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Episode 406 - York show recap and 1939 Baker Twinkle

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 2m·analyzed·Oct 4, 2017
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

York show recap: Bingo Row thrives indoors with community games; Multi-Bingo glitches surface lifter calibration issues.

Summary

Nick Baldridge recaps the York pinball show where he exhibited his Multi-Bingo and Gay Time games in the newly indoor Bingo Row section. The episode covers specific games brought by other collectors (Ice Frolics, Sun Valley, Galaxy, Miss Universe, Roller Derby, Circus Queen), discusses mechanical issues encountered during the show (lifter problems, crashes, payout glitches), and celebrates community engagement including meeting Scott Denisey (Total Nuclear Annihilation designer) and other custom pinball enthusiasts. Nick also acquired a 1940 Chicago Coin Fox Hunt flipperless machine from the flea market.

Key Claims

  • The York show moved to a larger hall this year with the outdoor flea market now moved indoors

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge describing York show logistics and venue changes

  • Ice Frolics is a rare game that has rarely come up for sale and is the only six-card Bally made with extra balls aside from Mississippi Showboat

    high confidence · Nick describing the Ice Frolics brought by Len to the show

  • Ice Frolics uses the hold feature, a dual coil system that is the third and final game where Bally used this traditional hold feature

    high confidence · Nick explaining Ice Frolics mechanics and design history

  • Multi-Bingo experienced a trough switch number one calibration issue that caused extra ball lifter failures, possibly caused by removing heat shrink tubing added the prior year

    high confidence · Nick troubleshooting Multi-Bingo technical problems at the show

  • Miss Universe is the only three-ball game that Bally made

    high confidence · Nick describing Jim Holder's Miss Universe at the show

  • Galaxy has a motorized ball return feature that allows returning half the bingo card to replay, different from Ice Frolics design

    high confidence · Nick explaining Galaxy mechanics after John Robinette brought it to the show

  • Scott Denisey's Total Nuclear Annihilation uses the same P3 Rock control board as Multi-Bingo

    high confidence · Nick discussing control board commonality with Scott Denisey at the show

  • Miami Beach is the only Bally bingo game with Extra Lines (formerly called magic curtains)

    high confidence · Nick identifying Miami Beach in the flea market and correcting terminology

  • The 1940 Chicago Coin Fox Hunt features a coil-in-can design enclosing the coil in a bracket with only two wires exposed

    high confidence · Nick describing the Fox Hunt machine he purchased from the flea market

Notable Quotes

  • “Gay Time every year gets a ton of play there's a lot of really interesting mechanical movement of both the ball and the numbers on the back glass so I feel that it's a great show game”

    Nick Baldridge @ early — Establishes Gay Time as a key exhibition game and explains why it's effective for demonstrating bingo mechanics to new players

  • “Ice Frolics is the third and final game where Bally used the traditional hold feature... it's one of these mechanical features that is so clever and yet so simple when you see it it must have taken a long time to perfect”

    Nick Baldridge @ mid — Highlights the engineering sophistication of a unique Bally mechanical system and its rarity in the bingo lineup

  • “The beauty of most of the Ballybingos, especially, is that when you have a feature, it's never taken away from you unless you're timed out of it... in this case I feel like it having the rug pulled out from under you”

    Nick Baldridge @ mid — Critiques Miss Universe's mystery spot feature design philosophy compared to other Bally bingos

  • “It would think boy this thing has no flippers it must be a simple dud but in reality the bingos are extremely extremely complex and they require a lot of thought before every ball”

    Nick Baldridge @ late — Articulates the design philosophy and depth of bingo games to newcomers like Scott Denisey

  • “trough switch number one is my prime suspect and that's because I made a change to it right before the show... I had put a little piece of heat shrink tubing on trough switch number one to try and make it more reliable... I took that piece out and just adjusted the switch”

    Nick Baldridge @ mid — Root cause analysis of Multi-Bingo lifter failures that plagued the show

Entities

Nick BaldridgepersonYork Pinball ShoweventMulti-BingogameGay TimegameIce FrolicsgameJeffrey LawtonpersonScott DeniseypersonBingo ButchpersonSun Valleygame

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: York show moved to larger indoor hall with flea market now indoors instead of outdoor, enabling better weather protection and vendor accessibility

    high · Nick describes 'new hall...much bigger hall' and 'flea market was moving indoors instead of being outside. Every year it rains, usually pretty heavily.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Custom flipper pinball designers (Scott Denisey with Total Nuclear Annihilation) visiting and engaging with bingo game community, expanding audience and building bridges between mechanical and modern custom pinball niches

    high · Scott Denisey visited, played bingo games for first time, discussed control board commonality with Nick; 'it was great to talk to him about the control system and his game'

  • ?

    product_concern: Multi-Bingo's extra ball lifter failed intermittently during show due to trough switch number one becoming unreliable after removal of heat shrink spacer that was added for reliability the previous year

    high · Nick identifies: 'trough switch number one is my prime suspect...I made a change to it right before the show...I had put a little piece of heat shrink tubing on trough switch number one...I took that piece out and just adjusted the switch...I think there was a reason I had done it...because that caused the problem'

  • ?

    product_concern: Multi-Bingo's Ballerina game crashed to desktop during winner payout sequence, though safeguards prevented total system failure

    high · Nick describes: 'he went to collect again and it completely crashed the desktop, so I said, oh boy, okay. So I had to whip out the keyboard and get it booted back up'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.188

