# TOPCast 32: Steve Ritchie **Source:** TOPCast - This Old Pinball **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2007-05-09 **Duration:** 110m 0s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** http://www.pinrepair.com/topcast/showget.php?id=32 --- ## Analysis Steve Ritchie recounts his pioneering career in pinball design, spanning from Atari in the 1970s through his legendary work at Williams (Flash, Firepower, Black Knight series) and later Stern. He discusses his early life, transition into the industry, innovative design philosophy centered on ball flow and shot layout, collaborative relationships with programmers like Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar, and his perspective on industry dynamics and competitive manufacturers. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Steve Ritchie was employee number 50 at Atari and worked in their pinball division after approximately 6-7 months of the company's founding — _Steve Ritchie directly states this in the interview_ - [HIGH] Flash sold 20,000 machines and set a new Williams all-time sales record at the time — _Steve Ritchie states: 'it sold 20,000 machines and smoked about the, you know, the Williams all-time record at the time and for sales'_ - [HIGH] Steve Ritchie invented the 'flash lamp' technology for pinball machines, using 24-25 volts instead of standard 12 volts with preheating — _Ritchie explains the technical innovation: 'they had to preheat them... would hit it with 25 volts, a 24 volts instead of 12. Just for a brief moment'_ - [HIGH] Lane change on Firepower was invented by Ritchie, who asked programmer Eugene Jarvis if it was possible to cycle unlit inserts under the ball — _Ritchie states: 'I invented lane change on Firepower. I asked Eugene if it was possible to move an unlit insert under the ball'_ - [HIGH] Eugene Jarvis wrote the first dancing display animation in pinball code on Firepower with only 3-4 bytes of memory remaining — _Ritchie recalls: 'Eugene went absolutely insane with the code. I think there were only like three or four bites left. He did the world's first dancing display animation'_ - [HIGH] Black Knight was the first multi-level pinball machine, though Ritchie notes other designers could have done it earlier — _Ritchie states: 'it was the first, you know, multi-level game' and 'I'm the guy that just did it. I think any of them could have done it'_ - [MEDIUM] Star Wars (Superman) came out at Atari after Ritchie had finished the game at Williams — _Ritchie notes the timing: 'Superman didn't come out until after I had finished the game at Williams, which is really interesting'_ - [HIGH] Nolan Bushnell (Atari founder) directly approved Ritchie's Airborne Avenger design after seeing it, saying 'build it up. We'll try it' — _Ritchie recounts: 'I went to Nolan Bushnell, and I asked him if I could build this game. He looked at it and he said, you did this at home and I said, yeah. And he goes, build it up'_ - [HIGH] Mike Straw, Williams' new president, recruited Ritchie from Atari with more than double his Atari salary plus moving expenses — _Ritchie states: 'it's for like a little more than double my salary at Atari plus moving expenses'_ - [HIGH] Stellar Wars sold 5,500 units, which was the best-selling wide-body game at that point in time — _Ritchie notes: '5,500 units was the most sold of a wide body at that point'_ ### Notable Quotes > "I do remember the pinball machines were all mounted on like a platform. They didn't have individual legs. They were all mounted up about two and a half feet up." > — **Steve Ritchie**, early in interview > _Describes early pinball machine design and his childhood introduction to the game at a San Francisco beach_ > "I walked in. There were these beautiful young girls all over the place just in the lobby... the receptionist said, hey, it's like that all over the factory. Wherever you stand, you get stereo. That's how the president likes it." > — **Steve Ritchie**, mid-interview > _Humorous recollection of Atari's unique workplace culture in its early days_ > "I drew Flash and it was figure eight with a cross shot. You know, a very simple game, but I had the name. I wanted to make it Flash and I wanted really bright lights on it." > — **Steve Ritchie**, mid-interview > _Describes the conception of Flash, one of his most iconic games_ > "What I didn't my design different from the rest of the people was I looked at the ball's motion... Shots did not start where the ball actually traveled." > — **Steve Ritchie**, mid-interview > _Articulates his core design philosophy around ball flow and shot layout, a key innovation_ > "It's really based on, well, a great way to explain the feeling and how it feels is to put together a nice billiard shot... It's like that. Anyway, that's what I think I brought to pinball." > — **Steve Ritchie**, mid-interview > _Explains his design philosophy using billiards as an analogy for smooth, satisfying ball flow_ > "They're both two of the smartest individuals on the planet... Eugene is like, hey man, what do you think? And Larry would be like, tell me what you want." > — **Steve Ritchie**, later in interview > _Compares his working relationships with two legendary programmers, Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar_ > "The relationship between Eugene and I was very synergistic. We were also very motivated. We wanted to be on top. We wanted to make the best games possible." > — **Steve Ritchie**, mid-interview > _Describes the creative synergy with Eugene Jarvis on Firepower and other games_ > "I feel lucky that I got it. If I'm happy and I really like what I'm doing, this shit just pours out. And I let it. And then I try to perfect it." > — **Steve Ritchie**, mid-interview > _Reflects on his creative process and design philosophy_ > "I'll do great games, I'll do whatever I can. I'll work my ass off for you, but we're not going to fool each other about what we do and how it happened" > — **Steve Ritchie**, later in interview > _Shows his independent attitude and commitment to excellence while at Williams_ > "I think that the best pinball machines have a personality or several. When they have a personality, they speak to you. They call out and they say, come and kick my ass." > — **Steve Ritchie**, later in interview > _Core design philosophy about theme and personality in pinball machines_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Steve Ritchie | person | Legendary pinball designer, subject of this interview. Career spans Atari, Williams, Stern. Designed Flash, Firepower, Black Knight series, Star Trek Next Generation, Terminator series, Spider-Man, Elvis, and others. | | Eugene Jarvis | person | Legendary pinball programmer and co-designer. Worked with Ritchie on multiple games including Superman (Atari), Flash, and Firepower at Williams. Ritchie describes him as 'one of the smartest individuals on the planet' and a fellow musician/artist. | | Larry DeMar | person | Brilliant pinball programmer at Williams who worked with Ritchie. Co-designed Black Knight and other games. Described as intense, committed, and stubborn; had 'fireworks' with Ritchie but great success together. | | Nolan Bushnell | person | Founder/big boss at Atari who approved Steve Ritchie's Airborne Avenger design for production when Ritchie's direct supervisor initially rejected it. | | Mike Straw | person | New president of Williams who recruited Steve Ritchie from Atari with an offer of more than double salary plus moving expenses. | | Bob Jonasine | person | First Atari pinball designer (came from Chicago/Valley/Williams). Built the first Atari pinball machines; mechanical engineer rather than game designer. Designed Atriens. | | Gary Slater | person | Designer hired by Atari with master's degree in design. Created symmetrical and asymmetrical games. Ritchie mentions Middle Earth as one of his designs. | | Marty Rosenthal | person | Designer involved with Atari pinball games, notably designed Time 2000 with dual flipper configuration. Described as naive about pinball mechanics. | | Randy Pfeiffer | person | Programmer for Flash at Williams. Described as a pretty good programmer who had problems and eventually quit, calling