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#19 The Production Room Floor: The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·23m 23s·analyzed·Dec 11, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

Flipper strength critique of Deep Root, tournament standards, and classic game restoration.

Summary

George and Dave discuss flipper strength issues at recent pinball tournaments, particularly critiquing Deep Root Pinball's weak flipper setup on a show machine that made a key shot inaccessible. They contrast this with best practices at major tournaments and venues, emphasizing that loaned/tournament machines should play optimally. The episode shifts to nostalgia about classic games like Embryon, restoration projects, and technical modifications like seven-digit display conversions.

Key Claims

  • Deep Root Pinball's show machine had weak flippers that made the most forward shot inaccessible to players

    high confidence · George, speaking from personal experience at a recent show (likely Houston)

  • Deep Root's excuse was that stronger flippers would break plastics and targets in the game

    high confidence · George reporting direct communication from Deep Root representatives

  • Jersey Jack games allow flipper voltage adjustment through software settings from the front door

    high confidence · George, based on known Jersey Jack design philosophy

  • Modern Stern games do not appear to have adjustable flipper coil voltage settings

    medium confidence · George speculating: 'not as far as i know not that i've seen'

  • RoboWar at a recent show had flipper problems and failed during tournament finals after previously crashing

    high confidence · George describing specific tournament experience

  • The main tournament event had 18 games that all played great with no flipper complaints

    high confidence · George clarifying after initial criticism

  • George maintains his tournament games to higher standards than typical venue machines through regular maintenance cycles

    high confidence · George describing personal practice from running league and tournaments

  • Tom Callahan was a pioneer in board repair and custom MPU work in the 1980s-2000s

    high confidence · Dave confirming historical pinball restoration figure

  • Seven-digit display modifications for games like Embryon can be achieved through ROM modifications and either direct wiring or breadboard circuits

    medium confidence · Dave explaining technical retrofit process based on overseas ROM designer's work

Notable Quotes

  • “break the machine give people an enjoyable experience that's a whole different wrap”

    George @ early segment — Core philosophy: prioritize player experience over parts protection concerns

  • “Their excuse was we make them too powerful. We're going to break stuff in the game. It's going to break targets and stuff. Yes. Wow. That's... who's the manufacturer that makes that? Deep Root.”

    George and Dave @ early segment — First direct attribution of flipper issue to Deep Root Pinball

  • “I never hit it, and I never saw anybody hit it. See, that's not good. Then people aren't going to get the full experience.”

    George @ early segment — Core complaint about inaccessible shots on Deep Root machine

  • “if you're bringing a game the game should should play correctly that's all don't bring a crap game to a tournament you're not doing anybody's any favors”

    George @ mid-segment — Direct message to tournament operators and vendors about game quality standards

  • “you can't do it mid tournament but you can do it if it's overnight and the game's sitting everybody has an equal chance”

    George @ mid-segment — Best practice for tournament maintenance windows

  • “I have a i have a new found affinity for people who can do this you can call them a talking head and yes they are because they have a teleprompter but you need a good script writer and you need somebody who can run with it”

    George @ meta-commentary segment — Reflective comment on production challenges for podcast/media work

  • “the old way is a guy overseas made these nice, you know, modified ROMs for this game, all these games in this time frame, and some he'd give seven-digit scoring to as a modification”

    Dave @ technical segment — References unknown ROM designer as source for seven-digit display mods

Entities

GeorgepersonDavepersonDeep Root PinballcompanyTom CallahanpersonJackpersonPaul (PJ)personJohn TothpersonDallas Overturfperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Deep Root Pinball show machine at recent event had weak flippers that made a key forward shot inaccessible to players; manufacturer attributed this to concerns about breakage of plastics and targets

    high · George's firsthand account: 'I never hit it, and I never saw anybody hit it' and 'Their excuse was we make them too powerful'

  • ?

    product_concern: RoboWar at recent show had a ramp shot that was nearly impossible to make without specific ball momentum conditions; represents poor shot design

    high · George describing the shot: 'the only way you could make the ramp shot on that game was if the ball came careening down the right out lane to the flipper with momentum'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Complaint about tournament operators including machines that aren't properly maintained or functional (RoboWar failed during finals after crashing days prior)

    high · George: 'Yet they played it in the finals and they got through one player and they had to abandon it again. To me, that's asinine.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Major tournament event (18 games) successfully maintained high standards with no flipper complaints; best-in-class example of proper tournament setup

    high · George's clarification: 'at the main event that I played in all those games played great there were 18 games there I have no complaints on any of those games'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: George's philosophy that loaned/tournament machines must be optimized for player experience and skill expression; manufacturer should prioritize function over parts protection

