What's that sound? It's For Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to For Amusement Only. This is Nicholas Baldridge. Summertime is a busy time, but there's always time for bingo pinball. Before we get started, I wanted to wish Wayne Nyans a happy 99th birthday. Wayne Nyans is the oldest living pinball designer, as far as I know. and he is a fantastic person and was a great guest. I interviewed him recently. Please go listen to that interview if you haven't heard it already. Wayne is very humble and is a pleasure to talk to about pinball or anything. So, Wayne, happy birthday. Thank you again for all the great games. I've been working more on the multi-bingo. I put together a punch list of things to do before the entire project is complete, and that list is surprisingly small. I kind of shocked myself with how little there was left to do. Of course, the biggest slug was putting together all the code, which was finished for episode 400. But now I'm going through and doing some refinements, going through and double-checking my portioning. I know I have a couple games that really need attention, and then I'm also going through and cleaning up some code funkiness, and I'll repush that to the public repository once that's done. But going through, documenting, figuring out what exactly needs to happen and where, and putting together the beginnings of my manual, and taking care of some cosmetic stuff, some of which is really exciting and I have yet to announce and I'll keep it that way for now but the other thing that I've been working on that has been consuming some time is working on the upcoming Bingo Row at the York Show this York Show I'll be bringing back the multi-bingo and at least one other game from my collection but you know how it is if you have the truck with space might as well fill it or you're liable to fill it before you're way back. So I'll probably end up bringing more than what I'm thinking at the moment. It all depends on how the mood strikes me and if anybody's able to help me this year load up beforehand. Might have to call in some local favors again. But it's all in the name of getting some games out for people to play. A good cause, I think. So, aside from my multi-bingo and my stuff, what else is going to be there? Well, I know Butch and his son Mike are planning to attend, and last year they brought a couple of great, really rare and unusual games to play. Hopefully that trend continues. I haven't checked in with them as to what they're bringing, but I'm hoping that they will bring something. I spoke with Jeffrey Lawton. He's planning to bring a couple of games, and I'll keep the title list close at hand for the moment, but things are looking pretty good, and a mix of games from different eras of bingo pinball will be represented. Jim Holder, when last I talked with him was going to bring a couple of games Steve Smith not bringing a game, it's okay he's bringing a flipper game, and it's a fun game so that's good too and then Phil Bogoma, who's been on the show is planning to attend the Orc Show John Robinette, whom I met a couple years ago is going to be attending and he's planning on bringing at least one game that should be great Chad, Len, and another buddy might be bringing some games, so that's super exciting, I'm looking forward to seeing everybody, saying hello you know, showing off some of the improvements in the multi-bingo from last year and giving out some giveaways, and speaking of giveaways I have the giveaways prepared for this year, they're very exciting and we'll keep it at that for now so, what else is going on? I have been working on several vintage electronic projects, mostly video game or computer related. Just some fun diversions to share with the kids while it's really hot outside. So in other news, what's going on in the bingo world? Well, I've put together a plan to get some more paperwork in the hands of Phil Hooper, who maintains bingo.cdyn.com. I'm hopeful that with the addition of some of this extra paper that it'll help other people who are working on their machines, and it'll certainly help me with the multi. So that's exciting all around, I think. Anything I can give back to the community, I'm more than happy to do, and especially Phil Hooper, who has been such a huge help so far. So, I know this week there's a big pinball tournament, Pinburg. When last I checked, there were no flipperless games of any stripe there, much less bingos, but I do wish all the best to those coming from Richmond and going up there to compete. should be fun. In other news, I've been working on RoboFrenzy, and RoboFrenzy, I believe when last we spoke, I was working on the cabinet and getting the wood cut necessary in order to assemble it. Well, I've assembled the cabinet and put it all together. I've primed the interior of the back door and started laying out my components. I've got the basic layout done for the first game on the interior of the back door. Some hinges arrived. I'm going to be using some bingo pinball hinges to hinge the door. I feel that that is a really good use of the hardware because bingo pinball hinges are constructed in such a way that gravity holds them together, but with the door open, you can actually remove the back door off of the hinges and set it down on sawhorses or whatever to work on switches. It'll be very convenient from a service perspective to be able to do this. As far as Jones plugs go for connectivity, the interior of the game will have the score reels, it'll have all the lamps, and it'll have the trip banks. So there will need to be Jones plug connectivity between the back door and the interior in order to make that serviceability really useful. Now I could do it like the bingos and just clamp them down and you just can't move very far away from the interior of the cab, but ideally I'd like