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Episode 372 - Progress, 1967 Bally Boot-A-Ball

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·24m 2s·analyzed·Jun 16, 2016
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.025

TL;DR

Multi-Bingo progress: Jones plug mapping, wiring schematics, and featured 1967 Bally Buddha Ball deep dive.

Summary

Nick Baldridge discusses progress on his Multi-Bingo homebrew machine, focusing on cabinet work, Jones plug mapping across different Bally playfields, wiring schematic development using period-accurate drafting techniques, and power supply configuration. He reports on bingo appearances at the Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown (featuring Gay Time and Bikini machines) and the Southern Fried Game Room Expo, then features a deep dive into the obscure 1967 Bally Buddha Ball, a head-to-head soccer-themed electromechanical game with only 100 units produced.

Key Claims

  • Jones plugs on different Bally games have different pin counts and pinout configurations, contrary to typical Bally interchangeability

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge describing his own experience mapping Jones plugs across multiple playfields for Multi-Bingo

  • Later Bally bingo games have more complex shutter switch setups requiring more Jones plug pins than earlier games

    medium confidence · Nick Baldridge observing patterns in playfield design across game eras

  • United roulette-style bingo playfields are shorter in depth than Bally playfields and may not be mechanically compatible with Bally cabinets

    medium confidence · Nick Baldridge speculating after viewing Pacific Pinball Museum video and consulting with Dennis

  • AC to DC conversion results in electrical gain rather than loss, contrary to typical AC-to-something conversions

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge recounting his own mathematical error when calculating power supply requirements

  • Buddha Ball (1967 Bally) only had 100 units produced

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge citing IPDB and historical records for Buddha Ball production run

  • Phil Bogoma brought Gay Time and Bikini machines to Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown, the first year bingos were featured at the show

    high confidence · Phil Bogoma's report quoted by Nick Baldridge

  • Bikini's gate switch failure prevented proper ball lifter operation at Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown

    high confidence · Phil Bogoma's report to Nick Baldridge about machine malfunction during event

  • Buddha Ball is soccer-themed, has no backglass, no upper cabinet, and features head-to-head gameplay with six flippers total (three per player)

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge citing IPDB and available documentation on Buddha Ball design

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm a little shocked that Bally did this because normally a lot of their stuff is very interchangeable. But on the playfield, as far as the Jones plugs go, they're not.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~5:00 — Reveals unexpected design inconsistency in Bally's otherwise modular architecture

  • “When you convert AC to DC, unlike pretty much everything else in the world, there's no electrical loss. You actually have a gain.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~18:30 — Nick's realization of his mathematical error in power supply design

  • “Holy and crap. Many many photographs were taken.”

    Phil Bogoma (quoted) @ ~24:15 — Describes public reaction to seeing bingo machine internals at Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown

  • “Gate time worked almost perfectly all weekend... since the bikini was down I opened the back up and showed folks the guts the reaction was universally the same... holy and crap.”

    Phil Bogoma (quoted) @ ~24:00 — Report on bingo machine performance and public engagement at tournament venue

  • “A pretty cool idea, and wouldn't be that difficult to implement.”

    Nick Baldridge @ ~35:45 — Reflects on Buddha Ball's head-to-head color-coded flipper design as elegant and feasible

Entities

Nick BaldridgepersonMulti-BingogameSophiepersonAvapersonRyan ClaytorpersonMollypersonSteve SmithpersonDennispersonPhil BogomapersonTaylor ReesepersonBrent Amrineperson

Signals

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Nick Baldridge is documenting playfield-specific pin mappings and creating period-accurate schematics to enable flexible multi-game support on Multi-Bingo, showing meticulous technical approach to homebrew design

    high · Extended discussion of Jones plug mapping variations, schematic creation with Bally-style drafting, and plans for documentation repository

  • ?

    design_innovation: Multi-Bingo uses modular switching supplies (48V DC for coils/relays, dual 5/12V for logic) rather than traditional transformer-rectifier approach, enabling safer and more flexible power management

    high · Nick's detailed explanation of power supply selection, coil voltage choices, and relay switching design

  • ?