0:00
what's that sound it's for amusement only the em and bingo pinball podcast welcome back to for amusement only this is nick baldridge york has come and gone and uh this will serve as kind of the wrap-up podcast here uh when i left i had a friend come over Joe to help me load up the games and I rented a van this year instead of the big box truck I was trying to scale down so I only brought two games with me the multi bingo and gay time every year gets a ton of play there's a lot of really interesting mechanical movement of both the ball and the numbers on the back glass so I feel that it's a great show game it really shows off the potential of bingo pinball and many of the decision points. You can start off small and kind of work your way up to understanding all the features on that game.
1:07
The multi-bingo, of course, plays everything, so it's just a matter of finding a game that's to your taste.
1:16
So, got those games loaded and strapped down. I used ratchet straps. I did not disassemble the heads from the bodies. I was able to tie them securely enough that that really wasn't necessary. It also makes it a whole heck of a lot easier when it comes time to unload it.
1:36
So I loaded up my dolly, you know, my moving cart, all the legs, and some tools, keyboard, and the giveaways this year. Anyone who made a four or five in a line on any of the bingo row machines won a keychain.
1:56
Keychains are pinball plastic, basically, and they have the logo of the multi-bingo, which itself contains the name along with several different unique card styles.

  • Bingo Butch is a collector with one of every Bally Bingo and almost one of every United Bingo ever produced

    high confidence · Nick identifying Bingo Butch as the purchaser of Ice Frolics at the show

    • Galaxygame
    Miss Universegame
    Miami Beachgame
    Stock Marketgame
    Total Nuclear Annihilationgame
    Chicago Coin Fox Huntgame
    Pete Hadditchperson
    John Robinetteperson
    Jim Holderperson
    Roller Derbygame
    Circus Queengame
    P3 Rockproduct
    Lenperson
    Miss America Deluxegame

    product_concern: Miss America Deluxe red letter game feature failed to payout in specific ball-count scenarios despite working correctly in pre-show testing; root cause unidentified

    high · Nick explains: 'he couldn't collect the red letter which is weird...it was paying properly everything else was great it was just in this one particular situation...I'll figure it out'

  • ?

    product_concern: Ice Frolics experienced ball stacking in trough due to fast ball return design without blocking pieces, causing lifter failures that required manual intervention

    high · Nick describes: 'balls can actually come down so fast that they can stack...the game didn't see eight balls and it wouldn't lift the first ball...the game had to be opened up a couple times'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Ice Frolics features dual-coil hold system allowing players to selectively hold even or odd balls before scoring; mechanical implementation is complex with pivot points and shutter board variation from standard designs

    high · Nick analyzes: 'dual coil system...these are huge coils...when you activate that you want to hold even or hold odd what happens is one of the coils becomes active and pulls this huge rod which will pull the shutter board...the layout of the shutter board is completely different from a normal game'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Miss Universe's mystery spot feature is criticized for removing earned benefits if the randomly selected number doesn't match the color player paid for, violating the principle that Bally bingo features are never taken away once earned

    high · Nick critiques: 'you have this feature qualified you're using it but you don't actually get to use it...The beauty of most of the Ballybingos, especially, is that when you have a feature, it's never taken away from you...in this case I feel like it having the rug pulled out'

  • ?

    content_signal: Nick recording post-event wrap-up podcast while exhausted after intensive show weekend, providing real-time event coverage and technical deep-dives for bingo community

    high · Nick notes: 'I know what caused it...please pardon me if I repeat myself, I haven't slept forever...the show was pretty intense as far as the number of people that I talked to'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Ice Frolics rare bingo machine auction sparked competitive bidding among serious collectors, ultimately purchased by Bingo Butch for collection completeness despite already owning high-quality example

    high · Nick reports: 'Len put $300 up on the game, and there was a lot of activity. A lot of people wanted to buy that game...it got snapped up on Saturday...it was Bingo Butch who brought it home...He had nice frolics, but needed one with nicer cosmetics'

  • ?

    community_signal: Nick corrected his implementation of Galaxy's moving numbers feature after seeing John Robinette's machine in person, discovering it works opposite to expected (left column up = right column down simultaneously), highlighting value of hands-on show experience

    high · Nick admits: 'I definitely just didn't understand the way that feature worked...when you push the letter...you would expect the numbers to move up or down...The way that it actually works...one number moves up in the left-hand column, the right-hand column moves down at the same time'

