh, really? They let him out of Florida? They did. Does he have to do the Carl Weathers forecast? Nope, he's always driving around in a taxi for his friends. I don't have to ask what he's doing. He's driving a taxi. That's what he's doing. No. Yeah, he's driving a taxi for his friend. And then after that, he'll go and get some tokens. Right, that's what I was thinking. And some tickets and so forth. When you said he was driving the taxi, I thought you were speaking in tongues saying he's playing the pinball taxi. He's actually driving a car ferrying people around up in the Lakes region. Yes. Yoo-hoo, taxi. Eric. He's a maniac. Yeah. But he'll play high speed at some of these arcades even now. Well, he's going to go play with the Coin Pusher and Frogger. And if you haven't listened to those podcasts, this is... That's a good list. I'm being such a shill today. Very funny. I'm being a shill for all our podcasts. But thank you, everybody. You keep listening to all our back podcasts. It's great. And Eric Stone's take on here in a second on high speed. Dialing for dollars. Williams Pinball. Steve Ritchie. Eric Stone. Hey, what's up? It's Eric Stone. Hey. We're a classic pinball podcast. We were talking about high speed today. Your name came up. But first of all, just to kind of introduce high speed here. Hold on a second here. Hit the ignition switch. There we go. That's a proper introduction. We got the music going now. We do. So, I think I remember playing High Speed with you several times at different arcades, and a lot of them had busted flippers, and you couldn't really make that. I remember you couldn't make that ramp, or I couldn't make the ramp, but you could make the ramp. You were the busted flipper. You just kind of shoved the machine a little bit, I believe. Is that correct? yeah that's right you know especially the one a fun spot uh it actually doesn't work terribly bad now uh most of the time that flipper will make it up the ramp but sometimes you kind of have to kind of push on the side of it or the front side of it and uh help the ball up there okay i remember you doing that it's like i know how you i could it was a wet noodle for me i couldn't do anything with that flipper but i remember you just kind of somehow you you kept easing it up there it was amazing. Yeah, you know, I got the world record on that game. I think it was 42 million. Remember, that was my three and a half hour game. I know, and the game was like hurting. It was just like, it needed a good refurb, and you still would rule the frickin' thing. I couldn't believe you're doing that. It was amazing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, just ask the in lane until an extra ball lights up, and then hit that, and then try to get multiball if you can hit the ramp enough times, you know, but I think I was able to get several multi-balls in that game. Because I was talking to George about it today. We were going over high speed today, and he said, well, if you can't make the ramp, you can just hit those stand-ups and you'd be at multiball. I was like, no, the ramp is integral. You need that ramp at some point to run the red light and to lock the balls. Otherwise, it ain't happening. Yep, and then you've got to get the jackpot, too. Yeah, I believe. I have a hard time getting the jackpot. I think it's just the pressure of the three-ball multiball, even cradling the balls and trying to go up there. I just couldn't nail it. It was elusive to me to get the jackpot. Now the jackpot's getting so high now, it's like, I think, 12, 1.2 million right now. Oh, do you have a high speeder house? I do, yeah, I just finished restoring it. Oh, that's pretty cool. Oh, I got a nice restored high speed right here. Come on down. Wow, I know. So I've been driving a taxi the last few weeks. I've been up here, I'm going to pick up some people now. Hey, taxi. Yeah, I know, exactly. It's a crazy taxi. I like the game. Yeah, the crazy taxi, or like Taxi the Williams game. Well, exactly. Santa Claus and Gorby and the rest of them. Yep. George wanted to ask you about your ranking, rising or falling, by not playing in tournaments. There's some people talking about tournament play and talking about that kind of stuff. What's your take on that? Let me check real quick. I know I dropped. I dropped from two to four. but other people are going to be dropping too. Looks like I'm still in fourth. So, yeah, I was number two in the world for several months and I think the Pintastic tournament and maybe a couple of the Pinberg tournaments fell off of my card. So I lost a few points. So I'm fourth now. I mean, there's not much you can do if you can't earn points, you know what I mean? But everybody's dropping at the same time, So isn't everything all equal at this point? Everybody's dropping because nothing's happening to play anything? Right, exactly. Yeah, everybody's under 1,000 points. I think Raymond was around 1,150, and I don't know if I was at like 1,055, 1,060. And now Raymond's down to 995. I think I'm down to 950. So, you know, everybody loses