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Episode 92 - Bowling Game Scoring with James Willing 6-6-15

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 56m·analyzed·Jun 11, 2015
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Deep dive into EM bowling game scoring modes, mechanics, and real bowling center design parallels.

Summary

Nick Baldrige interviews James Willing from Spooky Pinball about electromechanical (EM) bowling game scoring modes and mechanics. The discussion covers historical ball return designs, various scoring modes (Flash, Dual Flash, Advanced, Champ, Regulation), the use of ground walnut shells as puck wax, and how real bowling centers have experimented with alternative scoring systems. Willing provides detailed technical and historical context on shuffle and puck bowler implementations.

Key Claims

  • The first bowling games Willing had (Keeney Team Bowler) did not keep regulation scores, only used decorative lights for strikes and spares.

    high confidence · James Willing, discussing early EM bowling game design

  • Regulation bowling scoring in arcade machines emerged in the late 1950s (1956-1958), with circuitry advanced enough to calculate strikes as 10 points plus next two shots and spares as 10 points plus next shot.

    medium confidence · James Willing, discussing historical timeline of bowling game scoring

  • Flash and Dual Flash game modes were constants throughout the EM era and into solid state machines, appearing in almost every bowling game that could handle regulation scoring.

    high confidence · James Willing, comparative observation across machines

  • Puck bowler wax is ground walnut shells, not ball bearings as Nick initially believed.

    high confidence · James Willing, correcting Nick Baldrige's earlier assumption

  • The walnut shell switches in puck bowlers are designed with contacts shielded behind slots, preventing accumulation issues despite fine debris.

    high confidence · James Willing, explaining mechanical design of puck bowler switch matrices

  • Early bowling game ball return designs were patterned after real bowling centers of the time, using over-lane returns with various mechanical approaches (belt loops, hydraulic cylinders, idler wheels).

    high confidence · James Willing, discussing historical parallels between arcade and real bowling equipment

  • The Petraglia system turned bowling into golf-like scoring where low score wins after up to three shots to knock down all pins.

    high confidence · James Willing, discussing modern bowling scoring experiments with evident disapproval

  • Real bowling centers employ no-tap scoring variations (nine pin and eight pin no-tap) primarily in youth tournaments and recreational events.

    high confidence · James Willing, explaining real-world bowling scoring alternatives

Notable Quotes

  • “I think I'm a little concerned about being described as well-versed, but I will attempt to maintain the illusion.”

    James Willing@ 0:42 — Self-deprecating opener establishing casual, knowledgeable tone

  • “Yeah, the only ones I had ever seen were fully enclosed at the bowling center that I've been to, so they just appear at a console in the middle of the floor.”

    Nick Baldrige@ 4:11 — Illustrates knowledge gap that motivated the episode

  • “You know, it's quite a collection of, you know, permutations for an electromechanical machine.”

    Nick Baldrige@ 18:37 — Expressing surprise at complexity of EM scoring systems

  • “If somebody just never thought to clean that out, and just kept dumping more and more and more on the table, then yes, eventually I could see you could build it up enough and it would pack in and you would probably start to have all sorts of entertaining problems, plus a glorious mess when you finally tried to pull the pan out.”

    James Willing@ 30:52 — Colorful description of operator negligence consequences

  • “Yeah, that's my first inclination just because I like to compare myself against, you know, real world bowling and see which one I really should stay with.”

    James Willing@ 33:50 — Reveals preference for regulation scoring to benchmark against real bowling

  • “As much as I respect the man, I really cannot figure out why he would have allowed his name to be associated with this.”

    James Willing@ 40:34 — Strong negative opinion on experimental bowling scoring format

Entities

Nick BaldrigepersonJames WillingpersonSpooky PinballcompanyFor Amusement OnlyorganizationKeeney Team BowlergameUnited SkippygameCharliepersonSkeeball LightninggameJohnny PetragliapersonAMFcompanyBrunswickcompany

Signals

  • ?

    historical_signal: Detailed chronicle of bowling game scoring technology evolution from unregulated point systems (1950s) through regulation scoring (late 1950s) to feature-rich modes (Flash, Dual Flash, Advanced, etc.) through EM and into solid state era

    high · Willing's systematic timeline: Keeney Team Bowler (unregulated), late 1950s regulation adoption, Skippy (1963) with multiple game options, Flash as persistent industry standard