    • 2:12
    So I finished packing up and drove off to York the next morning. very early Thursday. In fact, I left so early that I got there right after the hall had opened up, but it was before they had come and let down the electricity.
    2:35
    The show this year was in a new hall, or new to me anyway. It's a much bigger hall, and that hall could hold many games, many more games than were possible in the prior haul. The big deal this year was that the flea market was moving indoors instead of being outside.
    2:56
    Every year it rains, usually pretty heavily. And so those outdoor flea market guys, you know, kind of get stuck because they've got a space, but you've got to kind of look inside the truck in order to buy the thing. So this year, everything was inside the hull, and that was pretty cool, and that worked out, as I'll go through in a little bit.
    3:23
    So get the Muldee set up and plop it in one of the rows to be moved around later. I found out where the wood rails were going and ended up moving it to an adjacent row. Now, this row is basically right in the center of the show floor, and that worked out very well, as we'll go into shortly. Now, typically, bingo row gets a lot of activity, but also typically I bring five or six games. Well, this year I only brought two. So many other collectors brought their games, but we were down a few from prior years. That really didn't stop the crowds from coming to play. I mean, we had wait times on bingos at a couple spots, and that was pretty good. That's unusual.
    4:22
    So what we had was Jeffrey Lawton brought his roller derby. roller derby worked flawlessly all weekend as one might expect from one of jeffrey's games they're always perfectly mechanically functional pete hadditch brought his circus queen as he's brought for the past couple years that's always a nice addition this year on friday i believe his replay register step down, coil bracket actually broke. And the game kept trying to step down the replay and it could not do it. And that ended up frying the coil. And so some of the magic smoke came out of the top of the game and it was a little disconcerting for a minute there. But luckily, Jeffrey Lawton was on hand and he had the part. And Pete was able to get his machine back up and running really quickly. That worked out very well.
    5:28
    So, next to that, Len and Chad and Ed and a new bingo guy, also named Ed, were there at the show. And this year they were able to stay the whole show, which was awesome.
    5:44
    They brought a beautiful Ice Frolics. This Ice Frolics, well, first of all, iStrollix is a pretty rare game. I have never seen one come up for sale, much less one that was in this condition. The back glass was almost perfect with a couple of small areas of touch-up in unlit areas. The cabinet was in really good shape. The only ding against it was that the coin return button was covered up with this huge black button, which contained a switch inside, and that's what emulated a coin being dropped.
    6:26
    Now, why they went to this extreme, I do not know. Whoever owned it before, Len. So, Len put $300 up on the game, and there was a lot of activity. A lot of people wanted to buy that game.
    6:44
    And it worked very well all weekend. There was a problem with one of the numbers lamps being out, and all three of them ended up being fried. So replaced all those and worked perfectly.
    7:02
    The only other problem with it is the ball return. Now the balls in that game come down, and there are no blocking pieces of wood on the ball return board like there are on a later game, say a Magic Screen game. And because of this design of this ball return board, the balls can actually be going pretty darn fast, and they can come in at odd angles into the trough. That trough must really take a beating from that design, which is okay, except that the balls can actually come down so fast that they can stack. and that happened a few times. So the game didn't see eight balls and it wouldn't lift the first ball and you couldn't override it.
    7:54
    So the game had to be opened up a couple times. But other than that, it was absolutely perfect. Now, I don't know on that game if there should be a debuncher.
    8:07
    If there should, then that would probably, but not necessarily resolve the problem because the debuncher would prevent exactly that. They wouldn't be able to stack because there'd be something physically mounted on top of the trough, which would prevent the ball from flying up there in the first place.
    8:31
    Unfortunately, I think based on the design, it could still hang up there. So I'm not really sure what the answer is or how Bally actually fixed that. The ball return board didn't have any holes in it, you know, where I would expect those extra blocks of wood to go. In fact, there was an extra little board that was in front of the trough that actually caught, you know, air balls that were moving with speed.
    9:01
    But at any rate, Ice Frolics is a cool game. It takes a scoring from Frolics, which is a six card. It's the only six card Bally made with extra balls, aside from Mississippi Showboat, where you buy the extra ball at the start of the game. Ice Frolics has a standard three extra balls, but it also has the concept of the super scoring card. Now, the super score can be rotated to any card that you want, But, unless you have before fourth, you can only rotate it before you shoot your first ball. That is pretty killer as a concept, I think. You really have to pick your card wisely. the difficult thing about Icefrogs is that your regular card scoring doesn't use odds in the traditional sense so there are odds on the back last but they only apply to the super score card that makes life a little tough if you get a winner on one of the other cards the scoring instruction cards actually weren't on the game but luckily they were on the multi and I was able to show Len, you know, what it should be scoring, and we confirmed it was working properly.
    10:23
    The normal card, I believe, scores four replays for three in a row, 16 for four, and then 100 for five. Let me check that real quick. Well, hey, I was close. It's 420 in 100. So that game is also notable because it's the third and final game where Bally used the traditional hold feature. The hold feature is a dual coil system where you can choose to replay your odd balls, your even balls, or none. So the game won't score until after you choose if you have the feature active. again this is one of these mechanical features that is so clever and yet so simple when you see it it must have taken a long time to perfect is all I'll say about that because there are two pivot points and then this dual coil these are huge coils on the left side of the playfield underneath and when you activate that you want to hold even or hold odd what happens is one of the coils becomes active and pulls this huge rod which will pull the shutter board to the left or to the right to drop the appropriate balls and the layout of the shutter board is completely different from a normal game. It's pretty fascinating. But at any rate, that got snapped up on Saturday, and there was talk among several folks of who would actually bring it home, but it was Bingo Butch who brought it home. Bingo Butch is the collector who has one of every Bally Bingo, and almost one of every United Bingo that was ever produced. So that was good. He had nice frolics, but needed one with nicer cosmetics, so that's what he got.