points until, you know, the IFPA gets going again and tournaments start going for points. So. Okay, interesting. So maybe next year sometime. But I think Houston is supposedly going to do something in November from what I'm hearing. Well, and you still got a free play in Florida at the end of November. So, you know, I haven't heard that canceled yet. But we'll see. You know. I don't know what they're going to do. Are there some new games showing up at the Florida location? You got some new games there coming in? No, same old, same old. We need to, if you go up to Orlando, there's a couple of arcades north of Orlando that has new stuff, like the Turtles and the Hot Wheels and Willy Wonka, stuff like that. Well, I have a gorgeous high speed and a home use only gorgeous Circus Voltaire right here in front of me, down in my basement tech area. Oh, getting into the ramp games, huh? I like you. I'm ramping out big time. I scored a Circus Voltaire. I also scored an Indiana Jones as well. Oh, look at you. That's pretty good. I ramping with the best of them You joining the rampers Well there a lot of money in ramping so Oh yeah of course There a lot of money playing in tournaments with ramps too Yeah, well, especially if you're good like you. Yeah, well, I'm still looking for a diner, so if you find one of them, let me know. Okay, I have my eye out for one. I got my eye out for a... I'm looking for a Fonzie 8-ball for a customer. I've sold two of them, and I got people that want more of that, so I need to get more 8-balls in here. I got Demand. Oh, that sounds good. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great game. I love 8-Ball. Yeah, good simple game. You know, meat and potatoes kind of thing, you know. Yep. Yep, good decent game. What other games you got lined up? What do you got in your living room now? My living room, my game room living room upstairs there, we got Paragon, Xenon, Flash Gordon, Fathom, and 8-Ball Deluxe. Oh, okay, that's pretty good. Not as many Sterns up there. You used to have all Sterns. Yeah, I decided to change it up and do all classic valleys for now. Okay. But the stairs will come back up. I really want to, and I've got a gorgeous Stargazer, Quicksilver, Stars, not Lightning, Flight 2000, and I really want to get my nine ball going. I've got a gorgeous nine ball I want to fix up and bring upstairs as well. Well, you used to have a nine ball, I remember, up there years ago. Did you get rid of that one? I got rid of that one because that was a nice copy, but I got even a better copy of it that I'm going to restore up. I sold that to a customer a couple years back because he saw it and he wanted it. He said, you know, I want it no matter what. So I was like, all right, I'll sell it because I already had another one lined up for me. But the problem is now I have to go and spend my time restoring it up for me when the other one was all nice and playable. Oh, I know. I remember. And I got no time because I'm like the woodworking guy, the finished carpenter. Everybody else's stuff is great, but his own house isn't so good. You know what I mean? He's spending all his time on the customer stuff. That's what it is. That's good. Oh, yeah. Making money while the sun shines kind of situation. Yeah, yeah. Doing what you love to do. That's a good thing. Doing what I love to do. Exactly. Doing what I love to do and getting paid for it. You've got to pursue your passions in life and your purpose, you know, so that's what you do. And that's what you call God blessing you. Yeah, God blessing you. Exactly right. Yep, you follow whatever God gives you for your talents and your blessings. You use those and do what he gave you, and you're going to succeed pretty well. Just follow that path. Yeah, exactly. Yep, exactly. You know. Oh, yeah. Yep. So what else has been going on in the world of stone? well you know Walter Day made two more cards of me did you see that no I heard about it but I didn't I didn't see them so two more playing cards right two more yeah or trading cards trading cards yeah yeah one for winning both events at Freeplay Florida last year and then basically the next big tournament winning Intest the World Championship well great good for you yeah so you know God bless me And that was big time. And I bought four games in the past four months. I bought a really nice Stern Star Trek, a sofa safari, a transporter. And, well, I bought the end of the last year. You were with me up in Nashua. Oh, yeah. I finally picked it up and brought it down to Florida. Nice. Yeah. So. And that transporter. Yeah, we had a family in New Hampshire, you know, with, you know, a couple of fun spot tokens. Yeah, just a couple. I heard about that. And some Frogger tickets. You emptied the Frogger ticket machine. Yeah, I haven't played Frogger as much this time around. No? When I'm in a taxi, sometimes I only have a few minutes of fun spot, so I don't really have the time to wait. Oh, okay. When you hit the 500 ticket, it takes, you know, several minutes for the tickets to kick out. So you just go in, so you get a couple minutes between taxi pickups. You just go in, put a couple quarters in the right spot on the pusher thing, collect your dough and leave and go back in the taxi. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So I've been doing that. So your taxi's kind of like your getaway car, if you think about it. You know, you go in, you rob the machine. Yeah, I wish I could drive it that fast. first i want to thank our audience both new and those who have been around for a while dave i know we talked about this offline we had the best week we've ever had in the year plus of our podcast and for the life of me i can't figure out why but i wanted to thank everybody because I don't think we ever really thanked our audience. And for all those who are new to us, thanks for coming aboard. For all of you who have listened through countless ums and ahs and everything else that I do incorrectly in the broadcast world, thanks. Appreciate it. Same here. An audience makes the show. People that get what we do, we do it a little differently here. And it shows with people that actually appreciate our content. And I really appreciate you guys and gals for listening to what we've got to say about pinball, and classic pinball especially. The entire time I knew him, he only ever had one goal. To wipe out half the universe. Dave, I'm sure you're aware that a brand new game from Stern has come out this week. Prior to the announcement, there were several podcasts speculating as to the who, the what, and the where, and that's all released right now. So, I'd like you to watch the trailer that was published by Stern. and there's one aspect of the game, it's in, I believe, their second or third model, not the lower end model. There's a feature on it. I want your reaction. All right. Okay, pro model. All right, a ramp or two. All right, cut, talk off. Okay. Is Keith playing the game? Here it is. Okay, the spinner thing. Looks like from some safe cracker. Nope. Wait, here it comes. Okay. Premium model, all right. I think that's where it is. Let's see where the changes are here. What did they do to make it even better? Ah, the spinner comes up and they shoot inside. What game is that from? That is from Metallica. No. No. You just got it. Isn't it very similar to Circus Voltaire? Sort of. Isn't there a feature like that on that game? That goes underground like that? Under Subway? No, just... Oh, you're right. Yes, that's right. The Ringmaster comes up. Yes, that is like that. Right. Yeah. Right. The difference is... We're going to be one of the first podcasts that has a recording, because everybody recorded earlier in the week. Okay. Okay, cool. So, yes, the differentiator is that subway. Okay. I'm guessing it's real. Yeah, to lock balls. Well, sometimes they make it false. The ball goes down and they have balls loaded in a trough and it makes it look like it's going down. I don't think that's the case with this game. It looks like they're locking balls there. Right. But I'm saying you could stage it so that it looks like the ball is going down, where actually it's the same ball all the time, and a ball comes up somewhere else or however the mic works. There's other ways of doing the trickery, I guess, is what I'm getting at. I just wanted your reaction on that one piece. Yeah, it's like a safecracker hybrid with circus together kind of thing, with that little... it's interesting. I'm listening to another podcast, as I always do, and the person was calling out the old timers now oh yeah i'm having a birthday tomorrow yes i am old yes i am stayed in my ways but the accusation was and i don't know if it's aimed at us but i took it personally that we are not welcoming to people who might not like the games that we feature, i.e. newer Sterns. I thought about it. Are we really that bad? We talk about them. We might not have them in our collection. You work on them. You're polite to your customers when they have them. I couldn't think of anybody else in the hobby that does a podcast that might be as ancient as i am what do you say i i don't see us really trashing the uh the ramp gains that bad we'll kind of throw a couple little digs here and there but they're they're good games they're just not uh just the classics the old school classics are a lot tougher and uh more challenging and um i i the analogy for me has always been, I tell people, customers, and anybody that wants to listen, that an old school game is like a short story. A new game, a new ramp game, is like a novel. Do I have time to read a novel, or do I have time for a little short story? And I don't say I have a couple short stories and then go to work. I don't have time to read several novels. It takes all day. If you're a good player, you can play all day on ball one a lot of this stuff. So that's why we like the old school, like the artwork, and, you know, several of the reasons, but that's why we prefer that. But we don't really, I wouldn't say we trash the new stuff that bad. If there's a bad egg out there, if there's a real turd, sure. You mean like thunder