to be able to separate the door and bring it with me somewhere else to work on it I only building two of them but you know I still want to be able to fix it And if I get tired of kneeling behind the game at some point I want to be able to take it apart and do something interesting with it. So that's the current plan. We'll see how that goes. Right now I've got a whole lot of desoldering to do. The components that I have have wires that were snipped off, and so I've got to remove them from the relays, the score motor, various steppers, and get everything clean and ready to go before I start wiring my switches up. that said that process will probably only take about a week to do but at this point I'm trying to knock out as much of my multi-bingo punch list as I can before jumping into this project in earnest mostly because I would like to bring a very far along multi-bingo with me to York when I go. It'll already have all of the games selectable and playable, but doing something else interesting cosmetically with it is high on my priority list at the moment, and that's going to take some time. So expect more details here shortly, but things are looking pretty good. By the next episode, I should have that pretty much complete, depending on how long it takes something to be made. So if all this secrecy hasn't really made you interested in coming out to see the bingo row at York Show 2017, I'm not sure what to say. You should come see me. Say hello. And play all these games. And remember, four or five in a row on any machine will get you a special prize. Aside from this, within the last two weeks, I believe, I worked on a Chicago Coins new style baseball champ. This is a 1973 game, again made by Chicago Coin. It's a pitch and bat, but it's in an arcade style upright cabinet instead of a full length pinball style cabinet. This game is extremely cool. I really thought it was a very nice pitch and bat because there's a lot of different targets to hit, as well as very pleasing graphics and a pretty interesting play field setup, which was actually really interesting to work on. They did think about service on this game. The idea being that this behemoth cabinet, I mean, it's really quite big, even compared to a standard upright arcade game, even EM arcade game. It's quite large. So this cabinet would sit against a wall, and there is a front panel which unlocks and reveals a drawer holding most of the mechanical units in the game. This is very similar to working on a 1940s one ball made by Bally or Universal or whomever. and this drawer contains all the motors and everything except for the pitch motor and a few pitch-related relays and the score reels, which are up in a separate section up top. This is pretty convenient. The only problem with this drawer is that it's right on the ground, so you have to be basically sitting on the ground to do any close-up work on it. this game in particular had some issues with the animation motor this is a motor which provides this really cool backlit animation on the playfield the playfield which I haven't touched on yet is actually essentially a backglass it's a piece of screened glass with a variety of different positions of runners and infield and outfield and so forth it's not your traditional wood with inserts it's actually glass. So it's pretty neat graphically, you know, when you're watching this game going, because as the players run the bases, you can see them move in multiple positions, at least after some tweaks to the animation motor, and should be good. The animation motor is kind of funky. There's a coil which pulls in a wiper for each run that you get. So, let's say you get a double. Well, as soon as the hitter starts running, it's supposed to pull in this coil and start animating. Clean the disc. This is a clutch-driven affair, so make sure that was all good, crud-free and so forth, and turned smoothly and easily when it was supposed to. It did. But the problem was this coil, which is called the at-bat coil, would never pull. And there's a single switch which actuates it, and it's on the back side of this animation motor. You can really only get to it from the left-hand side, so when you pull the drawer out, you kind of have to be able to get around all sides of it. but the most important side is the left-hand side. So I'm looking at this thing. I'm poking switches. I'm trying to make it do what it's supposed to do. It just will not. No matter how much I clean or adjust that switch, it's not working any better. It's working very intermittently. Go through. If I recall correctly on the schematic, Each of the base hits is represented with a normally closed switch. So I made sure all those were good. Everything's fine. Keep testing it. Nothing. Still not pulling in that coil. Test the coil. The resistance is very low, like alarmingly low. But I wasn't sure what resistance it should be. So that makes a difference. It did have continuity, so there were no breaks in the wire in the coil. But I had just about given up on that problem when all of a sudden it fixed itself. So one of the many switch cleanings and adjustments that I did apparently fixed the problem. But I can't point to any specific one because there were many switch cleanings and adjustments involved. Switch stack tightenings and so forth. So I'm not sure, but it started pulling that coil in every single time. So that's good. The animation started going. Everything's great. Now, the next problem, which was unsolvable for me, and I'm hoping will fix itself. That never happens, except in this one particular case. but anyway, when a new batter comes up, it's supposed to illuminate the batter on the play field. Ordinarily, you can't see the batter until it's time to bat again. Well, for whatever reason, and this also happens on the animation motor and I pinpointed the switch I