    12:34
    Beside that, Leonard also brought Sun Valley. Now, Sun Valley is one of the king of the moving numbers games. It's a Magic Squares game, but the difference between this and, say, Cypress Gardens is that you have magic line F along with A, B, C, D, and E that you can press with the foot rail control. So F is awarded randomly separate from A, B, C, D, and E. And so you can have that lit with only A and B lit, for example.
    13:15
    And it's pretty cool. Magic line F is all the way on the right side of the bingo card. and it operates like a magic line, so it moves up and down one position.
    13:27
    The magic squares, A, B, C, and D, are in the center of the card and comprised of four numbers each. Magic square E is not exactly a square.
    13:39
    It's more of a rectangle, really, that runs along the bottom of the back glass, the bottom row. And the numbers can be rotated from position to position. When I was testing Sun Valley at one point, I got a hit and thought that it awarded it incorrectly.
    13:58
    But there's actually a feature which allows for increased scoring, and my odds were so high that I was concerned that it was just going to rack up forever. But what had actually happened is I had had that feature active, and it worked like it was supposed to. What do you know? So, always good to see a Sun Valley. That's a fantastic show game as well. It's like Gay Time. You know, you can explain the basic concept to people and then slowly explain all the moving numbers features and exactly what happens.
    14:33
    Great game. So, beside that, we had the fabulous Multi Bingo. It was there for all three, well, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, all three days. And I had one crash.
    14:52
    And I know what caused it. I've run into a bug with that game before, but have never been able to isolate the problem. And then I had one other issue with the payout, which I'll get into momentarily. And then I had an extra ball issue. Now, I mentioned somewhere, and please pardon me if I repeat myself, I haven't slept forever. and the show was pretty intense as far as the number of people that I talked to and all that.
    15:34
    So I a little worn out but I had a fantastic time And more on that later I just going to keep pushing stuff to later But Ballerina let start there So Ballerina I had a guy playing and he was doing a good job. That guy, it's great to see him. I've seen him for the past couple years since we started doing the bingo row. And he's a super nice guy. And we chat about the project. And we chat about bingos. And this year he picked Ballerina. Great. I love that game. I get a little confused by the top row feature, but other than that, it's a fantastic game. So he was playing, he got a winner, he went to collect and it threw to tilt. When the game does that, it's typically because it's trying to do something with a unit that it can't. And it reacts poorly and basically crashes, but the way that I have everything set up, it'll just throw to tilt, which is good. It's a nice safeguard. It prevents you from having to whip out the keyboard and, you know, fire it back up or turn the game off and back on. So I said, well, keep playing, see what happens. So he was playing and, uh, he went to collect again and it completely crashed the desktop, so I said, oh boy, okay. So I had to whip out the keyboard and get it booted back up, but everything was fine after that. So the next problem, Miss America Deluxe. This is the final Miss America game, and I had had an issue with this before. Thought I had resolved it, obviously, under the appropriate conditions. I did not. The problem is the red letter game. The game awards that feature very easily, and if you go to Collected, if the game hasn't engaged the lockout coil, then you can't.
    17:38
    It just won't allow you to score the red letter game. I confirmed before I left that it was scoring in every position. remember the Miss America games have two different bingo cards and the numbers can actually travel across them so each row can move horizontally from card to card it's pretty awesome to see in person it's extremely powerful it made these games very very very lucrative for operators
    18:10
    but if they don't pay out that is pretty unsatisfying satisfying. So in this case, the guy had scored his red letter. It can be difficult to hit those numbers in the star zone. So I understand why he, you know, would want it to pay, but it didn't pay. Now, I don't know if he didn't have the extra card and it was lighting it by mistake or what was going on, but I got to dig into that deeper because it was working just fine before I left. other than that it was paying properly everything else was great it was just in this one particular situation he couldn't collect the red letter which is weird and he said that he got a red letter earlier and it worked just fine so it has something to do with either ball count or it has something to do with something else that I don't know yet and I'll figure it out so moving on to other problems this was the biggest problem that I ran into during the show and that's if you purchase an extra ball occasionally it wouldn't lift it now the common thread to this problem seemed to be beach time but if pressed I couldn't say that for sure I know that Vic Camp, who made it down on Saturday, he played several games and got some fantastic hits. But on a couple games, I had to manually lift some extra balls for him after he was awarded them because my lifter override checks all the trough switches in a different way than the normal lifter code does. The thing that's really weird about that is that I went through this extremely intensive check of all of the lifter code in every game for regular play and extra ball play within the cabinet. So the thing that changed, I think, is trough switch number one. Now trough switch number one in a bingo is right where the lifter arm sits. Now, that's not going to make a whole lot of sense to anyone who's never seen a bingo before, but in a bingo pinball machine made after some of the earliest ones, the ball is automatically delivered to the shooter lane by an elevator. It's extremely cool, and these are some of the only games that I've ever seen use this. but it's a very reliable setup and extremely rugged.
    20:56
    It's basically a metal arm that pivots and is driven by a motor. And when the motor engages, it lifts the ball, and trough switch number one, which is actually engaged by a metal pin that the ball sits on when it travels into trough switch number one's well area, lifts off of trough switch number one.
    21:23
    The way the lifter code works, if trough switch number one is not engaged, then the ball won't lift because there's no ball there. Well, that makes sense. So I have overrides built in. That's what the lifter override button is specifically for. It's for problems in the trough when you haven't played enough balls. And the game keeps count of those, and everything works out.
    21:55
    So I set up my code to work in that different way that the game does too, where it doesn't look at the trough switches per se. It looks at the ball count. but there has to be the shooter lane has to be clear so there's a switch in the shooter lane and when a ball is sitting there it will not lift another ball and that's by design you don't want to fill up the shooter lane with balls and then have nothing there now if you manage to soft plunge the ball just enough then it will pass through the ball gate and then come back down, you know, it doesn't go all the way through the ball gate. It comes back down to the shooter lane and another ball is lifted in its place. That happens on the regular EM bingos as well as my game. I have the switch adjusted so sensitive you have to really have a serious accident there for that to happen. My shooter rod is also really, really tight.