turds? Yeah, like thunder turds. Right, well, but that's universal. I think everybody dislikes that game, and it, you know, rubs the bottom of the barrel, as they say. There is talk that there is going to be another band game released shortly. I'm going to expand it a little bit. First I want to ask you what out of these three would be your favorite of the three bands. And then I'm going to ask you what should be made into a pin. So the three bands are Led Zeppelin, Queen, and Guns N' Roses. What game would you like to see made into a pin, and what's your favorite out of the three? They might not be the same. I'd say Guns N' Roses, even though Data East already did it. I think there's a lot of potential for that game. A lot of fans like Guns N' Roses. It would really pay off well with the sound technology they have these days and how nice the sound is on the modern games with a subwoofer and all the speakers that are in them and all the high-quality circuitry that goes into that. The other one, the Led Zeppelin one, I don't know, kind of dark. It's kind of dark and moody kind of thing. And Queen, you know, that's okay too, but kind of mellow. But ACDC kind of kicks you in the pants. Not ACDC, what's the other one? Guns N' Roses, both of them. Yeah, they both kick you in the pants. But Guns N' Roses, I think, is more up music and more party time. And that's what you want in a pinball machine. You want, like, happy, happy, fun, fun. And that would do it for me. So is it safe to assume that you like Guns N' Roses better than the other two bands? Yeah, I'd say out of those three to listen, I'm going to tell you that I don't listen to much of any of those these days. But I'd say, yeah, I'd say probably Guns N' Roses out of all those three. I'd probably, to turn the channel, I'd go to Guns N' Roses probably first. I'm going to agree that Guns N' Roses is probably the one to be made. When I owned my restaurant back in the 80s, that album was, what is it, Appetite for Destruction? Was that the popular one with all the hits on it? I think it was. Mid-80s, 87. that that album was played to death on rock radio so it's got to have a mass appeal i'm more of a queen fan than a led zeppelin fan i like all three bands but i'd probably prefer to listen to queen over the other bands but that's because i saw them a long long before they ever hit it big i saw them on Broadway, so I have a little bit of a nostalgia for that band. I saw Led Zeppelin, too. I never had the opportunity to see Guns N' Roses, and I'm not so sure I would go see a... I would go see them today. How's that? I never saw any of these bands live back in the day, and it would be great to see Guns N' Roses. It's showtime. The Houston Arcade Show that I went to last year is going to go on in November. They're holding it. Wow. All right. So Janice got a couple of Facebook posts, one from Robert Byers. He's not the person I interviewed. I've met Robert when I played in the tournament. they're unclear whether Space City who is the arcade in the Houston area that sponsors it is going to do the tournament because of all the restrictions but they are going to have the show Keith who is the owner of or the person who puts on the program is moving forward with it I was kind of surprised to be honest with you I think it's kind of apropos that Space City because you have to have a lot of space to keep space apart. It's funny that you say that because when I talked to my wife, I said they had a lot of machines crammed in there, and if you want to listen, I did two episodes, a pre and a post, for Houston. I don't know how many games they're going to be able to put in that room if there's going to be a six-foot social distancing, but I'm sure there are going to be a lot of eyes looking at that particular show to see how it's done now I think that Europe I think is doing it right right now there's all kinds of protests going on and they're protesting all this stuff saying enough's enough let's let's stop with this we're done so I think Europe is maybe the first one to do a regular pinball show just like it's done like last year with no anything well they they have they've they haven't done shows but they've done a couple of tournaments uh in Fulda Germany again it was members of that pinball club they've had a tournament recently that was on Twitch and before that I think it was in Austria beautiful place up on in the in the Alps they had a tournament that attracted people from a multitude of countries. It was limited, but again, they put them on. So they're certainly a little bit more progressive than we are as far as getting back into pinball tournaments. Haven't heard anything about a show yet, but I'm sure it's to come. You're familiar with Whizbang Productions, the people who made Woe Nelly? Yes. so that would be greg fraris and dennis nordman yes i heard this rumor and i'm wondering i don't remember where i heard it i wrote it down now do you think those two could pull off doing a blues brothers pin do you think there's enough of an audience for that particular