cleaned it I adjusted it It will not light that doggone battery And I am not sure why So I need to trace out some wires and see what's happening. Jones plugs are clean. There is a Jones plug in between. But, yeah, for whatever reason, not lighting. Bulb is good. Everything is good. So next time I go to finish up that game, I'll take a look at that, see if I can fix that. The game, of course, works just fine now, but that was a weird issue. There were lots of scoring issues on that game, and it took me a while to figure out exactly how the game was supposed to score. At first, I thought there was a progressive-style home run value add. So, with each successive run, it would tick up this bonus run stepper, and then you would be able to accrue an extra one or two or more runs, depending on how many you had gotten. But that's not the case at all. It's not progressive at all, and instead it's randomized. So with each hit that you make, that bonus stepper moves, and depending on its position, each home run will count as either one point or two points or three points. That makes more sense as far as the mechanics go. but yeah, it took me a second to figure out what exactly it was trying to do, because of course it wasn't scoring that way at all, it was scoring the bonus randomly, and it depended on which home run pocket that you hit it into, so hitting the ball straight up the playfield gives you a home run, but there's also verticality to this game, so there are upper left bleachers, upper right bleachers, and straight-up bleachers. And then in the back of the game, there are two bullseye targets, and there are adjustments within the game to allow those to score different values. So if I recall correctly, the owner had them set to five runs for those bullseye targets, which are practically impossible to hit, by the way. you've got to have just the right ricochet in order to get up there. So I'd be very curious to see how many of those bullseye targets have been hit. But the runs, you also get a bonus if you complete the upper left, upper right, and upper center bleachers all within one game. the game is locked to three outs so you get to have as many balls as you like as long as you continue to score up to three outs it also has these excellent little ramps located all over the game so depending on where the ball flies you'll hit one of these tiny ramps and they are very small about a half an inch or so, if memory serves. And they cause the coolest ricochets within that game. So the ball can really go flying in interesting ways, and it hits off of the sides and the back of the game and lands in spots that you wouldn't think possible. And really, that's how all of the upper deck hits that I was able to achieve came from hitting something way off to the right that you wouldn't even expect would ever score, and it did. It's cool. There's a typical array of targets in the back, which will allow you to score various types of runs, and one of the interesting things about this game is its electronic sound. There's a sound board, and depending on what type of run that you get, And if there's a bonus awarded, you get a cheering sound. If there's a bonus awarded, the longer that voltage is applied to the soundboard, the louder and more intense the cheering gets. It's pretty cool. The way that they were able to do this relatively inexpensively, and it's a pretty neat effect. There's a little speaker on the front of the game right beside the coin door, and that provides all the sound. and the pitch of the sound is high enough that it really doesn't need to be mounted at ear level for you to be able to hear it very well. So that's a cool effect. The other thing that surprised me is that there is both a bell and a chime in this game, and there's a knocker. so for any given ball at least two of those devices are going off every time it's pretty incredible a lot of money went into this game it appears to me multiple motors steppers of course reels and just all kinds of stuff it's pretty incredible it's a fun game So one other note, that glass playfield can actually be lifted and hung from chains so that you can work on the underside, which contains a pitch motor and a few of those relays that I mentioned. That's really convenient. I mean, the whole thing is really easy to work on except for the targets in the back. Those are all mounted on a pivot point, and you can swing them up to work on them. and the thing that's hardest to work on are the bullseye targets. They basically have to be out of the way for you to mess around with any of the home run switches or anything that's mounted to those swinging targets and removing it from the game requires removing four bolts that go through the entire side of the game. just not incredibly easy. But everything else is pretty easy to get to and work on. And the game is even on casters. They really thought of just about any complaint that you might have and addressed it. I think it's a pretty well thought out game from both a design standpoint and a serviceability standpoint. So, got the game up and going and scoring correctly. And the only problem that remains is that batter not lighting, at least as far as I recall. So, that was fun. And now, it's on to the year of Flipperless. And today's game is 1934's Automatic Amusements Action. Now, this game has a really interesting history, and I'm going to go into all that, but just stick with me here because it's a really cool game. This is an early, early electromechanical game, and it was designed by Harry Williams, who owned Automatic Amusements. This game, Action, was designed in two different sizes, which was relatively common at the time. There was what they called the Senior Model which was a floor larger model and then there was a junior model which was either countertop or just smaller so that it fit