    23:10
    meaning it's hard for a player to actually plunge softly enough to get a ball stuck like that. But it can happen. It happened a couple times during the show. With the number of games played, which we'll get into in a little bit, it's really not surprising.
    23:28
    So, trough switch number one is my prime suspect, and that's because I made a change to it right before the show. So last year I had put a little piece of heat shrink tubing on trough switch number one to try and make it more reliable.
    23:44
    Essentially it increased the gap artificially between the switches in order to make it actuate more reliably. Well, I took that piece out and just adjusted the switch. I had forgotten I had done that last year.
    24:02
    I think there was a reason I had done it. because that caused the problem. At least, that's my suspicion. But, we'll see.
    24:14
    I haven't dug back into the game. I haven't done anything with the game since setting them back up in my game room after I got back. But anyway, to the right of that was Gay Time. Been over that. It's got magic pockets and magic lines. It's a beautiful game in great condition. Looked great beside the multi-bingo. beside that, John Robinette had brought his Galaxy, and he brought that especially because he heard me talking about it, which was super cool.
    24:45
    Galaxy has a unique moving numbers feature. It's also a really strange game. It's got a ball return feature, but it's different from Ice Frolics. you can actually return one half of the bingo card back to replay.
    25:06
    Very strange. That feature is motorized instead of being coil-driven. And, like I say, it's an odd game.
    25:17
    There are multiple steps. There's a bell that goes off with your odds increases, just like in Bonanza. and so it was great to see one of those in person. And the moving numbers feature does not work at all like I thought it did. I thought it worked like Magic Lines and I think John tried to describe it to me on Pinside and I did not understand. And there's no manual that anybody has scanned for that game but Phil Hooper has put together a bunch of engineering drawings. That was the final game that I implemented and I may have also been guilty of being in a hurry. But when I look at the diagrams for the moving numbers feature,
    26:05
    I definitely just didn't understand the way that feature worked. So the way it works, when you move the numbers up and down, it looks like it would work like magic lines, where you have two columns per line, and there's three lines total. So there's six columns. And when you push the letter, which corresponds to column A, you would expect the numbers to move up or down or in the middle, just like a typical magic line. The way that it actually works, as one number moves up in the left-hand column, the right-hand column moves down at the same time.
    26:46
    Very odd. I really should have taken video of it. But, unfortunately, I mean, I've really got to thank John because he spent a lot of time getting that game going. He told me a little bit about that game, and it sounded like a basket case.
    27:07
    He didn't remember that going into it, and by the time he got into it, he was into it. So he spent a lot of time getting that going. but he also unfortunately had to spend a bit of time getting balls unstuck and stuff like that because the ball return feature has a centering switch on this motor and unfortunately that switch had broken and so he had to make some quick adjustments but it still wasn't quite reliable so that feature was disabled.
    27:44
    Unfortunately, he had to leave the show a few different times he had some family stuff going on which is, you know, I can't believe he made the time to come to the show with all that stuff he had going on but he left and then some balls got stuck and unfortunately he didn't leave the keys with anybody so the game was down for a period of time on each day and beside his game, Jim Holder had brought his Miss Universe And Miss Universe is a really weird game. You know, I would say it's an odd game. It's not weird. It's just different.
    28:26
    It is a three-ball game. It's the only three-ball game that Bally made. The bingo card is long and short. So it's very narrow. Long and narrow.
    28:40
    It's several columns wide and just a few rows deep. and the big deal with this game is because you only have three chances and again your odds are for three in a row four in a row or five in a row you have to use spotted numbers to your advantage and the game gives you multiple ways to win spotted numbers now one thing that i learned from playing his game again i haven't played it in a couple years now is that i have my implementation of the mystery spot incorrect. So I'm really glad that he brought his game because the way that I implemented the mystery spot, it never robs you of the number. In my opinion, that's a bad feature, that mystery spot.
    29:30
    The thing is that you have to pay to earn it, and you either get red or yellow or both. and there are a total of six numbers that it can land on and it's either going to be a red number or a yellow number. Now that has nothing to do with whether it's in the red line or the yellow line. It's just the color of the number in this little feature. To earn the feature, you have to shoot your second ball and hit the rebound rubber. Why is that, you may ask? Well, because it puts your ball in a particular spot, probably.
    30:08
    and the likelihood that you'll miss your number is higher because you're actually aiming for the rebound rubber instead of aiming for where you're supposed to go.
    30:19
    But the real travesty with that feature is that you hit the rebound rubber, it spins and selects one of the mystery spot numbers. Well, if it's in the opposite color that you haven't paid for, then you get nothing. so unfortunately you still have to shoot for that rebound number because there's still a chance that you might get one of the numbers that you need but i don't know i just think it's uh it's poor because it takes something away from the player you have this feature qualified you're using it but you don't actually get to use it if you see what I'm saying. The beauty of most of the Ballybingos, especially, is that when you have a feature, it's never taken away from you unless you're timed out of it. There's never a point where a feature is removed that you already earned And in this case I feel like it having the rug pulled out from under you if you know what I saying
    31:28