everyone at Williams 'scum'. | | Steve Kordek | person | Legendary Williams pinball designer mentioned as someone who could have designed multi-level pinball but didn't. | | Chris Otis | person | One of the pinball designers at Williams during Ritchie's early tenure there. | | Tony Kramer | person | One of the pinball designers at Williams during Ritchie's early tenure there. | | Barry Ousler | person | One of the pinball designers at Williams during Ritchie's early tenure there. | | Gil Pollock | person | Designer at Gottlieb whom Ritchie enjoys talking to and respects. Ritchie says he could talk to him for hours. | | Ray Tanser | person | Talent at Gottlieb described by Ritchie as 'a sweetheart of a guy' and 'very talented.' Ritchie almost worked with him but decided against it. | | Jim Patton | person | Mentioned as a designer who could have designed multi-level pinball before Ritchie did. | | Atari | company | Video game and pinball company where Steve Ritchie started his career. Had a pinball division. Notable for unique workplace culture with loud rock music throughout facilities. | | Williams Electronics | company | Major pinball manufacturer where Ritchie created many of his most iconic games including Flash, Firepower, Black Knight series, and Star Trek Next Generation. | | Stern Pinball | company | Modern pinball manufacturer where Ritchie worked on later games including Spider-Man and others mentioned in opening. | | Gottlieb | company | Classic pinball manufacturer that Ritchie discusses as having declined due to management not listening to market trends and competition. | | Valley Games | company | Competitor pinball manufacturer known for having 50-volt flipper systems that Williams (and thus Black Knight) did not have. | | Flash | game | Steve Ritchie's breakthrough game at Williams. Sold 20,000 units, set Williams sales record. Featured innovative bright flash lamps, figure-eight playfield with cross shot. Had background sound created with echoplex. | | Firepower | game | Ritchie and Jarvis' collaborative masterpiece. First game with clear flow and rules. Introduced lane change feature. Eugene Jarvis created first dancing display animation with 3-4 bytes remaining. | | Black Knight | game | First multi-level pinball machine, designed by Ritchie with programmer Larry DeMar. Featured ramps integrated into ball flow. Themed around adversarial gameplay (Black Knight vs. White Knight). | ### Topics - **Primary:** Design philosophy and innovation, Ball flow and shot layout mechanics, Career progression from Atari to Williams to Stern, Collaborative relationships with programmers (Eugene Jarvis, Larry DeMar), Iconic game designs (Flash, Firepower, Black Knight, Star Trek) - **Secondary:** Early pinball machines and industry history, Manufacturing competition and industry dynamics, Theme selection and game personality ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.82) — Ritchie is generally reflective and proud of his accomplishments. He expresses genuine affection for collaborators like Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar, though he notes some creative friction with the latter. He is critical of Gottlieb's management decline but respectful of the individual designers there. He shows confidence in his innovations and creative instincts. The tone is nostalgic, celebratory of the golden age of pinball, and thoughtful about design philosophy. Some criticism of manufacturers' conservatism and risk-aversion, but overall warm and appreciative tone. ### Signals - **[historical_signal]** Comprehensive retrospective of Steve Ritchie's 50+ year pinball career, from Atari employee #50 through Williams and Stern, tracing the evolution of design philosophy and innovation (confidence: high) — Direct interview with Ritchie discussing his entire career arc from 1970s to modern day, specific dates and game releases - **[design_innovation]** Ritchie details multiple mechanical innovations: flash lamps (24-25V with preheating), lane change mechanism on Firepower, multi-level playfield on Black Knight, integrated ramp design (confidence: high) — Ritchie explains technical implementation details of each innovation and how they were conceived and built - **[design_philosophy]** Ritchie articulates core design principle: superior ball flow and shot integration were differentiators between his games and competitors. He rejected disconnected shots in favor of smooth, satisfying trajectories (confidence: high) — Extensive discussion of how shots must intercept ball trajectory smoothly, use billiards analogy for satisfying play feel - **[industry_signal]** Ritchie critiques Gottlieb's management for not listening to market trends, being overly conservative, and ultimately causing the company's decline despite having great hardware reputation historically (confidence: high) — Ritchie states: 'Blub, blah, blah, blah, blah, sunk to the bottom of the ocean because you didn't listen. You didn't change at the time' - **[personnel_signal]** Mike Straw, new Williams president, actively recruited Steve Ritchie away from Atari with significant compensation increase, indicating strategic talent acquisition in pinball during early 1980s (confidence: high) — Ritchie states Williams president called him and offered 'more than double my salary at Atari plus moving expenses' - **[community_signal]** Ritchie emphasizes importance of equal-respect collaborative relationships between designer and programmer. Highlights synergy with Eugene Jarvis on Firepower vs. friction with Larry DeMar on Black Knight, both producing great results (confidence: high) — Ritchie explains: 'It doesn't work if the respect is not equal. But if it's equal, wow' and describes both relationships as 'fireworks' or 'synergistic' - **[technology_signal]** Eugene Jarvis created the first dancing display animation in pinball code on Firepower while working with only 3-4 bytes of memory remaining, indicating tight resource constraints and creative solutions (confidence: high) — Ritchie recalls: 'Eugene went absolutely insane with the code. I think there were only like three or four bites left. He did the world's first dancing display animation' - **[gameplay_signal]** Ritchie invented lane change on Firepower to cycle unlit inserts under the ball, initially considering dual-flipper control but simplifying to single right-flipper one-directional movement to avoid player confusion (confidence: high) — Detailed explanation of design decision: 'I only wanted one flipper button because I didn't want to confuse people' and 'When it only moved in one direction, it was clear what it did' - **[design_philosophy]** Ritchie emphasizes that best pinball machines have personality or adversarial character. Black Knight chosen because it creates player agency (player as white knight defeating black knight antagonist) (confidence: high) — Ritchie states: 'I think that the best pinball machines have a personality... they say, come and kick my ass. If you're so bad, let's see you do it' - **[market_signal]** Flash set Williams all-time sales record at 20,000 units; Stellar Wars sold 5,500 units (highest for wide-body at that time); three Ritchie games (Flash, Stellar Wars, Superman) simultaneously trading places as #1-3 earning machines across US arcades (confidence: high) — Ritchie states Flash 'sold 20,000 machines and smoked about the Williams all-time record' and notes Stellar Wars '5,500 units was the most sold of a wide body at that point' - **[operational_signal]** Williams was unable or unwilling to implement 50-volt flipper systems (that Valley Games used) on Black Knight despite designer requests, suggesting manufacturing limitations or cost constraints (confidence: high) — Ritchie notes: 'We desperately wanted 50 volt flippers like they had a valley, you know, and it's like they wouldn't do it for Black Knight' --- ## Transcript You're listening to Topcast, this old pinballs online radio. For more information visit them anytime, www.marvin3m.com. Flash Topcast. Today on Topcast we have a really special guest. Somebody that's been in the pinball industry since the 1970s. He first started working in Atari and then moved to Williams. And then later