pin the music would be great the characters are good too i think i think that could work because i think that age set would be 40s 50s maybe in 60s um yes and yes and so these people have you know on the most part if you're going to make your money you've made your money and now you want to buy a piece of your childhood back and we're so with that thing and i think definitely i think that could work. Yeah. I don't know if you seen it but Jim Belushi John brother has a new TV show on cable Heard about it Haven seen it Yeah You know what it's about, right? You told me, but I forget what it was. He's now a farmer in Oregon. Oh, a special kind of farmer. He is a special kind of farmer in Oregon. and part of his repertoire, I guess, is that they are going to come out with a Blues Brothers-based product. So I'm sure all you Oregonians are already familiar with it, but I thought that was pretty wild. So if they're open to having that product out in the marketplace, I can't see how they wouldn't be willing and open to a Blues Brothers pen. Yeah. I think it's a matter of who's going to step up. I don't think that's a Stern thing, and I don't think it would be any of the other companies out there. Whizbang sounds like, yeah, because they're a one-off. And those guys did a great job, I thought. A lot of people don't like the theme, but I thought that was a cool game that they put together. Maybe Spooky might do it, or Spooky Pinball. I don't know. I don't know. I think they're busy. They're going to be busy for the next year plus, cranking out Rick and Morty. So that should be interesting to see if that game ever gets made. No, you don't listen to all the podcasts. Well, George, I'm in a basement. Down in the basement. Yeah. Down in the basement. Yeah. You know, sometimes I come out of the basement, but they don't let me out of the basement too much. Well, at least you're not in the gilded cage. I mean, I've been holed up. I actually was let go. My wife left the door open and I was able to come down here and go in your basement. So this is twice in, what, two weeks that we're seeing each other and doing this live. So I like it a lot better. I feel that our interplay is a lot easier when I can actually see you and talk to you directly rather than doing it through a phone or Skype or any other means. And we're only one foot apart. Uh-oh. I've hit, uh, we've been doing, traveling for a lot of games lately. I think we've gone to New York, Narragansett, Rhode Island, up into New Hampshire to get that Paragon I scored. Oh, and for the Paragon I scored, nice back glass on it, nice cabinet, a Roach playfield. but I did score a CPR play field for that. You talked about that in our Xenon episode, and you were calling them just before we went on air. So did you get that? I got them. Oh, I haven't looked at them. You're going to have to show me that. I got to show you that. I got to show you. It looks very nice, but you definitely can tell the digital process versus Silkstream. There are differences. Thank you for bringing that up. Again, I don't remember who you are because I listen to everybody on podcast. but do you know how many screen i know where i heard it now shout out to bruce nightingale thank you for sharing what you did as a past profession in the photography business i had no idea i'm familiar with Marc Silk screening uh when i was a high schooler the graphic arts teacher was starting to be annoyed because all i would do during graphic arts is make t-shirts He's like, don't you want to do something else? I'm like, no, I love making T-shirts. And I did a two-color. And just to marry up a two-color is difficult enough. How many screens, I forget what game he was talking about, how many screens do you think they use on some of these games to recreate the play field art? Let's go with seven. You're low. Keep going. Twelve. Keep going. Oh, really? Wow. He said he's seen up to 16 to 18 colors put on, I believe he was talking about playfields. I had no idea. So you mentioned digital. Now you can understand the labor intensity of doing a silkscreen version of a play field versus press the button and the inkjet printer, I'm guessing, or some sophisticated type of printer. Yep, inkjet. would print it onto a play field because i can now part of my background is with uh ink check technology working on wide format printers and that kind of thing so i know those work and they uh they basically spray out little dots back and forth in a pattern and they kind of merge the dots together to make colors but when you really it looks great from you know far away arm's length it looks perfect as you go in and zoom in real close you can see uh you can see the spray. You can see the little spray dock pattern. So can you see the pixelation? Yeah, you can. Up close. So if you use the jeweler's loop... Oh, definitely. Okay. Yep. Yeah. So that's the new, I guess, the new process for one of the vendors. I thought that was interesting. I'm glad you brought it up. Any other... Anything else that we need to talk about? I can even show you, George, in