    So that part's unfortunate. Now, that didn't stop many people from playing that game. I mean, that game got played a lot. And there was at least one, four in a row on it, from someone outside of the bingo row. and there were several people within the bingo row that got three, four, five in a row on that game. So it's not like it wasn't being played. It's just that it's an unusual game. But again, I'm really glad that was there in the show environment. It gave me a chance to reconfirm some stuff that I had implemented, and that was one of the last games. In fact, I think that might have been two from the end. you know, there was one in between it and, uh, Galaxy. So again, it was good to confirm that. And it was great to see Jim again. Um, he, uh, wasn't able to bring any games last year, um, with some health stuff that was going on and, uh, it was, it was great to see him and, you know, he was, uh, doing well. So, um, aside from that, those were the games on the first day. In the flea market, there were two different bingos. There was a stock market that looked to be in pretty darn good shape. The stock market is the precursor to ticker tape, and it has corners but no super lines, but it does have the double or nothing feature. Now, that was for sale in the flea market, and it was up on legs. Everything looked good. I'm trying to remember now. I don't think it had the right legs on. But it did have legs, and it was upright, and it was plugged in and turned on and looked okay. And then in another part of the flea market, someone unloaded a beautiful Miami Beach.
    33:27
    Miami Beach is the only game with magic curtains, although somebody told me I should check the back glass again and make sure that's what they're called on there. Hold on a minute.
    33:38
    You know what? I feel like a dummy. I've always called them magic curtains because that's what it says on bingo.cdyn.com, and apparently that's what players called it as well. But according to the back glass and the score and the instruction cards, it's called Extra Lines. Well, I learn something new every day, although you'd think I would have learned that a while ago.
    34:02
    So this Miami Beach was just gorgeous. It had original cabinet paint. There was one little area of touch-up, and it's, of course, the serial number. It had Baltimore tax stamps. There were little licenses. And the back glass was gorgeous. There was a little bit of paint loss right on the edge at one part of the glass, but otherwise it looked great. and of course I got a photo of the tax licenses and not the actual game anyway.
    34:39
    Someone from the bingo rope snapped that up and it was a good purchase, I thought. That game looked beautiful. It looked like it would shine up very nicely.
    34:52
    So that was all the first day and we had a couple of four in a line winners, a couple of keychains given out. The first one went to Chad, and that was awesome. I walked away to explore, I don't know, I was, oh, I know what it was. I was loading up a game, and I get a text from Chad, and it says four in a line, and that was cool. So I loaded up a game. I picked up a 1940 Chicago coin fox hunt. And this is a flipperless game. It's got a fox hunting theme with an animated back glass.
    35:38
    And being from 1940, it's a pre-war. It is smaller than a standard pinball machine made post-war. But it is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful in really nice shape. So I'm looking forward to digging into that. And one of the interesting things that it has, that has never been on a game that I've worked on, is the coil in a can. It's got a unit with a coil enclosed inside of a bracket. So you cannot see nor touch the coil, and the only thing coming out of it are two wires.
    36:23
    It's pretty cool. and it's on one of the most used units. I think it's the low scoring on that game. So that's going to be exercised a lot and why wouldn't you put that in some kind of enclosure? It would decrease the sound made by that coil quite a bit, theoretically. So I'm looking forward to seeing what that sounds like since I've never worked on one with that feature. But, so day two. That's the first day that the public gets in. And I gave out many keychains that day. And the bingos were played almost constantly. I snuck away at one point to go talk to Scott Denisey and play his Total Nuclear Annihilation. That was at the York show. and Scott I'm sure many people have met him by now but he is a super nice guy and his game is excellent so that was a real treat to be able to play that at a show like York and I played it in the morning before a lot of people got in and so it was nice and quiet just me and the machine that was nice and I got a couple multi-balls destroyed a couple reactors thought I was doing quite well but I looked up at my score at the end and it was not very high so the next time I played it I did significantly worse and then I only played it one other time but I did significantly better score wise but didn't get as many multiballs and didn't clear as many reactors So there's some nuance there that obviously I am not aware of.
    38:16
    That game is a ton of fun, though. And I know there's a lot of people that are going to be buying one, but it is well worth the money, in my opinion. It also uses the same control board that the Multi uses. That's a P3 rock. And Scott puts it to great use. so Scott was able to sneak away a couple times and I showed him bingos and he really took a liking to Gay Time with the magic pockets and the magic lines really captures a lot of folks' imaginations but it's amazing how complex the games are when paired with something with flippers You would think, boy, this thing has no flippers. It must be a simple dud. But in reality, the bingos are extremely, extremely complex. And they require a lot of thought before every ball, which is something that I love about them. But it's great to be able to share that with other people. And, you know, people like Scott, and Scott had never seen a bingo before. So him getting a chance to play it, it's cool. It's always cool to see new people try the bingos, and it was great to talk to him about the control system and his game, which, I mean, again, just wonderful. It is a great game. If you get the opportunity, play it. If you have the money, buy it.
    39:49
    It's that good. So other highlights on Friday. I got to meet Frank, another custom pinball guy, and he and I got to chat in a little bit about his projects, and that was fantastic. So Frank, another super nice guy, and he and everyone in the custom pinball world have been very supportive of what I've been doing, And I really, truly appreciate that, especially those two that came out and actually played the game. Can't ask for much more than that.
    40:26
    So other highlights, you know, lots of folks that I've met over the past couple of years came by. New bingo owners from years past came by and played new games. And it was great seeing everybody. and got lots of compliments on the multi. You know, I knew that I would. Of course, it's not there for compliments. It's there to play, and it got a lot of play.
    40:55
    Again, we'll get into numbers in just a little bit, but it got a lot of play, and I am extremely pleased with the amount of play that it got, in fact. So I had a lot of questions from operators and individuals who were interested on when it was going into production and how much it was going to cost and all that good stuff and I'm extremely flattered by all that and you know thank you truly because it's a lot of work it was a lot of work to put it together in that state and bring it to the show the fact that it It was recognized as such and that people were interested in, you know, making a leap financially for it. You know, that doesn't go without notice by me. So, thank you.
    41:54