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.070

0:00
🎵 hello everyone and welcome to episode 19 of the classic pinball podcast my name is george and i'm joined by my co-host dave hello dave hello george In this episode, Dave gets me charged up right from the start talking about flippers.
1:05
You're leading me sort of in a direction to the last show, which is the flipper strength on the game of the month, the game of the week, retro atomic zombie adventure land. I don't know if you had a chance to listen but I thought it was a weak explanation to not have those flippers stronger than they were it just I don't know, break plastics you're the manufacturer, what do you care you're going to make 5 billion of them you know, break the machine give people an enjoyable experience that's a whole different wrap and we're going to do that in a different show but the more I thought about it, the more disappointed. Their excuse was we make them too powerful. We're going to break stuff in the game. It's going to break targets and stuff.
2:02
Yes. Wow. That's for the game that I played in Houston. I want to qualify it. Now, I'm not sure. I'm guessing by that comment, you could juice them up a little bit. My word. Who's the manufacturer that makes that?
2:22
What the hell? Oh, Deep Root. Okay, that's right. Yeah, that's all the talk of the town these days, Deep Root.
2:29
Oh, everybody was fighting this week to be the first. And I'm listening to all the different podcasts, and not one of them, meaning the podcasters, the people who actually bring you the podcast, not one of them attended the show. There is one person, and you know him, you met him, but he went on somebody else's show. So people listened to me for some stupid reason this week. And I gave my honesty. The jury's still out. But I don't think they did themselves any favors by making the best shot in the game or at least the most forward shot in the game inaccessible. I never hit it, and I never saw anybody hit it. See, that's not good. Then people aren't going to get the full experience. There was another game recently that they had at a show, and it was lackluster. and some tech from the company had to come over because they could juice up the flippers. Maybe it was, I don't know, was it Hobbit? Was it Jersey Jack game? I know Jersey Jack games you can mess with in the software settings from the front door, all the coil voltages. You actually can bring things up more powerful, less powerful. All the coils in the game you can make more or less powerful. And I don't know if it was that manufacturer or somebody else, but there were complaints about it and they had to come over and they juiced the game up to adjust for maybe low voltage in the building or whatever they were doing and that worked out pretty well that's why i was kind of giving them a break it's out of show there's a zillion games jury's still out but i didn't like i didn't like the answer and i guess i have another question out of that you can't juice the flippers on stern of new stern modern stern modern stern not as far as i know not that i've seen the the jersey jack yes i'm not sure deep root i'm not sure if deep root has that you can mess with the uh the voltage the voltages is that a setting do you know can you do that in that did they have no idea move forward we're going to move forward until they bring the game out and it's an actual production model okay uh i'm going to give them the benefit of that and say show me that this thing works the other side of the coin is did they do it on purpose because i've heard some other podcasters say well maybe they did it on purpose they don't want you to hit No, that makes no sense. It makes no sense. You'd want to make someone hit at least once. Otherwise, it's like, I don't know, it's the unobtainium shot.
Jersey Jack Pinball
company
Stern Pinballcompany
Retro Atomic Zombie Adventure Landgame
RoboWargame
Embryongame
Funny Games Framinghamvenue
Free Play Floridavenue
Bowleramavenue
Allaire State Airportvenue
Houstonlocation
Groton, Connecticutlocation
Bruceperson

high · George: 'break the machine give people an enjoyable experience' and 'if you're bringing a game the game should should play correctly'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball machines feature software-adjustable flipper coil voltage settings accessible from the front door; enables on-site tuning for voltage/environmental conditions

    high · George: 'Jersey Jack games you can mess with in the software settings from the front door, all the coil voltages'

  • ?

    product_concern: Deep Root Pinball either deliberately weakened flippers or made poor setup choices; some podcasters speculated it was intentional, though George dismisses this theory

    medium · George: 'some other podcasters say well maybe they did it on purpose they don't want you to hit' but he dismisses as illogical

  • ?

    design_innovation: Technical modification for 1970s-80s Bally games to add seventh digit display using overseas ROM modifications and hardware wiring/breadboard circuits; works on Embryon, Harlem Globetrotters, Galaxy

    medium · Dave: 'a guy overseas made these nice, you know, modified ROMs for this game' and detailed wiring methodology