  • ?

    design_philosophy: EM bowling games deliberately paralleled real bowling center designs—ball returns, pin-dicators, shadow bowling warm-up modes, walnut shell wax—creating authentic mechanical experiences

    high · Willing: 'early ball bowlers were very much patterned after centers of the time, and their overlay and return designs actually tended to reflect that' + specific features like over-lane returns, pin-dicators matching real centers

  • ?

    design_innovation: Remarkably rich suite of game mode variations in single EM machines (Skippy had Regulation, Flash, Dual Flash, Advanced, Champ, plus handicap feature; other games added Bonus, Line Up with bingo integration, Shadow Bowling, Add-a-Frame)

    high · Willing's detailed breakdown of Skippy's five base modes plus variations, plus systematic enumeration of industry-wide modes and their mechanics

  • ?

    design_innovation: Flash mode introduced skill-based timing element to bowling games: cycling lights stop when player contacts first pin, creating tension between shot accuracy and precise timing for bonus scoring

    high · Willing: 'flash basically was the one constant...even if you look at similar games like skeeball, a lot of skeeball games have a flash mode' + optical sensor variant in Skeeball Lightning with 10x multiplier

Topics

Electromechanical (EM) Bowling Game Scoring ModesprimaryBall Return Mechanics and Design HistoryprimaryFlash and Dual Flash Game MechanicsprimaryPuck Bowler Maintenance and Materials (Walnut Shells)primaryReal Bowling Center Equipment and Design ParallelssecondaryAdvanced Scoring Modes (Advanced, Champ, Line Up, Shadow Bowling)secondaryAlternative Bowling Scoring Systems (No-Tap, Petraglia, Baker System)secondarySeven-Segment Display Implementation in EM Machinesmentioned

Sentiment

positive(0.82)— Willing is enthusiastic and knowledgeable; Nick is appreciative and engaged. Discussion is technical but conversational and friendly. Willing expresses disapproval of experimental scoring systems like Petraglia but maintains collegial tone. No hostility or negative sentiment toward machines, manufacturers, or community.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.351

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 Baldrige, and tonight's topic is bowling games and their unique scoring features and modes. And because I don't know anything about anything. I thought I'd bring on someone who is well-versed in both bowling and bowling games, and that's Jim Willing from the M Dungeon on Spooky Pinball.
0:40
Hi Jim, how are you? Oh, not too bad, thanks. I think I'm a little concerned about being described as well-versed, but I will attempt to maintain the illusion. Well, you're certainly more well-versed than I am. You pointed out yesterday, I believe, that I had made a mistake in my previous bowling episode. I would not call it a mistake necessarily, just had not had the proper exposure to sufficiently classic bowling centers, shall we say.
1:17
Yeah, I'm uh, there's only basically one type that I've ever been to and I didn't realize that any of them had exposed ball returns like the bowling games. Yeah, that was actually the original design was they referred to them as over lane returns. And really early on, all of the assorted manufacturers used them.
1:50
AMF, Brunswick, Bollmoor, the various. The main, completely gravity pad, depending on the machine, the AMF machines tended to use an endless loop belt to raise them up to the top of a ramp to give them a little Jerry and但س Blockton from ownership of hardly anyal entrance to to remote
2:24
ball possession or barking other motorknisme. Thanks for watching This Week at swing.ne.com The ball is slowed at the return by a hydraulic cylinder, a little rocker cradle that is buffered by a hydraulic cylinder. Later versions went, they had little rubber bumpers in a kind of a zigzag configuration, which was an amusing thing to watch.
Bollmoor
company
The Valley Companycompany
PBA Tourorganization
?

operational_signal: Walnut shell catch pans require regular cleaning or performance degrades; operator neglect can lead to jamming and mess. Design shielding on switch contacts minimizes but does not eliminate maintenance burden

high · Willing: 'You don't want to sneeze when you're pulling a full pan out...if somebody just never thought to clean that out, and just kept dumping more and more...it would pack in' + personal anecdotes of dropped catch pans

  • ?

    content_signal: For Amusement Only Episode 92 serves as extended educational deep-dive on EM bowling game mechanics and design philosophy; positions Willing as authoritative expert guest to fill host's knowledge gap

    high · Nick's opening: 'I don't know anything about anything...I thought I'd bring on someone who is well-versed' + sustained technical Q&A structure throughout episode