as design games for Stern. Special guest. Special guest. Special guest. Special guest. So we're about to talk to Steve Ritchie. Steve's designed some of the best selling pinball games of all times, such as Flash, Firepower, Black Knight, High Speed, F-14 Tomcat, Black Knight 2000, Terminator 2, High Speed 2, The Getaway, Star Trek Next Generation, Terminator 3, Elvis, and of course his latest effort, Spider-Man. Okay, so we're going to give Steve Ritchie a call right now and have a little chat with him here on Topcast. Hi, Joshua Clay. Hi, can you hear me? Yeah, very well actually. Steve, tell me about your first memories of pinball and when you were, you know, first, first started playing. What I remember first in pinball was my dad taking me to play land at the beach in San Francisco. And I guess I was about three or four years old. And you know, he stood me up on this like little bench thing that they had for little kids to stand on so that I could play the pinball. And I do remember the pinball machines were all mounted on like a platform. They didn't have individual legs. They were all mounted up about two and a half feet up. And so you couldn't shake him or anything. You could just play them. After that, I don't know, I would say three or four years went by and my parents started bowling at this bowling yoll called the Seaball. And you know, they would bring us my sister and I. My brother wasn't born yet. And it's like we would play, you know, they'd give us a dollar, which was a lot of money because pinball is only a dime of play. And there were five balls, always five balls in California. Anyway, that's my first memories of pinball. How did you get involved in the pinball industry? You know, what was your first job? My first job in the industry, well, it occurred when I was in a rock and roll band. I got out of the clothes cart. I dropped out of college after a while and I just, I played in bands. I was a guitar player and I was making hard to anything. I had met my wife who was my girlfriend at the time. And basically she was supporting me except for whatever I could, you know, manage to, you know, put together from our band gigs and, you know, other other jobs that I tried to do like spray painting, addresses on curves and stuff like that. Anyway, I just got sick of being broke. So I walked into Atari one day and gave them my resume, which wasn't much. I mean, I had some electronics training. And what an awesome place. I walked in. There were these beautiful young girls all over the place just in the lobby. I couldn't even see. They had really loud rock music playing in stereo. And the receptionist said, receptionist said, hey, it's like that all over the factory. Wherever you stand, you get stereo. That's how the president likes it. So I ended up working in Atari. And my first job there was on the line, making harnesses. I knew how to make harnesses. I knew how to, you know, my new electronics somewhat. I was, I'm not going to say I was an electronics engineer, but I could make things work and fix things and, like a technician. With a little more sense than that. I had quite extensive schooling in the Coast Guard. It's not really what I wanted to do. Anyway, after I was there for a couple years, they decided to open up a pinball division. And I, I was asked if I wanted to be part of it. And I said, sure. I guess I was there only a year. And so they, you know, moved us to a different building. Steve, any good guitar I've been playing guitar since I was in high school myself. I was a pretty good guitar player. I did, you know, I was a rocker when I studied it. You know, I wanted to learn how to play the guitar since I was 13. The day I heard the Beatles in 1963, it was the first, I want to hold your hand. That tune inspired me and it's like, I had to become a guitar player. So I bought a chord book and, you know, my father just sort of, you know, he had a brand new electric guitar. And so he loaned it to me for a year, which is pretty awesome. And I learned how to play about reading books. You know, I had a musical family. I had some training. I mean, I can read music and everything else. And who winds the guitar about five years earlier. But I forgot in all that sense. And, you know, I got in some pretty good bands and I had a lot of fun. I would say that. And yes, I still play. I wrote most of the tunes for Black Knight 2000. I wrote high speed. I didn't write any songs on this, but I did direct the music on Spider-Man. And I'm pretty proud of it. It's like, you know, David Thiel wrote all the tunes. And he did a pretty nice job. So when you were at Atari first, you were just making video games? Yes. Atari was making strictly video games. They had... Paul and a barrel was going down the line. They had done Paul. They were just getting started with a couple of other games. A tank was one of them. I was employee number 50 at Atari. So, you know, I was there after maybe... Probably about six or seven months after they first put a Paul on test at a pub in Los Gatos, California. How did you get to design pinballs at Atari? My first pinball job there was... prototype supervisors. Like, I kind of... I saw two of them. I took the prototypes, got built. And I had to learn how to build them also. Atari hired a couple of guys from Chicago from Valley and from Williams. Actually, they both built themselves as designers. But I found out later that neither one of them were ever game designers. They were both mechanical engineers. And, uh... Anyway, they did the first designs. The first guy's name was Bob Jonasine. He built, uh... um... the Atariens. I made the prototypes for them. But in the process of working with Bob, I did learn how to lay out and construct a pinball machine, you know, professionally. He didn't know how to do that. How was Air Board of Vendor received by Atari? I didn't know they only made like 350. But how was that compared to the other Atari games? After I was working with Bob Jonasine and the other guys there for about six months, I saw their designs and I thought, this doesn't look that hard to me. I would like to try this. So, uh... I... I grabbed a piece of pinball with and taped paper to it. You know, vellum, very strong paper. And, uh... I took it home. And I, uh... I drew a game... on my own time. And it took me about a year. I was still working with, you know, the other guys there, uh... you know, they, they built up, I guess two machines. And, uh... The third one was mine. I, anyway, I made a machine, uh... a drawing and I brought it into my boss and he said, nah, nah, nah. You're not going to design games. I hired a guy with a, you know, a degree in, uh... design, a master's degree in design. And, and he's the one who's going to be designing the pinball machines. And that was, uh... Gary Slater, and he was, he was good, but... he did some totally symmetrical games and asymmetrical games, odd stuff. Well, I have to say, I liked Middle Earth. Anyway... I didn't take no for an answer. I went to the big boss. It took about, I don't know, three or four months to make all this happen, but... I went to Nolan Bushnell, and I asked him if I could build this game. He looked at it and he said, you did this at home and I said, yeah. And he goes, build it up. We'll try it. And from that day on, I was a designer at, uh... Atari. The game that I made was Airborne Avenger. That was my first machine there, which was pretty amateurish, but, you know, everyone's first game is probably a big steaming pile. Airborne Avenger was... it was received pretty well, because it had some pretty cool things on it. It had shots, you know, instead of... Now, the layouts are kind of goofy. These guys... These guys had, you know, they took the wide-body pinball machine and spread everything out, okay? They moved the slingshots far apart. The difference between what they did and what I did is... I tried to keep the pinball machine normal at first, which is 20 and a quarter. I designed a 20 and a quarter-inch pinball machine on the wide board. And then I left the outside shots, you know, P-Hit. They weren't as important. But I never opened up the slingshots. I kept the slingshots the same as other Chicago