    community_signal: Bingo machines are being introduced to broader pinball tournament audiences for the first time (Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown), generating significant public interest despite mechanical failures

    high · Phil Bogoma's report of enthusiastic reactions and 'holy and crap' responses to seeing bingo internals; first time bingos featured at show

  • ?

    operational_signal: Gate switch failure on Bikini at Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown required ball lifter override; demonstrates challenges of moving vintage machines to public events

    high · Phil Bogoma's report: 'Bikini developed a fault with the gate switch, which prevented the ball lifter from operating properly'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Southern Fried Game Room Expo reported significantly fewer EM machines present compared to prior year; Bally Fleet did not make return appearance

Topics

Multi-Bingo cabinet assembly and wiringprimaryJones plug mapping across Bally gamesprimarySchematic design and period-accurate draftingprimaryPower supply design and electrical calculationsprimaryBingo machines at pinball tournamentssecondaryObscure electromechanical games (Buddha Ball)primaryHead-to-head pinball designsecondaryEM pinball restoration and historysecondary

Sentiment

neutral(0)

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.072

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 well it's been another two weeks and therefore another two weeks of progress so here's what's been going on with my multi bingo So I started in on cabinet work, you know, just making sure everything was going to fit together, fixing up a couple of issues with the playfield, getting the playfield all cleaned up, all that good stuff. Sophie actually helped me with cleaning the playfield, which was good, and Ava helped me work on posts and some other things. from there what I had to do was map out the Jones plugs and the Jones plugs for this game are a little odd when compared with many other games because it uses a silver sales cabinet but a different play field with a different Jones plug output and so what I needed to do was map each common side and each side that allows the current to flow.
1:25
So what I ended up doing was taking masking tape and a marker. After cleaning the Jones plugs, the male side, I taped off each pin.
1:40
And after measuring for continuity against the switches that I needed, I marked them with masking tape and then wrote if they were the side that applied the current or if they were the common side.
1:54
And from this, I was able to think about it a little while and realized that I should probably build a schematic for this because the schematic, the pinout on everything is going to be slightly different. and I had a spare wiring harness for a couple other games and I wanted to see if for example number 16 was always the same pin well unfortunately it's not and the number of pins on each Jones plug is actually different for games and this is a little surprising I'm a little shocked that Bally did this because normally a lot of their stuff is very interchangeable. But on the playfield, as far as the Jones plugs go, they're not. So I'm going to have my default playfield use a certain number of pins. And I may end up over time, once I get other playfields playable having to remap those Jones plugs. Now because I'm not using every single switch that's already mounted inside the cabinet, for example there are double stacked switches everywhere on say the red, the blue, the green buttons, etc.
Gay Time
game
Bikinigame
Buddha Ballgame
Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdownevent
Southern Fried Game Room Expoevent
Pacific Pinball Museumorganization
Ballycompany
P-ROC boardproduct
For Amusement Only Podcastorganization
Pinvasionevent

medium · Brent Amrine's report via Nick Baldridge: 'there were some EMs there, but there were many fewer than last year'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Buddha Ball (1967) is extremely under-documented in IPDB despite being a historically interesting head-to-head game; limited production run (100 units) contributes to rarity and scarcity of information

    high · Nick noting 'there's not a good description of this game on IPDB and not much is known since there were only 100 that were made' and that only one playfield photo exists

  • ?

    product_concern: Bally's Jones plug design is inconsistent across playfield generations, breaking expected modular interchangeability; pin counts and pinouts vary significantly requiring custom mapping

    high · Nick's direct experience: 'the number of pins on each Jones plug is actually different for games and this is a little surprising I'm a little shocked that Bally did this because normally a lot of their stuff is very interchangeable'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Nick Baldridge is creating comprehensive technical documentation (schematics, wiring diagrams, future manual) for Multi-Bingo replication, establishing a template for future EM homebrew projects

    high · Plans to publish scanned schematic in code repository, create Bally-style manual with parts/assemblies documentation

  • ?

    content_signal: For Amusement Only is expanding coverage to include pinball tournament events and bingo machine introductions to broader audiences

    medium · Coverage of Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown and Southern Fried Game Room Expo events, reporting from multiple correspondents