  • ?

    historical_signal: Real bowling sport governance bodies actively experimenting with alternative scoring systems (no-tap, Petraglia golf-style, Baker team system) seeking to modernize appeal and pursue Olympic inclusion; Willing critical of direction

    high · Willing: 'they keep searching for ways to make bowling more palatable to the attention challenge...the recurrent drive to try and get bowling into the Olympics' + detailed enumeration of experimental formats with clear skepticism toward Petraglia system

  • ?

    community_signal: For Amusement Only podcast and guests like Willing serving archival/educational function for EM pinball and bowling game history; technical expertise being documented for broader enthusiast community

    medium · Willing promises to send backglass photos, dig up technical documentation, share pictures on 'Dungeon site so everybody can get a grasp'; implies community sharing infrastructure

  • ?

    historical_signal: EM machines employed stepper technology for complex multi-digit display control, including seven-segment LED simulation through individual lamp arrangements, demonstrating sophisticated relay/stepper logic

    medium · Willing: 'four digit, seven segment display...made of individual lamps...stepper bank in there that would know how to turn on the appropriate collection of bars to display whatever digits were required'

    • 2:55
    At various points, both of the major manufacturers went to a motor-driven idler wheel to recharge the ball's motion. Generally, it works fairly well. A couple of the cylinders in our center leak slightly, and if we don't notice, you may see a ball rocket through them pretty much unencumbered. It'd be a little surprising, but I guess the gist of the observation was that, like a lot of things, the early ball bowlers were very much patterned after centers of the time, and their overlay and return designs actually tended to reflect that.
    3:40
    Although most of them, as I recall, or at least the ones I have worked on, tended to use a little rotating wheel with pockets in it to lift the ball up to the top of the ramp and then drop it off rather than any sort of belt arrangement. But that's not to say there isn't one out there that I haven't seen that got quite that complex. You know, one never knows. Gotcha, yeah, so my exposure obviously fairly limited here.
    4:11
    Yeah, the only ones I had ever seen were fully enclosed at the bowling center that I've been to, so they just appear at a console in the middle of the floor. What a great show. So now you mentioned one design where it just kind of lets it go and it doesn't have a little extra height or anything. Do those balls ever get stuck in the middle of the return?
    4:41
    I don't think I've ever seen it, at least not in our center. It really doesn't take that much once you get them moving. Right. Considering that the lanes tend to be, you know, very, very level, you know, that's part of the certification process. You have to go through two rounds of sanctioned leagues and the like. Everything needs to be pretty level. So yeah, once you get them moving at a reasonable clip, it generally doesn't take much for them to make it to the far end.
    5:11
    Occasionally we will see a bit of a rebound because we will have, again, some of our occasionally Sij scraping Modi Oy's doorbell a make social two point talk he's retail in glasses 3 So, depending on the patience level of the players at the time, if you wait long enough, more often than not, we'll make it clear back to the other end, start, roll slightly up the ramp in front of the machine, and usually make it back down once again.
    5:53
    It will not make it up the ramp at the return, but at that point it's close enough you can catch it. Now, you shot me a picture or two of those exposed lanes, and those are gorgeous by the way. The thing I noticed about it is on the pedestal where the ball comes to rest, there's a button like on some of the bowlers, and I'm not sure if that's...
    6:24
    I just don't have enough bowling experience to know, is that something that's present What's going on every ball return pedestal? Is that button to call the ball? Well, pretty much. Actually, there's three buttons on ours and they are fairly common. The large button in the center, which is the one you probably saw, actually turns on the fan built into the pedestal for a hand dryer. Oh, okay. Then there are two smaller buttons, one to either side, to manually cause the machine to cycle.
    6:56
    In the event that, for whatever reason, a ball, say, wasn't heavy enough to trigger the machine, or something else caused the machine to not automatically start following the shot, this was the way for the bowler to be able to kick it off. Some AMF type returns also had in the classic centers a trouble button which would ring a bell or a buzzer in the back end of the center and turn on a light between the pair of machines on the lanes they were on to call the back end mechanic to say, hey, there's something wrong.
    7:39
    Huh. Uh, I always, the first center, the center I basically grew up in back in Beaverton had originally those in place, and being fairly young at that time, I suppose I indulged in the same level of mischief that probably caused that button to fall out of favor over the years is, I would randomly push it so that I could see the light come on and hear the buzzer go off. Obviously, after you do that a few times, the mechanic gets a little cranky.