games. And of course, it played like more like a Chicago game with such a mystery. I mean, oh my god, this... The second Atari game that was called... It had a beautiful, like, butterfly woman painted on the back glass. I can't think of the name of it. Time 2000, there it is. Okay, the big feature was a captured bumper bumper. Wow. You know, a jet with rubber all the way around it. But the most ridiculous thing was... Picture two normal drains with, you know, a left and a right flipper, you know, and a center drain area. Well, this guy, Marty Rosenthal, took two sets of flippers and put like two lower ends of pinball machines side by side. And so they were like, you didn't know what to do. You hit the right flipper and both right flippers would flip. But one right flipper was so far to the left of the game that it confused your brain. The same thing with the left flipper. If the left flipper, one of the left flippers would be on the left side of the game, but the other one was on the right. Then they tried flipping both flippers at the same time with buttons. This is how naive people were there. Anyway, there was no good way. It was a bomb. How did you get your job at Williams? That is, how did you make your move from Atari to Williams? I worked at Atari and did fairly well. Everyone Avenger was interesting. Superman was, you know, that was, well, everyone Avenger was my first game with Eugene Jarvis, who is a great programmer and a good friend. I think he's the best of the video programmers. And also it's like, I probably had the most fun of all time working on pinball machines with Eugene and this one with Lyman and Spider-Man. And so, you know, these guys are like, they're geniuses. And also they're fun to work with. And it's hard to find a relationship with that's give and take, you know. With the programmer and the game designer. Anyway, Eugene and I were working on Superman and, you know, we were experimenting with sound and I kind of fool the round. You know, I'm a musician. I had this thing called the Neckelplex. So I connected that up in the audio and sort of created a background sound and we played the game and experienced it and it was pretty cool. Anyway, at night we used to talk because we'd work really late too, like crazy because we loved it. And I used to say, I wish somebody would call me, you know, so many in Chicago because I want to go to a real pinball company. I didn't want to really leave California, but I did want to go to a real pinball company that made real regular pinball machines. And one day this guy called me. He was the president of William, brand new president, Mike Straw. And he said, well, I'd like to have you out and you can, now we can talk. Anyway, I accepted the job and, you know, it's for like a little more than double my salary at Atari plus moving expenses. Plus this guy was really smart and charismatic and he was, he was definitely motivated and he really loved pinball. And he knew something about it. I could tell, you know, through talking to him. So I took the job and I went from Atari to Williams. So did Williams actually call you or did you call them? I got the call and they asked me to go. I don't know how he heard. I'm not sure how Mike Straw heard that we were messing with things because Superman didn't come out until after. I had finished the game at Williams, which is really interesting. And they took out the background sound. Well, we put it in in Flash and it sold 20,000 machines and smoked about the, you know, the Williams all-time record at the time and for sales. And it did have a background sound that sounded a lot like some of the sound you could make with an echoplex. So Flash really put you on the map, made you the pinball rock star of sorts. How did that feel? Well, it felt great. Now, to go to a new company and blow out their whole record of sales, the first shot was like one in a million. And but I got to tell you, I was motivated on the plane. I drew Flash and it was figure eight with a cross shot. You know, a very simple game, but I had the name. I wanted to make it Flash and I wanted really bright lights on it. And I invented the Flash lamp at that time for this game. I actually, what I did was I go, look, this car, here's this car. Okay, it's got a 12 volt system. Look what happens when I hit the brakes. Holy macro is that light bright. How can we get a light that bright into a pinball machine and, you know, hit it and make it come up instantly. And they figured out that they had to preheat them. They had to have, you know, voltage going through them to keep the filament hot. And then we would hit it with 25 volts, a 24 volts instead of 12. Just for a brief moment. And you got a very nice flash. So, yeah, I mean, after I finished Flash, it was like, I was on top of the world. But I went on right into the next game. I don't think I even waited a week or two when I started working on the next game because I was already talking about it with Eugene. And we were, oh, and Eugene wasn't there for turning Flash. Eugene came about the time I started Firepower, which is wonderful. You know, it's like I asked him to come out the year before. But he just wasn't ready to do that. So, he hung out at Atari, finished up Superman. And then I, you know, I told them, I called them up again. I said, come on, man, I'm having a great time here. You got to come out. So, you know, Flash was a big hit. He had no reason not to come. And I told them I wanted to work with him again. The guy I did Flash with was like, space case. It was really hard to work with. In the end, he hated us all. He turned on all of us at Williams in the group that time. And took off. He was gone. And anyway, that's the story of Flash pretty much. How did the other game designers take you at Williams after Flash? What did you do different in your game designs that gave you the edge at Williams? Well, the other game designers were fine. Now, there were four, I guess. There was, well, five, if you count Steve Kortek. There was Steve Kortek. Chris Otis. There was Tony Kraemer. Barry Osler and myself. And the other game designers were always nice about everything. After Flash. I'm a weird guy. I have a lot of ideas. It's one of those things. There's a lot of genes I didn't get. But I got the design imagination thing. I feel lucky that I got it. If I'm happy and I really like what I'm doing, this shit just pours out. And I let it. And then I try to perfect it. And that's where it is for me. It's like I got lucky. Anyway, I was always nice to them when they were nice to me. We joked around cheese. We had a great time. That's another story. What I didn't my design different from the rest of the people was I looked at the ball's motion. And on other pinball machines. And I saw that shots did not start. Not on all games, but on most games. Shots did not start where the ball actually traveled. I know that sounds weird, but the curves on games before Flash and Firepower did not really. They weren't made to intercept the ball on a trajectory gradually. They were not made to do anything smooth and pleasing. I don't know. It's like, and that's not true of all games. I don't want to say that. What do I want to say? Go ahead. You can look at all the got leaves with the five jets in the middle and the rubber and stuff. There were shot games. They were definitely skill games, but they didn't make the ball flow in a pleasing manner where you felt like, whoa, I just made that shot. And this feeling of, whoa, I just made this shot. It's really based on, well, a great way to explain the feeling and how it feels is to put together a nice billiard shot where you line up the cue ball. You put the cue ball's contact point on the ball and it just feels wonderful when the ball you hit goes in the pocket without touching any sides at 50 miles an hour. It's like that. Anyway, that's what I think I brought to pinball. And as many other ideas, as I had, it's a hard thing to describe, but I think that's enough. Who was the programmer for Flash? Programmer for Flash was Randy Pfeiffer. And he was a pretty good programmer, but I don't know. I think he had some problems at the time and one day he just freaked out on all