    • 3:14
    And in some cases even triple stacked, you know, because I'm not using all those switches I'm not going to actually be mapping to every single pin on the Jones plug. So I have lots of room to play around, and it's always going to be the same number of pins coming from the cabinet.
    3:35
    But the play field is where things get a little tricky. Now, luckily, the later games tended to have more complicated shutter switch setups, which necessitated more pins on the Playfield Jones plugs than the earlier games. And this includes the 20-hole games as well. So rather than just 20 holes and a common, and then a couple for the lamps and rollovers and so forth, you've actually got quite a few which are attached to the switches on the shutter motor itself. So I should be all good, I think. Now, I'll know this for sure once I get into those particular games. For now, though, I'm really focused on getting the standard set of 25 whole games going, and then I'll swing back around.
    4:30
    Another thought I had as far as playfields go is the roulette-style playfields that were used on very early bingos made by United.
    4:43
    Dennis let me know that those games are fairly common, if I just hold out I'll be able to find one, but I keep looking at pictures and I just recently saw a video of one that was at the Pacific Pinball Museum, and I've got to say that those playfields look a lot shorter than the Bally playfields. So even if they are the same depth and there's enough clearance there for balls to actually return on the bottom board that Bally used, which I'm not certain that it would be, I'm not sure if that's going to work out just because of the depth.
    5:19
    And not to mention, you know, the shooter rod might be mounted at a different height and so on and so forth. So I'm thinking what I'm going to have to do for those is actually fabricate a playfield, but that is really, really far down the line. so let's talk about what I have left to do because I actually just laid it out in a pin side post here and I'll be moving that over to Facebook shortly so I've had the offer for a source for cloth wrapped wire and I been thinking about using that and what I need to do and one of the issues that I have is that the cloth wire is either 20 gauge or 18 gauge I not sure which But I do know it's much larger than what I would normally crimp into a .100 connector. And the issue is that for every single switch in the game, it's a .100 connection. so that makes things a little tough I have a lot of 22 gauge wire but the issue is that I only have 6 colors now with striping I can stripe either black or white and with striping I should be able to have somewhere in the range of triple that number around 18 colors, probably more like 16 because you can't stripe a white wire with white and you can't stripe a black wire with black. But with 16 colors, I should have enough to keep things relatively simple.
    7:04
    I won't have to run out and get 75 different rainbow colors of 22 gauge wire. I also won't have to find 22 gauge cloth wrapped wire, although, I mean, that would be awesome. the only thing is it would be very expensive so the next thing is that I need to physically wire the game I have to wire up the transformer a service outlet, a fuse panel and two switching power supplies I'm using 48 volts DC to run my coils and several are going to be run via relay so for example the magic pockets mechanism I'm going to run with AC that will be switched with a DC relay.
    7:54
    I went ahead and did some quick calculations, and I got a 48-volt DC switching supply that doesn't have a really high amperage, max amperage, which means that I'll have to see if my math was correct when the supply is wired in. I have it here. or not, because if my math is wrong, that means that the power supply is just going to trip all the time. But the thing is that most of the time, I'm only going to be running one to two coils at any given moment, max. So I think it'll be all right. That 48 volts DC also has to run relays, which will switch on the various motors, the ball lifter and the shutter. So again, because all it's doing is switching relays, it should be all right. I also have to wire in my dual 5 and 12 volt switching supply. Now, originally, I was going to run this from the transformer and rectify it myself, but the issue that I ran into is that I forgot how electricity worked. And when you convert AC to DC,
    9:07
    unlike pretty much everything else in the world, there's no electrical loss. You actually have a gain. And so that means that all of my math was wrong, and I needed to start that over. Well, because I couldn't trust my math, I went ahead and broke down, and I'm going to run a switching supply. Now it'll be fed from the transformer and from the power switch, so, you know, it'll switch on those supplies when I turn the game on, but yeah, that was a little disappointing.
    9:43
    the 5 volt supply is actually going to run my lamps that are controlled, meaning the rollover lamps on the playfield. The 12 volt supply runs both the switchboards and also supplies power to the P3 rock.
    10:00
    And once all that's done, I can finish installing new wooden corner brackets into the game and install a fancy matted screen cover that my friend Ryan Claytor helped me out with. He actually had access to a mat cutting machine, and we just went on a vacation together as families, and with our families, rather. And he was able to bring that along, and so now I've got this beautiful set of mats and foam core that I can install in the head. as soon as everything else is put together.