this here, if you want. that that is it the cpr oh look at that okay and here is a silkscreen totally different the saturation is totally the silkscreen right okay so when you zoom in it's just like it's solid solid everything's solid because of the process right interesting oh another thing uh shout out to planetary pinball they do some really nice work with their back glasses. I have a customer that wants me to do a restoration on a space shuttle, and of course, like most space shuttles, the back glass is flaked all to hell. So I picked up one from them with mirroring, and it looks fantastic. I didn't even know that they sold the back glasses. Yeah, they have some nice back glasses. They hold the rights to Bali, correct? And Williams. See, I did it again. I need to correct myself. Bali. Right, it's Bali instead of Ba-lee. So Bali. Bali. Bali. Tomato. Bali. Bali. Ba. Ba. Ba-ba. Bali. The other day, I had a service call for a Stern Electronimo 1977, so an early solid-state Stern, and had a problem, a typical problem for this era of game, you know, the no high voltage, no high voltage displays. So I said, okay, I'll just bring an extra saw and a driver board with me, easy swap in, I'll take the other one back with me and rebuild it and put that back in my stock. So I brought that with me and I also brought, I said, well, while I'm there, I'll just bring everything. So I loaded up the car, put everything in it, you know, connectors and all that stuff. Went up there and said, yep, we verified it was, no displays coming on. and I decided to go right to where the power driver board there, the transformer board, and looked at that, and yep, there's a blown fuse there for the high voltage. I said, okay. So what was in there was a remanufacturer. It was a remanufacturer. It's one of those replacement boards, one of those companies that do a replacement transformer board. Another tech was in there recently, and this customer had an issue. the tech put in a transformer board and it ran great for a day but the next day it failed and that's when he called me so maureen and i went out there looked at it found a bad fuse like well i'll just we'll put another we'll put a fuse in there and see what happens immediately when i turned it on pop it went it's like okay so took the fuse out i put in uh and i started investigating I looked at the diodes, there's four diodes that make the voltage for that high voltage. They don't use a bridge for that, they use four diodes to make a bridge. Tested all those, those are all fine. And again, this board's brand new. But I say, well, just in case maybe one's flaky, I'll just replace all four of those diodes. It's got to be something like that, some weird flaky thing. Put another fuse in there, pop again. It's like, okay, that's really weird. What else is here? And so then I put in a bigger fuse just to see what happened. You know, I put it like instead of a three-quarter amp, I put like a three-amp slow blow in there just to see what happened, leave it on for a couple seconds. I did that. I started getting a little bit of a transformer hum. I go, okay, that's bad. Then all of a sudden, boom, it blew the main three-amp fuse. I think, okay, that was pretty unhappy. So, but no smoke. So at that point, I said, this is really puzzling. I said, why don't we, I'll put a, I'll take the fuse out of there. I'll put, replace the main fuse. I'll put, I'll put ground clips, little jumper wires on the, on the fuse clips and just put it on for a couple seconds, see what it does. I did that. So I, so basically I jumped with no fuse, but I jumped the fuse clips. So my, basically like putting tinfoil in there, let's say, right. You know, something I want to leave in there for good, but for testing purpose, I want to see what it do. And did that. It all came up. No smoke, no hum. Displays were fine. I had high voltage and everything. The game was happy. It's like, that's really odd. Then I put, what else did I do? I think then Maureen said, well, maybe it's bad fuse clips. I go, they can't be bad fuse clips. They're all, everything's brand new. But she said, I don't know. Why don't we just check it out? I said, okay. So it's great bringing her along because she'll think outside the box and I'll kind of get too focused in. and she kind of is a good check for me. And I said, okay, we'll take those fuse clips out. When I took them out, I saw the problem. The problem was when they made the board, they made the ground flood, they call it. John Day, I'll talk to him later about this. It was way too close to the fuse clips and so close that this 200 volts going through there, it actually arced out underneath the fuse clips. It would only happen when the fuse clips were expanded with a fuse. When the fuse clips were relaxed with just a jumper clip on it, it would not hit that spot of the ground plane. It only would hit it with a fuse in there. So a real, real good one. So I was so psyched to see that. I took a picture of it and everything. And so what I did is I took some, I was trying to think how