of us, including the president. I just said, you're all scum. I took off. I think he was the scum. Was stellar wars a disappointment in that you only sold 5,500 units compared to Flash? Were the people at Williams disappointing the stellar wars or were they just expecting you to break sales records on every game you made? Stellar Wars wasn't fun for me to make. I had done Flash in like seven months and then this is when games were simpler time, absolutely. Stellar Wars was like, they begged me to do a wide body. So I did it. And as it turned out, I mean, you say sold only 5,500 units. Boy, I'd love to sell 55 units of Spider-Man today. And compared to Flash, well, compared to Flash and compared to a lot of games, 5,500 units was the most sold of a wide body at that point. So nobody was disappointed. Besides that, I think I put it together in six months, which just went. It's really funny. When stellar wars came out, Superman also came out from Atari, another one of my games. And Flash was still in the arcade. These three games, this is the highlight of Crazy Fat Headed. I mean, I could have become a maniac at that point. Maybe I was, I don't know. But it's like my three games are trading places for number one, two, and three at all arcades across the United States. And it was an awesome time for me. I had three games out at once earning top money. And they would trade around. And stellar wars is often number one. They, I don't know why. I didn't love it. Anyway, it kind of did break the sales record for a wide body at the time. Firepower rocks. I mean, you know it. I know it. The world knows it. It was really the first game that had clear flow and clear rules. It was just the ultimate pinball package for the time. How did you do that? Firepower is one of my favorite games myself. I'm not going to lie. I love planet. I mean, if I didn't love planet, you wouldn't love it either. You know, it's like it was, it was so much fun to make. Okay, I had been away from my buddy Eugene. I had to work with this weirdo. Okay, not a weirdo. I don't want to say that about him. I'm going to, I got it with problems. That's fair. And here's Eugene. And I, you know, I knew exactly how he worked. You know, and he worked like me. Same work ethic, same enthusiasm, same like, you know, he was single. He could throw himself totally into it. Anyway, we were both very motivated for Firepower. And I drew a game and he, you know, he, he had input on the play field. No question, you know, and I had input on the, on the software. And this is where magic occurs when, when people allow each other and are also capable of commanding equal respect. It doesn't work if the respect is not equal. But if it's equal, wow. It's, you know, Firepower is like a, let's see. I don't know, I died, I invented lane change on Firepower. I asked Eugene if it was possible to move an unlit insert under the ball. And he said, what? And I go, you know, like, can we cycle through and put an unlit insert under the ball so you, you can get the one you want no matter where the ball is rolling? 20 minutes later, yeah, to work on it. And it was so cool. Eugene, Eugene went absolutely insane with the code. I think there were only like three or four bites left. He, he did the world's first dancing display animation. He did some, well, gee, wave, the sound package. He wrote during the game. And, uh, and he goes, you know, I just wrote this perfect little program to make a sound. It doesn't sound good at all. But here, you type in this and that. I'll let you go ahead, type in some crap. So I typed in some stuff, you know, he goes, pick a letter from one to eight. All right, our number. And then he goes, pick any number after that. And then, uh, and then give me a letter from A to F. Okay, great. So I punch it in and it does this cool, awesome sound. Well, Eugene, you know, that sound program probably went, I would say, eight or nine machines utilized that sound program at once. Maybe more, maybe, maybe ten or twelve. Um, anyway, the relationship between Eugene and I was very synergistic. We were also very motivated. We wanted to be on top. We wanted to make the best games possible. We really respected Valley games because they were hot right then. Williams wasn't, you know, Flash was, you know, a flash in the pan. One good hit. It's gonna happen again. Okay, we had to do that again. And firepower was it. And, uh, that's how it happened. On the lane change, why just one flipper to move the lamp insert and not both? I only wanted one flipper button because I didn't want to confuse people. Okay, even management when they saw it and played it, they liked it. But they were afraid of change. And so was I a bit. I mean, if somebody would say, oh, people don't know how to work that. No one will ever figure that out, they said. So I simplified it and put it on the right flipper button because it was close to the, you know, most people are right handed. Okay, so I put it on the right flipper and it only moved one way. And I didn't really want it to move both ways because it was kind of confusing when you think about it. You're the first person that ever walks the way, walks up to a game with lane change. You roll a ball down one lane. Now you have one light lit. You press the left flipper button and it moves to the left. You press the white flipper button to move to the right. What the hell is that about? When it only moved in one direction, it was clear what it did. And did you work with Larry D'Amara in the early days? How did he compare it to Eugene? I did work with Larry D'Amara and Larry D'Amara and I had some great success. You know, he's another brilliant programmer. How do he compare to Eugene? Well, they're both two of the smartest individuals on the planet. Okay, so how do you compare to Eugene? That's, you know, in what way? We're talking about, okay, I'll tell you some differences. Eugene is like, hey man, what do you think? And Larry would be like, tell me what you want. We're talking about actually working with Larry was me kind of working with me. We're both kind of similar. Let's call us intense. Let's call us, um, committed and also, um, pretty stubborn. Uh, we'll hear things though. I mean, eventually, I, you know, I can't help it. If you can have an open mind, you gotta, gotta listen to everybody. You gotta hear what they have to say and then keep it or dump it as necessary. Well, Larry and I had a lot of fireworks, let's say, during our games, but we were also very successful. The first game was Black Knight and, uh, you know, it was the first, you know, multi-level game. I want to say though that a lot of designers always talked about making a multi-level pinball, but they never did it. I'm the guy that just did it. I think any of them could have done it. Jim Pattlo or Steve Kirk, uh, you know, Steve Kordak, you know, anybody could have done it that wanted to. Larry Williams, they think he could have done it anytime, you know. But nobody ever did it, so I went ahead and did it. And I thought, I don't know what I'm going to gain here. And I really didn't gain much, but, uh, the real big gain from, from, from Black Knight is the use of a ramp. And I think it was the start of, you know, I mean, there were other games that had ramps in the past, but they came and went and they, they didn't really, they weren't in the flow of the ball. It was, uh, kind of a funky thing. And, uh, I don't know why people didn't do more of it, but, you know, I kind of do know why, uh, but that's another story. The management of each company, of Valley, of Gottlieb, of Williams, of Stern, is all different. And so are their philosophies. I mean, they drive these philosophies at you, whether you like it or not. It's me, I'm a wise guy, I'm a wiseass punk when I get to Williams. I'm also polite to everybody and I like them, but I'm going to stick my fingers in there in my ears because I know that what they did almost put them over the prank, in fact, flash, pulled them up by their bootstraps back into the mix, okay? I'm not bragging on myself. I'm just telling you how it was. And, uh, and so, this is how I felt. I felt like, fine, you know, I'll do great games, I'll do whatever I