    10:41
    So once the corner supports are installed, I can actually put the cabinet on legs, and then from there I can move the head over once I have everything wired up and the screen cover installed.
    10:56
    So as far as my schematic goes, I went ahead and drew it out using a 60s style method, you know, manual drafting. And I tried to make it look as Bally-esque as possible while incorporating some of the modern elements. For example, my switching supplies are indicated as bridge rectifiers, even though that is a huge simplification of what's going on in there. I didn't want to go in and document every single electrical component. The same goes for my switch processing. You know, I don't actually document the switch processing boards or the P3 rock at all. Instead, I label the connectors, where the wires go to each connector, as well as the wire colors. Now, as far as wire colors go, I'm using the standard Bally color scheme, which means that you have your first color indicates the solid color of the wire. your second color indicates the tracer and the third number indicates the number of times it been reused in this drawing So all that was pretty neat And I got to learn to use Molly's drafting tools. And had to ask her about a bajillion questions. And Ryan again helped out with a couple of tips and tricks as far as inking went. Because at first I was smearing quite a bit. but he was able to help me there. And so I have just the final wire color decisions to make and then I will fill those in and take the schematic and have it scanned in and printed and that printed copy and the scanned copy will be made available. Well the printed copy you can print your own, but the scanned copy will be in the repository along with the rest of my code. And so anyone who wants to replicate this can just download the schematic and they'll have a reference. Now another thing I'd like to do in the far-flung future, when the whole thing is complete, is actually make a Bally style manual. And Bally, for their manuals, included information about parts and assemblies and all that kind of thing. So that's where I'm going to document all the different parts.
    13:28
    So once all this is done, all the things that I mentioned, I'll be able to put everything together and test it, which is super exciting.
    13:39
    And then after that, I'll be making improvements like adding speakers and starting on recording sounds and so forth. and then finally I just have more cosmetic work to do for example I have to come up with a cabinet stencil and spray it and then Steve Smith has offered to help me with the lockdown bar and so we need to get together about that and I keep having to postpone our get together so unfortunately that's all on me the nice thing is we came up with a way to get this done, possibly, that won't involve a whole lot of craziness on the lockdown bar itself, but more on that when we actually hammer that out. So, once all of that is done, then I can go back to working on programming, and I certainly have a lot left to do there. one thing for example there are a couple of normally closed switches that I was able to document when doing the schematics and I'm going to have to account for that in my code also I was counting on the fact that there would be 8 trough switches available and I don't know if I mentioned this last time or not but I had to cut one of the trough switches out of the circuit entirely the final trough switch is basically just a direct line to the lifter motor.
    15:09
    And the issue with that is because there's no logical jump to the Jones plugs, I'm not able to use that in the same way that I can the other trough switches to determine how many balls are in the trough. Instead, what I'm going to have to do is rely on my game's code to instruct the lifter to start if at least the first five trough switches are closed. So I'm not adding additional switches. I'm just going to rely on having those first five trough switches and the shooter lane and the gate. And so if any one of those is malfunctioning, your lifter's not going to work. I do have the lifter override wired in, but I don't have that coded yet. so I need to think long and hard about how that's going to work exactly.
    16:05
    A stuck lane switch should not allow the lifter override to work, for example. It does allow it to work on a normal bally bingo, but I need to think about that, as I say. But that's for the future. So now, let's move on to another topic. So what I wanted to talk about were the recent pinball shows. The first is the Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown. And Phil Bogoma, who's been on the show a couple of times in the past, decided to bring a couple of bingos to the Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown this year. This is the first time that they've had bingos there.
    16:47
    And he and I were in contact, and he brought a gay time and a bikini. Now, Gay Time, if you'll recall, is a Magic Pockets game. It's one of the only two that they made that had the Magic Pockets feature. It also has magic lines, which allow you to move each row of numbers, where there's a corresponding magic line, up or down one position.
    17:13
    And then Bikini is a magic screen game, and it's one of only two that they made, with the Futurity feature, which allows you to bank your red-letter games and play them off later.