  • ?

    historical_signal: Tom Callahan identified as pioneer pinball restoration specialist from 1980s-2000s era, known for board repair and custom MPU design; recently retired

    high · Dave: 'he was the guy to go to. He was the guy. He even made his own MPU for ballet'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Embryon and other classic Bally games actively traded among collectors; Dallas Overturf sold multiple units; vintage pricing around $300-750 in recent years

    high · George's purchase history and Dallas Overturf sales; Banzai Run priced at $750 working condition

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: George expresses frustration with recent tournament machine quality issues but acknowledges improvement at major events; balanced critique focused on constructive standards-setting

    high · George's progression from strong complaint to acknowledgment of main event quality to message to tournament operators

  • ?

    venue_signal: Best-practice tournaments employ dedicated technicians between rounds/overnight to maintain game condition and ensure equal player chances

    high · George: 'the biggest tournaments that are out there... they really do try to take the time even in between rounds if it's overnight some of these tournaments put people on technicians'

    • 4:55
    Dave, you know me well enough. I look at it and say, if you're putting the feature on there, make it so the feature can be hit. And it shouldn't be. Like, I was watching before we got on the air here, RoboWar down at Free Play Florida, the only way you could make the ramp shot on that game was if the ball came careening down the right out lane to the flipper with momentum.
    5:27
    It's like, come on, guys. There's got to be a solution. And it would frustrate you at the Houston show, too. Some of the games I played were just the flippers, especially in the women's bells and chimes. I went and played one of their games after they were done. What game was that Oh I said it in the last show It doesn matter Whatever it was the Flippers were beat And I said to myself this is a game you bring to a tournament
    5:58
    Why isn't it the best it can be? That's what I say. That makes no sense to me anymore. You still there?
    6:11
    Hello, Dave. Let's try that. how's that am i there what happened timed out again am i back it timed out of course i've been tapping my screen every couple seconds but yeah whatever i'll edit it all out so that's well i get it my diatribe my diatribe on the flippers should work and they should work my my commentary on tournament stuff okay so I think since I grew up at Funny Games and Framingham, everything was minty, everything was brand new, and they kept it all top-notch, everything strong.
    6:52
    I think that gives your pinball player his best chance possible to do the best he can. because you need to, I would think, from my perspective, you want to assume that everything works as it should. There's no weird, weak stuff going on at all in a perfect world, even though it isn't a perfect world, but we can try to strive to get there.
    7:15
    Everything should be nice, strong flippers, and so forth. So when I do a tournament, I have it all in my stuff. It's all good to go, and it all plays really well. No, I know very well how you maintain your games. I completely understand. We're in a public environment. I guess my thought is, if you're lending a game to be at a show, you should make sure that that game is the best it can play. and I don't want to make people let me rephrase that people should understand that at the main event that I played in all those games played great there were 18 games there I have no complaints on any of those games the ones I played played great so I guess it's a say again no I took a pause and I was trying to think of words to put there and I'll again edit it out if you're bringing a game the game should should play correctly that's all don't bring a crap game to a tournament you're not doing anybody's any favors the robo wars that they had there it crapped out two days ago fine remove it and be done with it don't come back to it Yet they played it in the finals and they got through one player and they had to abandon it again. To me, that's asinine. You're putting on a show.
    8:56
    So, again, I'll end my diatribe. That kind of stuff just shouldn't be. It's the same thing. When I was running my league for five years, I would have different houses had their games. And they're all in pretty good shape. But they weren't all gone through like I go through my stuff. so that's why you know you you go through every couple weeks and you um you try to get the best score possible and you you build up your points that kind of thing to see who's gonna be in the finals and that kind of thing and um what's the pecking order i forget to call it that how you place you know to go into the finals that's why i have finals at my place because you get now when you're finals you're going to play at a at the best house everything's all done up and I spend I spent all my time working on this stuff so it's like you know so so you know I I give a crap you know well you're you are in my opinion you can call people yeah because you talk the talk and walk the walk right you know and and I'm not uh I uh I stay up late and I doing it I'm not uh you know no you're not complaining you're not complaining I guess I'm sending a message out to tournaments and saying, if you're going to include these games and they're going to be finals games or they're going to be semifinal games or just, you know, beginning of the tournament, make sure they play correctly. I understand that they, you know, they might go out a little bit of sync as time progresses through a tournament. But you don't hear, you know, the biggest tournaments that are out there. It's rare. you will hear some people complain but it's rare that you'll hear that because they really do try to take the time even in between rounds if it's overnight some of these tournaments put people on technicians on to make sure the games are playing correct that's the right thing to do you can't do it mid tournament but you can do it if it's overnight and the game's sitting everybody has an equal chance