can. I'll work my ass off for you, but we're not going to fool each other about what we do and how it, how it happened or whatever, you know, I'm just, I'm going to work hard, I'm going to give you this, and I'll do the best I can. No, I might not always do, you know, spectacular, but I'm going to try every time. And I did that, I tried every time. Anyway, I got leave, they had a completely different agenda. Ray Tanzer tells me that, holy shit, I mean, they would say, you can't have that in the game because so-and-so doesn't like it. Whoa, so-and-so doesn't like it. Let's say it was a great idea, it just didn't matter if so-and-so didn't like it. Oh my god. Okay, so somebody else is doing my job for me, a raised job for him. You know, that's how to sink a company in. Hey, godly, my buddies, the class act, the Cadillac of the business, okay? Blub, blah, blah, blah, blah, sunk to the bottom of the ocean because you didn't listen. You didn't change at the time. You didn't move on stuff because you saw what competition was doing and you didn't do anything about it. Anyway, that's another story. On your statement about godly, it was like you had some issue with them. Can you explain a little more? I never had an issue with godly at all. I mean, my issue with them was, how could they let such a fine product die? They were magnificent once. They made the best and most reliable machine in the industry. It was called the Cadillac of the industry. And I'll tell you, some of the early games at godly, you know, I'm not talking about early. I'm talking about early for me, which is like when I got started. 1974, 2005, and from there on. You know, I knew about the old godleaves. They didn't appeal to me because there wasn't anything special about the dynamics of play, okay? Later on, a few guys did come up with dynamic play, but they didn't impellish. They didn't try to compete with us. I don't have any issue with anybody at godly, but in fact, some of those guys, I love talking to Gil Pollock. I could talk to him for hours, okay? Ray Tanzer is a sweetheart of a guy. Just a great guy that I really like working with. He's just and very talented. You know, in fact, I almost want to work for them at one point. We talked about a deal, but it just wasn't, you know, I'm really glad I didn't make the deal because I would have called management stodgy all through. Management is what caused godly to die, not the designers. On the game themes in the early days, did you pick themes, or in how were they implemented in the game, or were they just applied at the end and sort of tacked on? In terms of game themes, I picked everyone. In fact, they expected me to come up with a theme, to layout what the game, an idea for the rules, some ideas. They expected sound development, and they expected some art direction, but not entirely. This was a tough time. I'll go into the art at another time. Yes, we always pick the theme for our game, and usually the name. Let's see. Well, you're asking me if a name ever got applied at the end and sort of tacked on. Actually, that's probably not true of any game because it has to have a name and a theme before it even starts to get drawn. So that was always a requirement at Williams. That's darned, too. Gary's adamant about it. He wants it to be clear exactly what the title of the game is before I even start drawing. I tell him, I don't have to know that immediately. I have some ideas I want to do, and I can make them apply to anything pretty much, which is really true. It's like, it just works that way. That's how it is. Another big hit, of course, was Black Knight. Why that theme? Why multi-level? Black Knight was a hit, and it would have been a bigger hit, but there's a big story here. It's a long story. But you asked me why that theme. Why that theme? Because I think that the best pinball machines have a personality or several. When they have a personality, they speak to you. They call out and they say, come and kick my ass. If you're so bad, let's see you do it. You know, this kind of thing, I like adversary pinball. There are other kinds of pinball I like, too, but that's probably my favorite one. Anyway, the Black Knight was obviously someone bad, and it sort of made the player the white knight, the good guy. The good guy would defeat the bad guy. Multi-level was an opportunity to, I don't know, just another avenue of entertainment. It certainly stood out from any other pinball machine prior, and I think people really like shooting up the ramps, and I made the ramps so that they fed into shots very nicely, where they were smooth. The only thing I would say that was a disappointment about Black Knight is we still have these low powered flippers, 25 volts, or something, or 35 volts. I don't know. We desperately wanted 50 volt flippers like they had a valley, you know, and it's like they wouldn't do it for Black Knight, but later on, you know, Mike Strauss saw the light, and he, you know, we went to 50 volt flippers. I got along good with management, you know, at Williams. And they were good to us, like, okay, Larry Eugene, myself, all the designers, everyone in engineering, you know, every once in a while Mike would take us all out, you know, like to strip club or something. There I said it, strip club. Okay, anyway, or just out on the town, you know, I take everybody out to dinner, and he was a great fun guy, and we had a good time. We're all young punks, too. He was a little older than us, you know, and we had a lot of fun, and he made sure that we had fun. It was a big, happy family at Williams, and it grew from there, but the core group was, I don't know, we were working to the same goal, absolutely, to try and make the best games we could, to try and be the number one pinball company, and damned if we didn't do that. Are you saying that Black Knight could have been a much bigger sales hit? Please explain. Also explain how the Magna save came about. Black Knight could have had double the sales nearly, and I'll tell you why. Okay, while I was working at Atari, I really did not have a draw or a draft. I learned from this guy, Claude Fernandez, who was an excellent draftman. He also, you know, he had a affinity for mechanicals, because he had drawn so many of them, so many mechanical parts. He was a handy guy to have around, and after I went to Williams, he called one day, and he said, is there any room for draftsman? And I said, I don't know Claude, but I'll find out. Anyway, I talked to Mike for a few minutes, and he said, is he good? And I said, he's very good. And so he said, all right, I'll hire him. So he hired Claude Fernandez, Mike Stroll, two Williams, moved him. I let Claude stay at my house until he could find an apartment. I think it took like two and a half months. My wife wasn't really happy about it, but, you know, he was a friend. He helped me out. Anyway, he started working as a draftman at Williams, and did fine. This is, I guess, around the end of Firepower. At the very beginning, he started making a drawing of a game on his own time. I don't remember the name of it. It might have been blackout. And actually, he was there before that. He was there a year before that, so he came first. He came before Eugene even came. I would say at the end of black. Anyway, while I was drawing Black Knight, he was being a draftman and working on his own game, it was called Blackout. And it happened. It did okay. Well, one day Claude came in into the office, and he said, I'm quitting today. Goodbye, Steve. He said, goodbye to Mike Stroll and walk down the stairs and never said another word to us. Okay. Well, he went to Valley. Valley hired him, and I didn't know this until we got to the AMOA show. On Vale Black Knight, the world's first two-level pinball machine. And across the way is Valley Booth. Okay. And they're unveiling the world's second multi-level pinball machine. And the whole left side is virtually identical to everything I had on my drawing at the time that Claude left, unfortunately. So, basically, he copied the design and sold it. And they sold about 8,000 machines. I think we sold 11. I don't know. It could have gone to like 20,000 machines. Magnusave was a... I'm not going to