    8:11
    I don't know why. So modern pedestals don't have that feature? No. Modern ones still have the reset buttons and generally have a fan switch somewhere, All those some centers have basically removed that and just tied it into the power for the idler wheels in the return so when the lanes are powered up the pan comes on automatically.
    8:46
    So you know some do some don't it tends to be one of those kind of at the discretion of the proprietor whether or not they want you know how they want to manage that. So, okay. And I believe I mentioned in the bowler episode that basically I just try to knock the pants down. So I was wondering if you knew how most of these modes work, like flash for example,
    9:21
    and what exactly the goal is because I assume that there are different goals for each mode. But again, it's just trying to knock down as much as possible. This is my mode. Yeah. Now, we may want to clarify there. We're now talking about these scoring modes in, like, shuffle and puck bowlers. Shuffle and puck bowlers, yeah. As opposed to something, some new feature that they haven't noticed on the scoring system at their local bowling center. Yes. That would probably really confuse people. Yeah. There have been a number of modes over the years.
    9:55
    I think when we were talking previously about bowlers, I mentioned that like the first one I had, the Keeney Team bowler, did not keep regulation scores. Right. It did have lights for things like strikes and spares, but they were basically decoration. It did not keep proper scoring. Generally, the older style machines would just give you 30 points for a strike, 20 points for a spare, and then just count if you just had what was effectively an open frame.
    10:31
    That was the model for a long time, so obviously it was, you know, as I said, not regulation, and by the time you kicked in, Even those machines would tend to give you extra shots, like in your 10th frame, 40 strike or a spare. So, if you were that good, you could go over 300 points really easily. So, the scoring obviously was not quite kosher.
    11:01
    The machines started... machines that could do regulation bowling scoring came onto the scene in the late 50s. I'm a fan of the 1950s, 56, 57, 58, along in there, where they started to actually, they advanced the circuitry to the point that it could figure properly that a strike was 10 points plus your next two shots, a spare was 10 points plus your next shot, and then an open frame or what they, what a lot of, what, it was called on a lot of machines on the playfield where it would give you your lead shot, and then you would have to
    11:43
    They would call it a blow. Which these days, that would probably get people really scratching their heads. But on an open frame or a blow if you prefer, then you just got whatever your count was. And then like everything else, they figured we need to jazz this up a little. And it's not necessarily unique to arcade games. David Van Es Tell you have reached the 95th
    12:39
    That would not be, you know, very easy to upgrade for some new, you know, off-the-wall scoring system. But I ramble. I do that a lot. Okay. Uh, the, uh, the most common alternate scoring models that you would see in the Shuffling Puck Bowlers, uh, the most common was called Flash. Uh, and occasionally you would have an expansion on that called Dual Flash. What would, in that game, when it was selected, you would have lights, a sequence of lights.
    13:14
    Now, depending on the machine, it might be illuminated inserts right in front of the pins, or it could be on the back glass or a secondary back glass right above the pins, illuminated backlit numbers on a back glass. Or in the case of my Skippy machine, it actually does a little of both. It has the dual sets of numbers on the illuminated backglass, plus, just below the scoring reels,
    13:46
    in the center of the backglass, which you can probably see behind me, I think we made this comment before we started, in honor of the discussion, I have the backglass from my 63 United Skippy sitting here behind me. I'll send you a picture or I'll throw it on the Dungeon site or something so everybody can get a grasp on what it is I'm referring to there. But on the center of the backglass below the scoring reels, there was a four digit seven segment display done in green that would also show the digits for the particular score you were trying for.
    14:24
    So in the flash game, once you... Okay, back up half a second. As I said, in the flash game there would be a series of lights cycling and they would have like incrementing scores. You would start from one side, scores would increment so you hit the center, and then they would decrement as it passed. And you... part of the game was you would try to time your shot because the lights would stop The game would stop as soon as your puck or ball contacted the first pin switch.
    14:59
    And that would stop the flash unit from cycling. And at that point, in a standard flash game, if you got a strike, you would get whatever score was indicated on the display. It was This is usually, you know, 100, 200, 300, you know, up to five, or some would go one, two, four, six. So, if you made the strike, you would get that, you know, that bonus score award. In the dual flash game, you would have two sets of numbers.