    11:04
    When's the last time we released an episode? Last week, though, right? Well, me, but not you. Right. The last one we did together was two and a half weeks ago.
    11:18
    Time flies. I don't count when I do. If I do a show, I don't count. Trust me. I like doing the show with you. It's a lot easier.
    11:30
    It's hard to do by yourself. Right. Yep. a lot of editing a lot of re I must have re that thing A hundred Janice was yelling at me she like what are you you like upset but hey you trying to you trying to get perfection are you trying to get something nice that's all dave i have a i have a new found affinity for people who can do this you can call them a talking head and yes they are because they have a teleprompter but you need a good script writer and you need somebody who can run with it it's not as easy as it looks or sounds exactly you'll see someday I'm just going to let you I'll record it and I'll let you do a show and you'll see this takes way too long you're asking me to rerecord the same passage. That's why when we did that with the, what's his name? You know, they were pretty polite. They didn't ask you to rerecord anything a lot. Right. A couple of times, but not a lot, right? They could have. They did a couple of times. He wanted to get multiple takes so he could choose the best one. Right, because they wanted it better. They were like, oh, you can do that better. They didn't say that to you, but trust me, in the back of their head, that's what they're thinking. You didn't put the right inflection in there. You know, it didn't sound right. you gurgled a little bit. Whatever it was, they were like, okay, do it again. Now think if you're getting paid for it and you're an actor. You get what I'm saying, though. If you're getting paid for it and they kept saying, do it again. After a while, you must just be like, oh, man. Is that good enough? Is that good? Good? Come on. It's the 10th take. Come on.
    13:20
    Trust me. I did a couple of those. okay and it still sounds like a butcher job because it's cut up a million different ways just because of the ums and the uhs I think I corralled some of it today I'll have to listen back but when I listen back I just cringe I'm like okay this thing I'm going to have to divide up now we're at 95 minutes there's a couple other good things here but I'm going to have to butcher this thing up into like 15 minute segments because going in and re-recording it and editing it or editing it, you've got to wait for the thing to cycle back. So if you have big chunks, it takes forever. It's a lot easier when everything's in little bite-sized pieces.
    14:08
    Embryon. Dave, what do you think? Embryon, I love this game from when I first played it in a bowling alley in Framham, at Bowlerama. I was with my friend Paul, PJ, many times and played some bowling and then go right up and play the lineup of Ambryon, Fathom, Top Score, Joker Coker, Stern Memory Lane, and I think Cardwood was there too. I don't know how you remember all this, but anyway.
    14:37
    I'm sorry, and a genie too. I bought this game because my friend, again in New Jersey, Jack, bought this game. I always gravitated towards that game out of the 25 he owned. But that was the first one I bought. My first one I bought out of this,
    14:57
    I guess you'd call it a shed, but it was part of Allaire State Airport, which is off of exit 98, the parkway, Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. Okay. I went there on a Saturday morning with my buddy Jack and I think it might have been I don't know if John Toth went with us. I think he might have. And I think I pulled it out of there for 300 and something dollars. Reasonable. Maybe 350. Might have been 300. I don't remember. I bought a couple from this guy. He got his games from Tom Callahan. Tom Callahan, old school restoring games. Yeah, he got out of the business a couple years ago. He did. He got old but he was the man for board repair and stuff in the 80s and 90s in the early 2000s. He was the guy to go to. He was the guy. He even made his own MPU for ballet, the motherboard.
    15:58
    Or mother with an M-U-T-H, yeah. But yeah, so he made all kinds of videos and stuff and he was early on. He was a pioneer. So you think you bought it from him? I think I got his game. kind of went through another collector in Newton. I bought that. I was so tempted to buy Banzai Run that was sitting there. And I could have bought that for $750 working Banzai Run. Yeah, no more. Not anymore.
    16:29