call it, but I knew they had magnets at Stern, but I didn't like how they used them just to freeze the ball and stuff like this and for the doodle bug assembly. So, I wanted to try a magnet to try and help the player save a ball before it could get down the train. And so, I kind of invented Magnusave. I put a big pancake magnet right over the pre-turn lanes and activated at the right time. It would actually suck a ball over to it, freeze the ball, and let it drop and flip a return lanes. How it came about is... I told you. I mean, I can't help it. I don't know. Just happened and I'm glad ideas happen like that to me. Why hyperball? What was the thinking there? Had a shooting gun game. And how did you feel about the Valley Rapid Fire, which was nearly the same game at about the same time? Hyperball was a game that a guy makes, okay, when he's like totally enamored with a space invaders and this huge on-rush of video games, okay, that I enjoyed playing, okay. I'm not just a pinball game throughout my career, even right now, okay? Right now, not right now, but last night I played Fear, F-E-A-R, a video shooter. That's awesome, okay. I have a PlayStation 2. I've got an Xbox. I've got everything, okay, because I love video games. I've got a lot of PC games. I play them. Hyperball was a frustrated pinball guy seeing the market taper off because video was taking over. There was space invaders followed by a lot of, I mean, hey, I lost Eugene to video. Video was, you know, Mike Stroll separated us. He was smart to do so. I did Black Knight. Eugene did Defender. And they were done in the same time, frame, and it's just Williams was making a fortune. Anyway, I was a frustrated video game designer. I wanted to make a video game, but they wouldn't let me produce it. Wouldn't let me work on it. I'm not a programmer, and I'm also not a video artist, so I couldn't have helped them directly, but I have produced video games. And, you know, as long as you're very communicative, I think anybody could carry through and make a game based on a vision with good communication skills. Hyperball is a machine gun game, too. I mean, come on. I think most kids, most men, most guys, I'm not talking about that Virginia attack. Okay. I never wanted to shoot anybody, but I did get to shoot machine guns, while I was in the Coast Guard. And it is fun. I don't care what anybody says. It wouldn't be fun. It kills somebody, but it was fun to shoot machine guns. So six balls a second. At part, I definitely was excited about getting it out to work. And anyway, you asked about, uh, about Valley Rapid Fire. I learned from a friend that the project's name was Project Xerox at Valley. That's what they called it. And basically, they had seen, you know, hyperball at the AMOI show. And the truth was, it was very much a prototype. It needed four or five more months work before we could release it. And so we went ahead and did that. Well, in those four or five months, Valley had produced, uh, Rapid Fire. It didn't play in the same way. I'm not sure it was as much fun. And I think they had as much, they had more trouble than us making it work. How do I feel about it? Let's see. I feel like, yeah, you know, it's our fault for delaying so long to get it to market. Uh, it's their fault for not doing something original. So everybody talks about hyperball as being a failure. Did you consider it a failure, even though you sold 4,500 units? I don't think it was a failure. Um, the last hundred were hard to sell. But then I think, you know, Williams lost some money at that point on the last hundred. No doubt. But I think they made, uh, these broke even. Now they made money on the 4,500 units. So, uh, I don't know. It was an experiment. I don't consider it a failure. I think it was pretty fun. It really did great at, uh, you know, at Big R.K. It's Big Family Fund Centers, especially on the Jersey Shore. Um, most of the Southern states it did good on the West Coast. It could earn a lot of money. Most guys replaced the motor with a, a really nice boating motor that, uh, that's a brand boating. It would last forever and, and really make the thing pretty solid. We did sell a lot of plungers though. They would mushroom, you know, that fat, rapid firing, huge coil, uh, driven plunger that actually struck the ball with mushroom after a time. I don't think it was a failure. I'm sorry. So, space shuttle came out about 1984 and it's not your game. It was a berry game, very Osler. And a lot of people consider space shuttle the game that saved Williams pinball. And then you came out of course with high speed. Tell me about high speed in the story behind it. I, I don't consider space shuttle the savior of Williams pinball. I'm sorry. I don't. Uh, that story is built on hype by a few people who would like to turn things that way. The factory was dark after it was done. Um, it was a decent game and I'm not taking anything away from that. As far as saving Williams pinball, I don't think so. Um, Sorcerer did very well. Uh, good enough. I mean, at that time, again, you saw me make rapid firing. You saw me make a video like pinball machine. Well, video trounced us, okay. Video killed us. And, uh, there were a couple of games that we had made at the same time that it just didn't cut it. But operators wanted video games. They wanted them so bad. And in 1982, okay, pinball was a tough self, no doubt. And it became very tough until 1984. Uh, in 1984, the entire bottom fell out of the video market. And pinball was still dead. Now you're talking about the factory being dark, okay. And it was dark after space shuttle. Um, that's my thoughts about it. Also, it's disputed about humanly made the game. And I give credit to Barry Osler. Um, he's responsible. He drew the game, okay. Other people, you know, barged in and tried to take it over and through the theme on, which was Andy. It's a game, though, to make a game a designer has to work on the game, okay. A designer has to draw the game. Okay. The game can't belong to somebody who talks about the game, okay. It doesn't belong to anybody who talks about the game. It belongs to people who work on the game, who live the game, who is the father of the game and the, you know, the programmer of the game. I mean, it's, I have trouble with any other, uh, any other definition of who owns the game or how the game came about. I went back to California to start a video game company called, uh, King Video Design. And, uh, Mike Stroll, you know, financed it. I wanted to make a video game because video games were, were king. And in 82, they really were. They were, you know, that was the pinnacle, unfortunately. Two years later, I had finished a game called Devastator, which was the first 68,000 microprocessor, uh, video game. And it was 3D. It was a space flying game. It had a, uh, an object oriented system. We were the first people to use digitized camera images and color, um, and applied them into the game. Uh, it didn't matter. When we finished our game, it was 1984. Hardware didn't work correctly when we first brought it back to Williams. And it was very tough to demonstrate the game working when it kept resetting. And I was bugging my partner constantly. Please fix the hardware, make it not bug out. And, uh, it didn't happen until three months later, unfortunately, when he found the bug. The problem in the hardware, which was really too late. By then, Williams had lost, I don't know, $18 million, I think it was. They had games, uh, laying around like, uh, I can't remember the exact name of the game. It was a laser-based game, uh, it was called space something. Anyway, the video business fell through the floor. Mike Stroll didn't buy my game. He couldn't. He just lost all this money. And, and nobody had any confidence in any video game at the time. And I'm not going to say that Devastator was a bad game. I'm just going to say that it's, uh, it came out at the very worst possible time. It's, you know, a fact of life. Anyway, high speed came about, while I was, you know, working on this Devastator game, um, I bought a Porsche 928, which is, uh, aluminum P8 powered sports car. Very nice. A lot of people didn't like it, proud. I loved it. And it