    17:24
    So Phil and I were talking, Bikini developed a fault with the gate switch, which prevented the ball lifter from operating properly. And from my understanding, it would function, but you'd have to push the lift override any time you wanted a ball.
    17:43
    So here's what Phil says. Gate time worked almost perfectly all weekend. It had a few minor sporadic issues affecting the ball lift as well, but no one noticed much and it seemed everyone had fun with it. since the bikini was down I opened the back up and showed folks the guts the reaction was universally the same and you can guess Two words holy and crap Many many photographs were taken at the gay time It's so non-PC in our world, people really enjoyed hearing the history.
    18:12
    He goes on to say, So next year, I'll try better to bulletproof everything and give it another go, but I'm grateful we had a success.
    18:19
    What a weekend. Just too bad the bikini gave out, but no one seemed to be despondent about it, so I decided I shouldn't either.
    18:25
    thank you, Phil, for your report. I think that is amazing, and I really hope that a lot of people got to try it, and especially people who have never seen a bingo before. The examples that he brought were very, very pretty, I've got to say, and, you know, things happen, especially when you move a game and you have people playing it, you know, that are in the public, basically. stuff goes wrong but it helps to handle it with a smile and it sounds like you did Phil I really appreciate you going to that trouble the next show I wanted to talk about was the Southern Fried Game Room Expo a friend of the show Taylor Reese went down there and he was running the Pinvasion tournament and I also had my trusted insider, Brent Amrine, went down there, and he did not see any bingos. Now, we've got to remedy that situation at some point. They're in Atlanta, so that's a bit of a haul for me, but there's folks from Kentucky that make it down there, so maybe I should stop complaining and just load up a truck. He said there were some EMs there, but there were many fewer than last year, and he was most looking forward to playing the Bally Fleet again this year, but unfortunately that did not make a return appearance. So, it sounds like it was a great show, and he said it was absolutely packed, and he only went on the busiest day, of course, which makes all the difference, I think. So, moving on from there, today's featured game is 1967's Buddha Ball. by Bally.
    20:22
    Buddha Ball is an interesting game. Only 100 were made, and it's a head-to-head game. Those of you who might have seen William's Joust or Alvin G's Soccer Ball might be familiar with other head-to-head games. Those are solid state of course.
    20:41
    Buddha Ball is soccer-themed, has no back laughs, and no back box at all. No upper cabinet portion whatsoever.
    20:52
    It's, in fact, just the lower cabinet. Each player has a set of inserts which represent both their score and their opponent's score. And once somebody gets to 10, the game is over.
    21:09
    Now, each player also controls three sets of flippers. Each are two-inch flippers, and there's one right at the goal, and two sets each at midfield, one to the right and one to the left.
    21:27
    Now, the playfield itself is green, as in the grass on a soccer field, and then you have plastics on the left and right side, which represent various players running after the soccer ball. there's not a good description of this game on IPDB and not much is known since there were only 100 that were made but it appears that there are kickers on the left and right side about a quarter of the way up the field so if the ball happens to land on either side the ball will be kicked back into play the only picture of this game is a picture of the play field top down so I'm not sure what the cabinet artwork looks like either But each player is represented by a different color, one red and one blue. So each of the three sets of flippers corresponds with each player's color, and each player knows their color based on which apron is facing them. So if you walk up to the blue side, you control the blue flippers, and if you walk up to the red side, you control the red flippers. A pretty cool idea, and wouldn't be that difficult to implement. Of course, there aren't a whole lot of mechs inside. You just have a couple of steppers, each of which will light the various inserts underneath.
    22:51
    IPDB notes that there's no tilt in this game, which is a little interesting. But I guess it prevents somebody from getting mad at you and just slamming the game and walking away.
    23:05
    This looks pretty interesting. I'd sure like to try it out one day. again it's relatively unlikely that I'll get to do so but it's neat to see games like this nonetheless. So if you ever run across a Buddha ball be sure to give it a shot and also snap some pictures. Alright well that's all for tonight. Thank you very much for joining me. My name again is Nick Baldrige You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com and you can listen to us on iTunes Stitcher Pocket Casts via RSS on Google Play Music on Facebook at For Amusement Only Podcast on Twitter at Bingo Podcast you can follow me on Instagram also at Bingo Podcast or you can call me on the bingos line that's 724-BINGOS1 724-246-4671 thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time