    15:32
    You would get the first set if you got a strike, you would get the second set if you got a spare. Okay. And again, if you had an open or a blow, you would get just whatever your pin count was. So that one made a fairly early appearance in the EM bowlers, and the flash game and dual flash pretty much was a constant for as long as they made bowlers through the EM era into the solid state era.
    16:02
    Uh, you know, pretty much as long as they made them, the Flash game was still there. Uh, the uh, Skippy, in this case, has two additional games. One they call Advanced, which was basically, you are shooting each frame for a fixed point value, but it would increment every frame. So, your first frame, a strike would score 300 points.
    16:32
    A spare would score 200, and a blow would score, again, count. Your second frame, a strike would be worth 600, a spare would be worth 4. Third frame, it would be 9 and 6. Fourth frame, it would be 12 and 8. And then, depending on the machine, in the case of Skippy, it starts over. Your fifth frame then becomes 300 and 200 again and then increments basically in cycles of four.
    17:04
    Some later games, you know, in particular like the solid state later, would just have an ever incrementing, you know, advance value. And then there was also a game on Skippy called Champ, The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi.
    17:53
    First person with a certain score wins. And you know, so those were the games on Skippy were the regulation, flash, dual flash, advance, and champ. Okay. And there was also one additional variation. You could have a, you could give a player a handicap, which basically made it easier to get a strike. Really? Yes. So you can have one player, you can have your good player, he could be playing in the normal mode, and you can have one or more of the other players playing in the handicap mode.
    18:29
    So their strike, basically, target was wider. Wow. To kind of even out the odds. You know, it's quite a collection of, you know, permutations for an electromechanical machine. Oh yeah. There's a lot of stuff going on there. I'm thinking about how they implemented it. It must have been pretty crazy. It's a fairly busy back box. I have pictures somewhere. I'll have to dig them out and I'll send them to you. Awesome.
    19:00
    And then there were other variations on games that came from other manufacturers, later machines. There was one generally called bonus where strikes and spares just created an accumulating bonus that would be awarded at the end of the game. There was an advanced, no actually we did advance, it's the, Skippy has that. There was a progressive game where strike and spare values increased, but they did not carry over.
    19:36
    So your bonus score would continue to increment until you had an open frame and then it would reset. Oh, okay. Some games added in features like all strikes, all spares. Sometimes they would do special, which I think was a kind of a variant on the sort of beer frame model in regular bowling where particular frames would score a particular bonus value
    20:11
    If you got a strike or a spare in that frame. Uh, let's see some of the others. Um, think about it for a second. There was, um, I guess similar to the add-a-ball idea in some pinball machines, there was an add-a-frame feature in some. That as long as you after your regulation 10 frames you could continue as long as you got a striker spare.
    20:44
    As soon as you got an open your game ended. Huh, so you could have 15, 20 frames if you were really good at the machine. Yes. Huh. Um, let's see. What else? I think there were some variations in the Flash and later games. One, I seem to recall, called Line Up, which was a variation on Flash, and something you may appreciate, actually added a 3x3 bingo card to the backglass.
    21:19
    Hey, there you go. Where you could, um, getting a strike or starting a certain frame would award you a spot on the bingo card. And, like in some of our favorite, uh, favorite frustrating games, um, you know, it's basically you're going in this case for three in a row. You know, vertically, horizontally, or diagonally.
    21:50
    And then it would award bonus points based on, you know, the particular combination. I think some only awarded on three in a row, some might award on two. And once it was an award, it reset and you basically started over. Accumulated bonuses did not carry over. This one was cast in, you're starting again from zip. Um, and one, I'm not sure I've ever seen this, I've read about this, I don't know exactly what machine it was on.
    22:29
    Um, which actually again harkens back to actual, you know, bowling, was a thing called shadow bowling. It was a, uh, generally used in, uh, AMF equipped centers for during warm up. Uh, basically the machine would not set the pins. You could roll your ball, but the machine would send the ball back, but would not set pins after each frame.
    23:02
    Okay. Uh, so you're basically, you know, shooting at, shooting at shadows, effectively. This was used, I mean, when I was growing up in youth leagues and the like for warm-ups. To kind of limber up and get a feel for, you know, the lane conditions that week. And in, same thing, on some of the, on some of the puck bowlers, possibly ball bowlers, they added a shadow game where the pins just never came down.
    23:34