was, uh, it was a great handling car. And a great, uh, good, nice engine. Very quick. You could do like, 146 miles an hour at top speed. I was driving it one day, uh, one morning. I have to ride out for about four to five months. And, uh, my partner, Doug and I, the guy that screwed up to hardware, uh, we're going to make a trip from where I lived near Sacramento down to San Jose. On highway, I five, starting at six o'clock in the morning when they get there, buy our parts, get back, you know, have dinner with our families. Quite a long drive. Anyway, I, uh, I had wanted to try the car out, trying the car out means how fast will it go, Steve? So, that's what I do. I open up the throttle. I mean, I stop it. And, uh, and I do this because, it seems irresponsible, but at the time it wasn't, uh, my, very little traffic on i5, four lanes in each direction, some tomato trucks, okay? And the far right line that I passed. And it wasn't very traveled because it was brand new. And it went between Sacramento and San Jose and at six o'clock in the morning, there just wasn't much traffic. So, I opened it up with no problems like, there weren't any obstacles. I didn't endanger anyone. That's what I'm saying here. Anyway, uh, I went over this, uh, this hill and then back down and I see a highway patrolman coming the other way. No, and then it was like, uh, a Mustang with a, with a black side, you know, a white top, white door. Crystal clear, it was a highway, California Highway patrolman. And, um, yeah, he didn't, I slowed way down like to 70 miles an hour. And then I went over another hill and went down and I figured, okay, well, if he was going to come after me, would have been after me by now. And he could have turned around on the median, but he didn't. And I thought, okay, fine, I'm just going to go again. Well, it turns out he did turn around on the median. And he called for, uh, you know, for backup. I guess he got me on radar or something and, and probably saw a piece of that, you know, that speed, probably saw 80s or something. Yeah, I thought at the time. So anyway, I didn't know all this, so I just hauled ass again. And, uh, I got it up to 146 miles an hour and we were kind of thinking, wow, this is, uh, this is really fast. It was easy to do. And the car was super smooth at any speed. It just didn't matter. Anyway, like a fool, I just kept doing it. And, uh, I probably drove 20 miles like that. Well, all of a sudden from the opposite direction on the other side of the median, you know, a sheriff's car comes, you know, roaring up and he's probably going 100 miles an hour with his red light on. The incident he sees my car, he makes a U-turn in the median and, uh, he pulls up behind me. He's not really behind me. He's just in the same lane, you know, a long way back. So, I knew it was for me. And we're talking about the Sacramento Valley, which is flat at the pancake, okay? There's no place to hide, no side treats to get on. There's nothing. You're not going to get away from anybody out there, you know, in the city you could get away from a cop, uh, or, in a healthy country you could pull over and, or take any side, bro, just no such thing in the Sacramento Valley. It's flat and you can see for miles. And so I decided to pull over. And the guy told me, wait in the car. And I, I said, uh, what's going to happen? And then he goes, it's just waiting the car. So I just sat there and waited about three minutes. And then up roars the highway patrolman, you know, slams on the brakes, big cloud of dust, of course, because it's the, you know, the side of the road is gravel and dust and dirt. So he makes this big, you know, dramatic cloud of dust jumps out of the car, comes running over and tries to pull me out the window of the car. And I just said, you know, after he tried to pull me out of the car, I go, look, I'm not a bad man. I'm willing to cooperate with you. Can I just open the door and get out? I don't have any guns, no drugs, nothing. Okay. Uh, finally he calmed down and he said, sir, get out of the car, sir. So I got out of the car. He thrown me on the hood. Put his hand on me and sticks me in the front seat of his car. There's more to this story, but this is high speed. This is the story of high speed, exactly. You know, run the red light, get away from the cops, or don't. I don't know. I was totally motivated. I asked Mike if I could come back to Williams and make pinballs and he said, sure, no problem. Show up. So I did. And, uh, you know, it was all there for us. Red light on the top, uh, you know, siren excitement. Um, it was just awesome. Great team. Larry was into it. Larry did a spectacular job on high speed also. All right, we're going to take a break from talking with Steve Ritchie, the famous pinball designer, and we will be right back after this message. The pin game journal is a proud sponsor of Topcast. It covers pinball like no other publication can. The pin game journal is America's only pinball publication. Whether you're looking for new games or the classics, reports on industry shows or collector expos, insights on a game you want or features to help you fix the game you've got, pin game journals for you. Their website is at pingamejournal.com. All right, we're back with Steve Ritchie, the pinball designer, talked to him some more about the games that he's worked on. So why didn't they have a Porsche 928 on the high speed back glass? It looks more like a Lamborghini. Also, please tell me more about the high speed story. Whatever happened with the cops on that. The reason why 928 didn't appear on the high speed back glass is because it wasn't as cool looking as a Lamborghini. So we used a Lamborghini. I don't know. I think it was a smart move. All right, you want to know what happened to cops. G's going to make me tell the whole story. I don't know if you know this first of all, but speedometer is in those days only 1 to 85 miles an hour. The way we figured out, there's always a way to figure out how fast you're going. And top here if you know the gear ratio. Okay, the final gear ratio of the car, you can figure out how fast you're going. Actually, you don't even need that. Okay, if at 3,000 RPM you're doing 60 miles an hour and 6,000 RPM, you're doing 120 miles an hour. This is no question about it. Okay, as long as you're in the same gear. So we were able to figure out that we were going 146 miles an hour. Okay, the cops were all cracking up because the speedometer only went up to 85. They searched the car, thoroughly. Nine cop cars showed up at the scene. Okay, and not just highway patrolmen. The sheriff's low die, city police. They had to come out and see what was going on and see the guy, you know, that was going 146 miles an hour and pulled over for the cops to take him away. Okay, it was like a circus. And I was, I spent the whole time in the front seat of the car, strapped in with seatbelt with handcuffs behind my back, trying to, you know, look, I, well, no problem. I looked in the review mirror. I saw what they were doing. The guy left me in the car. Actually, I probably could have, you know, I could have stolen his car. I think he left the keys in it. You know, this was another error though. Anyway, I don't know how I would have driven come to think of it with my hand, standing up on my back. Never mind that. Finally, it's over. The car started pulling away and here comes Mr. Highway Patrolman. I think his name was Ted something. He comes back to the car, you know, he's already talked to my partner. Now my partner is driving my car. Okay, because, you know, he had nothing to do with it. They questioned him. They searched him. They searched me. We just weren't doing anything except for trying out a car on a freeway in the safest manner we could. But he really didn't have anything to do with it. I had all the guilt. So the cop car, the cop, comes walking back to the, I should say, the California Highway Patrolman that put me in the car came back to his car, sat down next to me and he goes, what was that about anyway? Something like that. And I go, _(Acquisition: whisper_import, Enrichment: v1)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: e55974ad-05bb-4e0c-89b4-430629cdce01*