    So, that was Friday. I mean, keychains galore. And, unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of every winner. and I suspect there are some people that walked away without keychains just because it was so busy and that was not my intent if that happened, if you got a 4 or 5 in a row on any of the games and you happen to be listening to this let me know if you didn't get a keychain and I will mail it to you again, I didn't mean to snub you I was trying to carry on seven conversations simultaneously. It can be a little difficult, and I'm sorry for that. So that was Friday.
    42:41
    We went and got dinner, and then it was time for Saturday. And did I mention that Phil Bogoma came all the way from Denver?
    42:54
    That meant a ton to me. I cannot believe. And, you know, it's not just for me. He came to meet all the guys out here on the East Coast. And it was just awesome, you know, to see him play the games and hang out and talk and tell stories and, you know, all those things. We really got to spend some quality time, I think, you know, chatting about bingos and everything. And I really appreciate him making that trip. It was a long trip for him.
    43:31
    So, Saturday. And Phil was there all three days, by the way. I think I completely neglected to mention that earlier. But he was there Thursday right at set up before we had power. He was there. And he helped me unload from the truck.
    43:51
    And helped me load up, too, on Saturday. But at any rate, Saturday, my goal was to get Rich, who's the person who runs the show, he's the guy in charge, to play the game. I've been hounding him, hounded him last year, and I was hounding him this year. And he said he finally got a chance to play it, and unfortunately I was away from the game for a minute. And that's because I was over waiting in line at TNA in the morning. so that was the third time I had played it so that was unfortunate but the rest of the day was very busy I rarely walked away from the game Vic Camp came down that was awesome it's always great to see Vic and he got a 5 in the line right away on Ice Frogs and he almost had a double 5 in the line and it was great to watch him play. That's always very entertaining.
    44:58
    And he does a great job. He always gets a pretty big hit. So he played the multi and played a few different games. He played Beach Time and got a hit in three different colors at max odds, 192 for each color.
    45:18
    That was cool to see. a couple of dedicated flipper guys came over and actually tried the multi and that meant a lot to me too wood rail and and metal rail guys you know it's it's hard to make that leap but it's really appreciated by me I mean I know that some people it's just not their cup of tea but it really means a lot that they gave it a try. Um, and in some cases kept coming back, which is even better.
    45:54
    So, um, you know, that was Saturday. Saturday was very special. Um, you know, I had to say goodbye to everybody because I was making a special trip right after the show. I went up to, uh, visit with Bingo Butch and his son, Mike. And, um, we got to, we, I got to, uh, look at some of their collection. Um, and more on that in a little bit, but boy, that absolutely blew me away. Um, you know, you talk about a number of games and it's, it's hard to imagine you see it and you go, Oh my gosh, this is a lot of games. Um, but, But Saturday I said goodbye to everybody.
    46:45
    And, oh, one thing I forgot to mention is that a Ballydixieland showed up at the beginning of the show. Now the owner who I hadn met before dropped it off and it had a lot of problems I managed to get several of them worked out and the game was mostly playable Double or nothing would not score, but regular wins would.
    47:15
    It was for sale for $150, and this Dixieland was absolutely beautiful. It was in fantastic condition, and really looked great. inside and out. I mean, it was pretty clean.
    47:33
    So an interesting thing about it is that there was an IGT asset tag on the back of it. And I had read Keith Niccolo's notes and Danny's notes on the matter, and they had mentioned that IGT had, at some point,
    47:54
    purchased the rights to remake Dixieland, in the 80s. But that actually wasn't the case. I was educated by somebody who worked for Bally previously. He told me that IGT was in talks with Bally to do something with gaming, but that fell apart. And anyway, that was an asset tag. So it was a routed game that It was IGT-owned, not an IGT remake. It was Valley. So that was cool to learn. But even cooler is that a young guy that I know, Stephen, picked that up. That was his first bingo.
    48:43
    But then he had the problem of having to move it. They're big and heavy. So I helped him out and got it in pieces with him, and we got it loaded up. And in return, he helped me load up the multi, which was great.
    49:03
    So let me talk about the non-bingos that were there, and there were a lot of games that were there. This year, the hall was huge. There was a lot of space to move around, which was nice. so other games at the show there were lots of great metal rail EMs, Williams Heat Wave Williams Gulf Stream an expressway or two there was an alpine club which needed a little work and quite a few other really beautiful games there was God Leave North Star and unfortunately you know I'm busy teaching bingos and showing people the games and so I don't have a lot of time to play anymore but I did go around and see them and you know there were some really beautiful games there this year as there are every year and as to the wood rail row which was set up right behind us I love that there were some really gorgeous games there there was a Gottlieb basketball, which is one that you don't see all that often.
    50:16
    And that game's a lot of fun to play. There was a Gottlieb Derby Day that was brought by my friend Steve Smith.
    50:26
    And a stagecoach and a spotter card. but by far the highlight of the Wood Rail Road for me was the Baker Twinkle that was there now I've been speaking with a listener for some time who has been in the process of restoring one of these games and this showed up during setup day and just appeared behind me in the row and I said holy cow And it was beautiful, too. I mean, the back glass was perfect. Playfield looked fantastic. And the cabinet itself had what appeared to be appropriate legs and, you know, was in good shape.
    51:18
    So I snapped a photo and sent it to him. And he said, wow. So, I wanted to make this game the year of Flipperless. game for this episode. So, the thing about the Baker games, they were active in the 1930s. Twinkle was made in September of 1939.
    51:45
    The game itself has multiple ways to win, but just with a casual glance at the playfield, you may not notice this. The playfield itself has 13 different spring bumpers. These spring bumpers are a little different than most spring bumpers that you're probably accustomed to if you've played older games in that they have a metal platform underneath.
    52:12
    When the game is started, all the metal platforms for all 13 bumpers raise up in the air and a good solid thwack into the bumper will force what I assume is a coil to engage and it'll pull the platform down for the duration of the game.
    52:32
    This is a cool effect. And subsequent hits to the same bumper now rebound off of the spring. They use the metal skirt piece as a little ramp, and you can get multiple hits on the spring bumper.
    52:51
