Wayne Neyens attended Chicago Pinball Expo every year well into his 90s

Wayne Neyens invented the Free Play Unit in 1937 at age 19, which revolutionized the EM machine industry by enabling free play/free credit functionality

Wayne Neyens signed away the patent rights to the Free Play Unit for only $50 in 1937, when he was making 30 cents per hour

Western Equipment and Supply Company went bankrupt twice while Wayne Neyens was employed there, with only three people remaining (including Wayne) during the second bankruptcy

Western Equipment copied an entire competitor's game overnight, from afternoon delivery to morning shipment, without legal consequence

Wayne Neyens designed and built over 160 pinball machines throughout his career from the 1930s to late 1970s

Wayne Neyens designed 170+ pinball games during his Gottlieb career

Wayne Neyens invented the alibaba system, gobble holes, and drop-through holes in pinball

Wayne Neyens designed 180 pinball machines for Gottlieb, 159 of which were produced

Neyens is one of, if not the most prolific pinball designer of all time

Neyens' engineering prowess is more notable than his design work

Queen of Hearts was Neyens' self-proclaimed greatest engineering masterpiece

Neyens started in pinball in 1937 with Western company and joined Gottlieb in 1939

Continental Cafe (1957) served as the basis for Womenelle and Can Crusher rethemes with significantly different rules

Neyens was the last surviving wood-rail era designer from Gottlieb's foundational period

Wayne Neyens is the most prolific pinball designer of all time

Wayne designed nearly 160 production pinball machines at Gottlieb

Wayne's first sole-designer game was College Daze (August 1949)

Spirit of 76 (1976) was Wayne's final pinball design

Wayne introduced the add-a-ball system to pinball machines

Wayne designed the first multi-player electromechanical pinball game

Wayne rose to Vice President of Engineering and Product Development at Gottlieb by 1976

Spirit of 76 sold over 10,000 units, making Wayne's prediction correct

Wayne Neyens' 159 games sold over 200,000 copies combined

Neyens designed nearly one game per month for a 10-year period

Wayne Neyens should be on the Mount Rushmore of pinball designers alongside Harry Williams

Wayne Neyens designed 180 different games with 159 reaching production between 1949-1965

Wayne Neyens just turned 100 years old and is still living independently and driving

Wayne Neyens is 100 years old

Wayne Neyens designed 159 games that made it into production

Wayne Neyens had remarkable recall of details about his designs throughout his life

Rose-Bowl (Gottlieb, 1951), designed by Wayne Neyens, was the first known middle-pop from an American manufacturer

Wayne Neyens was awarded his Spirit of '76 machine by Gottlieb for correctly guessing production would exceed 10,000 units

At age 100, Wayne Neyens nearly doubled Nicholas Backbone's score in a 4-player game of Spirit of '76

Wayne Neyens set a high score of 194,000 on his Spirit of '76 machine

Wayne Neyens' Spirit of '76 is being donated to the Pacific Pinball Museum with a Lifetime Achievement Award

Wayne Neyens was born July 29, 1918, in Mason City, Iowa

I started at Western Equipment and Supply on February 11, 1936, as a draftsman fresh out of high school.

I invented the free-play coin chute mechanism that transformed the industry from gambling to amusement games.

Dave Gottlieb personally told me 'As long as I own this company, you've got a job' when Jimmy Johnson tried to intimidate me.

I hold a patent on the silver-contact pop-bumper spoon switch that solved the carbon ring burnout problem.

Queen of Hearts is my favorite game because of its innovative relay circuit, not because of commercial popularity.

In the 1930s there was no plastic in manufacturing; we used barrel springs and flag springs, and plastic posts initially shrunk and became loose within a week.

Charlie Castacre was a spring salesman who invented plastic injection molding for pinball and founded American Mold Product to manufacture bumpers.

Len Durant and Harry Williams were partners who split into competing firms (United Manufacturing vs. Williams), but remained friendly competitors.

Game design cannot be done well by committees; solo design produces more coherent games than collaborative design.

I was paid only $50 to sign off the rights to the free-play mechanism, and later realized I could have become a billionaire if I had patented it myself.

Wayne Neyens designed 179 pinball games according to IPDB

Wayne Neyens was born July 29, 1918

Swing Along was the first pinball game to feature a spinner

Super Jumbo was the first production multiplayer EM and first game to use score reels

Flipper was Gottlieb's first game and featured metal side rails

Wayne Neyens started in the pinball business on February 11, 1936 at Western Equipment and Supply Company.

Neyens invented the bumper spoon switch and holds the patent for it.

College Days (1949) was Neyens' first credited design and sold 2,230 units.

Neyens received $50 for inventing the free-play coin shoot mechanism on October 5, 1937.