in a different space The layout of the game is identical it just the size of the playfield is different, and we'll get into the layout here in a moment, because it's really a cool game. But the demand for this game was so great, Automatic Amusements originally contracted with Bally to produce the junior version of the game, and the demand was so great that they ended up moving production of the senior version of the game to Bally as well. So they were getting so many orders for this game that Automatic Amusements wasn't able to keep up, And I don't know the size of Automatic Amusements, but I assume they were relatively small. And the reason they contracted with Bally was for their manufacturing expertise and the size of their company. You know, they were probably more able to produce more of them than Automatic Amusements. And my guess is that the junior model was supposed to be the big seller. and it turned out to be, you know, and also ran along with the senior model. So let's talk about the game itself because, again, this is just a fascinating game from a gameplay perspective. Up at the top, you have a few devices, one of which is the action hole. The action hole, if you land a ball in it, has a diverter underneath, which will shove a ball either to the left or right side. There is a kicker, which will kick it up and out, an up kicker, and fire it along a row of these devices, which divert the ball. and on the right hand side there's a set of pins so the ball moves in what's essentially a chicane lane so as it's moving along down this path it'll land in one of the open diverters and the idea being that there is progressive scoring as you go down. Starting at 1,000 near the top, then 2,000 at the middle, and 5,000 at the bottom. So the ball travels down and lands on any open diverter. At that point it stops, and you get those points awarded. This is a cool thing. I don't know if any of you have played the 60s board game, Avalanche, but it was played with marbles and utilized a series of diverters which were very similar to these except they were made of plastic instead of metal. But, nevertheless, I played a ton of that Avalanche game with my brother, despite not having instructions for the board game anymore and being in the pre-internet era, had absolutely no idea how to play, so instead what we would do was make up our own games. what I can tell you is that such a simple device as this diverter actually provides a tremendous amount of amusement. The other thing I can tell you is that every single game is going to be different because of these diverters. It's very clever, very simple mechanically. There's only two positions, but it would provide a lot of eye appeal and make you feel like you got a lot for your money, which is a cool thing. Well, below the action hole, which starts all of that, there's a kicker, and it's labeled on the play field as the bouncer, and essentially it will just fire the ball back up. It's just a kicker, like one of those kicking targets on those late 80s Gottlieb solid states. That's essentially what it is. And on the play field, there's a graphic of an explosion, which is going in every direction, basically, from that bouncer. But I think it's more likely that it kicked only in one direction forward, and depending on where the ball was touching at the time is where it would shoot from. The IPDB speculates that it might be able to fire it in any angle, but I don't think that's correct just looking at the play field. But I don't know. I've never seen one of these games in person. It would be interesting to know that for sure. Around the play field, or right around, between pins and so forth, are various scoring pockets, the least of which is 100 points, and the highest of which appears to be 600 points in the main outer area. There's also an inner area toward the center of the playfield, with the lowest scoring pocket being 1,000 and the highest scoring pocket being 3,000. There's also what is known as, I guess you'd call it a cannon, on games like Fleet. But in this game, it will kick the ball back into play if a ball lands within that tunnel. In order to kick the ball, you have to hit the repeat hole, which is underneath the cannon. When you land a ball in the repeat hole, it will fire the ball out of the cannon, and then you have a chance to nudge the game and get it to land in the 3,000, hopefully. Directly underneath the repeat hole, there's a hole labeled the release hole. When you land a ball in the release hole, it will return all the balls which have landed down in the out hole, which is all the way at the bottom of the play field, back to the player to shoot. Again, that is a super powerful feature, and it really impresses me that in December of 1934, Harry Williams had designed a game that had this much action. I mean, really, Action is a great name for this game because there is a lot going on. So, differences in sizes. I was talking about how the junior model was smaller. It was approximately 40 inches by 20 inches. And Automatic Amusements, making the senior model, that was 46 inches by 22 inches. Beautiful game. I would love to play one of these at some point. if not own one, those diverters, I know I sound ridiculously enamored with them, and I know a lot of that is nostalgia for me, but I'm just saying, that's a really fun and simple, simple, simple creature that is a fantastic idea for a pin game. so that's all for tonight my name again is Nicholas Baldridge you can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com and you can listen to us on iTunes or Apple Podcasts Stitcher Pocketcasts via RSS on Facebook on Twitter at bingopodcast you can follow me on Instagram also at bingopodcast or you can listen to me on my website which is 4amusementonly.libsyn.com thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time.