    And some of the big action for me on this play field is actually down at the bottom. there are six different potential exits for the ball to take. Four of them right next to each other down at the bottom and each one of those has a different insert above it for a different colored star. The rollover for these is actually very unique. I've never seen another rollover that was anything like this before. Once the ball rolls over it remains down.
    53:26
    And when it's down, it turns on the lamp on the playfield for that particular star. It also turns it on on the back glass. And I'll get to the back glass in just a moment. But the game is absolutely beautiful. There are pictures on the IPDB, but I honestly think that they don't do this game justice. seeing it in person was an eye-opener for me. I looked at the art for it and thought it looked cool,
    54:00
    but it didn't look anything near as detailed from the photos that I'd seen as it did in person. So if you have the opportunity to see this game, I would definitely take it. So, looking at the back glass, you have 13 different squares. Each represents one of the bumpers. Every time that you knock one of those platforms down, it lights it up on the back glass. These squares are arranged in such a fashion that they form the bottom part of an observatory. Up above it is a ring comprised of the four stars, and above that is the telescope and the top of the observatory. The night sky is in the background with a huge shooting star which carries the word tilt as well as the title of the game, Twinkle, up above it.
    54:56
    On the observatory platform, there are several different people. It looks like there's a family on the right-hand side and then a couple on the left-hand side, and there are multiple large stars up in the sky and what appears to be a UFO that looks like it's crashing down to Earth or a spaceship. Very cool. And on the far right side are multiple ringed planetoids, each of which is a different value of 10,000 points, up to 50,000. Back down on the playfield, in the upper left area, the credit projection unit actually signs through the upper left ball arch, and there's a little card that says free replays, and then the projected number comes through that. That is a cool touch. I've never seen one that was down on the play field, at least in that particular area, and I think it's great. I mean, it's there if you're looking for it, and it fades into the background if you're not.
    56:08
    Looking at the score and instruction cards, if you knock out all 13 bumpers, meaning you pull the skirts down in one game, you receive two replays, and each subsequent bumper hit counts as another two replays on any of the bumpers.
    56:27
    I've never done that. I've come close, but there were a couple of them, So the adjustment on those must be very sensitive because, or tricky, I guess I should say, because there were a couple bumpers that no matter how solid the hit was, they wouldn't retract.
    56:48
    The other way to win is by hitting all four of the rollovers down at the bottom, and when you do so, you get two replays for that. now I was able to do this and this is where bingo skills come in handy because it's multiple lanes side by side you have two basically dead lanes that give you nothing and each time that you roll over one of the star lanes that lane becomes dead so as a player you want to be able to bounce it over to the lane that you need without tilting very carefully, and I was able to do that a couple different times. And I will say that it's pretty gratifying to do that.
    57:37
    I really think that this game is extremely fun. I wish there was one locally that I could play or that there was another one that I could pick up because it's that fun. The challenge of trying to hit all of the spring bumpers is almost insurmountable, but the key word there is almost. I feel like with enough practice, it could probably be done, you know, once every dozen games or so.
    58:06
    The other thing that's really appealing about this is the way that the spring bumpers are lit. There is actually an exposed lamp which sits in the center of the spring bumper, and it is a very bright lamp. Probably helps with the name Twinkle. When you look at the play field, it's just beautiful seeing it all lit up like that inside the spring bumper. And because of the design of the spring bumper, you know, the lamp is exposed. You can see it from all sides, but it's not overpowering.
    58:41
    So the last thing that I'll mention is that the back glass actually has animation. and different elements on the back glass will flash when certain score thresholds are achieved or different things are accomplished on the play field. That's a really cool finishing touch on this game. It's amazing some of the stuff on these games from the 30s that they were able to cram in. And I will say that the listener that I mentioned has been looking for a shooter gauge for a Baker machine for quite some time. If anyone listening happens to have one, please let me know and I'll get you all in touch. That's going to be a hard piece to find, but it's the thing that he needs to complete his machine. So if you're able to find that, or you happen to have one in a parts stash somewhere, just let me know. Well, again, I want to thank everybody who brought games to the York Show, be they modern, or bingos, or EMs, or something else entirely, purely mechanical, pre-war, whatever the case may be. I have a lot of fun every year going to the York Show. It's a smaller show, it's quieter, it's certainly more laid back. You hear me talking it up for weeks and weeks before the show, but there's a good reason. It's absolutely a fantastic time, and I look forward to it every year. I can't wait to go again, but unfortunately, good things come to those who wait.
    60:29
    Next year, hopefully, I'll see some of the same great faces that I saw this year. hopefully I can continue to convince people to bring games for the bingo row that's been a great success and it's really thanks to everybody who brings the games as well as those of you who have come to play them and know them, understand them and love them, hopefully thank you all for coming to play thank you all for trying the multi-bingo that really means a lot to me Obviously, I've put a lot of effort into the multi-bingo, and I hope that it shows. I hope that you had a good time with it. And if you had any suggestions, you know, I'm always open to hear them. And I may or may not implement them, but I'm always open to hearing them. But by and large, people didn't have suggestions. There were those bugs that I noted. I'll get those taken care of ASAP, and it's going to be on to the next project for me. I have so many things that I want to do.
    61:36
    Unfortunately, my time is limited, so I've got to pick my spots. But I'm going to call out some names again. Thank you to Phil, to Vic, to Jeffrey, to John, to Jim, to Len, to Chad, to Ed, to the other Ed. and thank you all again for playing. All right, everybody, that will do it for tonight. Thank you very much for listening. My name again is Nick Baldrige. You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com or you can call me on the bingos line at 724-BINGOS1, 724-246-4671. You can listen to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, via RSS, on Facebook, on Twitter at Bingo Podcast. you can follow me on Instagram also at bingo podcast or you can listen to me on my website which is for amusement only dot libsyn dot com thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time