    So let's segue into the games we bought together. Now, I remember the look on your face when I pulled up to your house in big red. Do you remember that pickup truck? That Chevy Silverado? I think it was an 85. Yeah, it sounds familiar. Yeah. First of all, I think you were amazed at the fact that it made it to your house.
    16:58
    Second is, I'm not sure you thought it was, and you probably didn't at the time, the safest vehicle that you ever entered.
    17:07
    No, but, you know, that willy you have, That one there is a little, you know, it's a little more. Yeah, well, that's getting restored. We'll talk about that in an upcoming episode. Dallas Overturf was selling, was it three embryons or two? I think it was three embryons. And you ended up with two out of the three Yeah or maybe you had four Did you get two and I got two No Maybe I got one No I think I got one I had another one or two You got one plus Yeah You heard us talk about him before My cabinet, I didn't buy it for the cabinet. I wanted the play field. However we divvied it up, we got a couple of them. And it was in that dark, dank basement. But it wasn't, it was more like a crawl space. I remember that and I'm like I can't believe this guy is storing these games I remember there was a meeting down there did I come there afterwards you kind of brought the games out and I saw them after they were out of the catacombs no no you were there with me you probably yeah okay you've been a lot of places I just remember that was a weird place cabinet that I got from there was as you can imagine a moldy just, you know, falling apart mess and it wasn't worth anything. So I turned that into Embrygon. Embrygon. Good. I like it. You know, sometimes they're going to move on. I stuffed that thing with more flammable material than you could ever think of. And we lit it on fire at my buddy's place down in Groton, Connecticut. I have the video somewhere. I'm going to see if I can find it and you can host it on your video channel because it is something to say. You're gonna say sorry John right now though because right now there's a John out there that's weeping because you said you were destroying an embryo. We're down in the basement again. Yeah, that's what you pull. I can't get out of there. Okay. Well, you can see we're looking at the game right now. You can see up in the bonus area that's been pounded on. Yep. I tried repairing it. It still wore off. I don't know how to do it, and I'm not going to do it. Touch it up with one big plastic sticker over the whole thing. I have the right artwork, but I wish somebody would redo it. Everybody redoes every other damn thing except this game for whatever unknown reason, probably because there aren't so many. But I think there's more than you think. I say you touch it up yourself and take some of the nice, clear Mylar or whatever. Oh, this would be a playfield protector because you can see this is a little... I mean, this game's been played. It's been real good. And you listened to the sound people. Dave did the board work for the sound after. Oh, you know what? We didn't talk about it upstairs.
    20:13
    Well, let's take a minute. We didn't talk about the seven-digit displays. Oh, yeah. Come in a little closer. Yeah, seven digits, yes. So I tried to do mine with somebody's engineering attempt. and it, coincidence or not, fried my soundboard.
    20:38
    Not only did I do it once, I did it twice and Dave redid the soundboard and the game's never been better. But Dave did the seven digit display the old way and I'll let him talk about it. Yeah, the old way is a guy overseas made these nice, you know, modified ROMs for this game, all these games in this time frame, and some he'd give seven-digit scoring to as a modification that's easily flippable, like Embryon, Hot Dog, and Harlem Globetrotters, etc. And it only came with six, and there really should have been seven. So what this does, this software counts the right way before it adds another digit, and then you get four seven-digit displays off in a different game throw it in and then it's sometimes i think this game you can just do a direct wire from each display to a certain number in there to a certain digit and just wire that back to the mpu at a certain spot it's made for something just not just on a navel so it's not a gigantic engineering feat to do it not on this game in a couple of the other ones it's a little more other ones involves you making a little breadboard circuit with a little chip Embryon. Yeah, you need to settle down, Embryon. I'll talk in a minute. You make this little chip, this little breadboard chip, you know, simple circuit, and you put that in there as a little go-between, and you can make it work that way, too. That works on I think Harlem Globe Trotters. I did also on Galaxy. Right, but isn't the big piece when you do this that you're using a Bali seven-digit display in a six-digit area? Yes, it fits right in. Oh, it does? Oh, yeah, it fits right in because it's tighter spacing the seven inches tighter spacing so it's the same window same form factor i gave up after it didn't do my game nice things i gave up and i'm never changing it again so it's staying the way it is dave's right you get good at it you roll it i started playing this i have not been playing it recently used to be play it all the time not anymore beat me up pretty bad this week I did not play this well, so I'm hoping this goes better tonight. top viewer bruce will be very happy i'm sure he's our number one fan
    23:19
    He made it across the country. I know. Freaking maniac.