to solve it for now. I think it's going to work. I put basically a really small piece, doubled up a small piece of black electrical tape to cover that little spot. And then I put new fuse clips in there. kind of had them up a little bit lifted up over that area you know not snug down super tight put them in there put the proper fuse in there bang again runs fine now so that was the tech tip for that one there that's the first time i've ever seen that and again the original board would not do that it's something you know this is the only real reman one uh remanufactured board i've seen uh out in the wild anyway i hope they all don't do this but this particular manufacturer did it this way. So I'm probably going to reach out to them and say, hey, this is what I found on your board. You might want to redesign this thing. How about you on the pinball circuit at all? There's no real circuit, so what are you doing for pinball play and stuff these days? I'm just kind of hanging out and, you know, just practicing a little off at Fun Spot and down at Weir's Beach and just, you know, having a good time, really. So you're kind of like Clubber Stephen Lang in the gym. You're going to Clubber Stephen Lang, just, you know, I must be alone. I work out alone. I'm going to be alone here. I mean, you know me. I don't really practice all that much. Yep. You know, like newer games, I will practice on that, you know, to try to get the nuances and the feel and stuff like that. But, I mean, when I lived in Salt Lake City, the only times I ever played with them when I came back here to New Hampshire, once or twice a year in the summer. I don't usually lose anything by not playing, you know what I'm saying? Which is pretty good. I find I do well myself when I don't play at all for a long time and I come back to it. I'll kick butt on games because I don't really expect much and I'll get new high scores. If I keep playing, my scores go down because now I'm expecting certain things. I have expectations, and then you let your mind work against you. It's a sight game. It's a head game. Well, as long as you don't get high on your mind, that's perfectly fine. I'm coming after you. I basically... What's your highest score on my fathom? What would you get? Do you remember? Did I roll it? I can't remember. It was a high. No, you rolled it, but I know I have it written down. I got $15 million on it. I rolled it plus $5 million on my phone. I want to say it was 18. Yep. It wasn't quite two rolls, but I think I called you in the room and like, hey, I've been rolling a second time. Maybe, but then I never did. So I'm pretty sure it was close to two. I remember it was 18. I remember it was 18 million. Because I remember I was so proud of my 15. I remember I called you right away. It's like, I think I got you. Then you remind me, no, I get 18. It's like, you mother. Well, you know what? You got plenty of time to try to keep going for it, you know? Oh, yeah. I don't know. I think I, I don't know if it's since then or whatever, but I know I make the extra ball shot shorter than the regular. Typically, I think it's like 10 seconds. I made it like six or seven seconds for the extra ball to time out, you know? Okay. It's a lot better that way because otherwise it's only too long. You got to really hit that shot pretty quick. otherwise it goes away. Which is how it should be. I can't remember how many extra balls I had but I just know I got multiball and I kept hitting the spear spinner which is always good. Oh yeah, 5,000. I juice those things as you know. Yeah, and I mean you got what is it, three times multiplier? Even two times multiplier and you rip that thing. Oh, you're going. Yeah, because 5,000 spin times two or times three and it goes and goes. That's a lot of points. Yeah, I mean I think I was getting what, 600, 700,000 just on a spin. It was ridiculous. Oh, yeah. That was great. I feel like 40, you know, 40 spins on a good rip. Maybe 35, but either way, it was quite a bit. Oh, yeah. Later, Ed. Thanks for giving me the call, all right? All right. All right, Eric. Stay blessed. God bless. You too. All right, bye. Bye-bye. And that was Eric Stone checking in. He's actually home from Florida for a little while for his birthday. He sees his parents and hanging up in Laconia there and talk a little high-speed pinball and other classic pinball. A lot of fun playing with him when he comes over, whenever he does. And he tries to take all my high scores down in my games while I have him here. And he usually does. But he gives me something to shoot for, so that's always good. That's all for now from High Speed Central and Eric Stone checking in. Oh, you know When you've got it But you don't know Where it's from It hurts to break It hurts to talk I can't even breathe Finding drugs In your drugs Something that you choose from I don't know Should I go to the doctor Or stay right here Watch the two I feel down Down, down The faces and wills Come on. Thank you.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: da9c7161-2d4f-457e-a22c-c50aad0f1d52*