    Where you are shooting literally blind and you know how well you are going to do is going to be determined by how well you can keep track of where you are actually shooting and what you think was left behind. Some machines, I don't recall the name of the particular game unless I go back and dig up pictures, because Charlie from Spooky Pinball has a ball bowler in his collection at his home, and it has what was generally referred to in the real bowling world as a pin-dictator, which are basically lights to indicate what pins are left on the lane.
    24:19
    The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi.
    24:49
    It has this pin-dicator display on the back glass along with the screw reels and everything else. So, now granted it also has the flip-up pins, so you would think it would be fairly easy to figure out what pins are still standing there. I'm not sure if the Pindicator in this instance was intended as a bells and whistles sort of thing, or possibly so spectators who were watching the game could know what was going on.
    25:22
    Now, again, just something else borrowed from the real world, in this case. Those are the bulk of what comes to mind. Something else may strike me, but those are the ones I'm most familiar with that come to mind immediately. Gotcha. So for like flash, I guess in the EM games there they'd be motor driven in order to select the value.
    25:55
    Yes. So there'd be what would amount to a continuous stepper but instead of stepping it just spins to select the value. Yeah and similar to the scanning disc in a bingo when you hit that one your puck or The ball hits that first pin switch, you would kick in a relay which would grab a pole on the on the on the flash unit and it would just stop cycling. Okay. You know
    26:28
    some I believe, you know, I'm pretty sure were motor driven, some may have just been really well exercised steppers. You know, just a continuous stepper that got a A lot of use. So you mentioned, like on your Skippy, that it had a seven digit display? Yes. Well, a four digit, seven segment display. Seven segment display. Yeah. You know, it's commonly seen in digital displays where you just have seven segments that make
    27:01
    up your numbers. In this case, it was made of individual lamps. Really? I'm just getting the 8 bars that made up the display. And it would just, you know... There was again, this really great, uh... You know, stepper bank in there that would know how to turn on the appropriate collection of bars to display whatever digits were required. That's amazing. That's....
    27:31
    You knew exactly what my question was. So, um.... I don't know if that's amazing, but the fact that the machine could control that just through steppers is fascinating. That's really exciting. So, now I mentioned this in brief too, but like for puck bowlers, the wax that's used is actually really tiny ball bearings. Um, at least, you know, correct me if I'm wrong here, but, uh, I see that wax being poured out and it's just really microscopic ball bearings.
    28:10
    Well, not entirely. Alright. Um, now I, I can't swear to it, you know, back into, back into park creation, but as long as I've been involved with, uh, with shuffle bowlers, it is actually ground walnut shells. Okay, yeah, because that was my question is, you know, they wind up collecting at the switches, and I've always wondered why they didn't just, you know, short the switches. So, well, is that, you know, I've seen the mechanisms under the lane, and I've seen how they're designed, but occasionally if there was some kind of malfunction with the shielding on those, would the walnuts collect in the switches and prevent closures?
    28:58
    Basically,well O spear is now ofber time and ofber. But why Maseratiования? Tim just subject him ofber time and times No listen I see why had provincial is demanded ofber time and times Fine and they were they were dried you know thoroughly before before they were ground and the actual The the way the switches were mounted They're they're they're effectively like for people who have not necessarily seen a puck or a ball bowler
    29:28
    They resemble rollover switches in EM machines. They are a wire, you know protruding Up through a slot in the playfield or in this case on the lane So, the actual switch mechanism, the switch contacts were actually behind the slot. So they were actually relatively well shielded from the walnut shells. Now granted, some people might have thrown sand in there if they were, you know, cheap or just not wanting to go buy the official stuff.
    30:03
    You know, all that kind of stuff. Uh, but yeah, very rarely did you see an issue with the switches being cluttered up from the walnut shell shuffleboard wax or whatever the given operator decided to throw in there because the contacts were actually back out of the way. And then, you know, where I could see they could run into a problem, although it would It would require an operator who was really not paying attention.
    30:33
    Because in nearly all of these machines there was a catch pan beneath the switch matrix. So that it would collect the walnut shells and the like and you could reuse it. If somebody just never thought to clean that out, and just kept dumping more and more and more on the table, then yes, eventually I could see you could build it up enough and it would pack in and you would probably start to have all sorts of entertaining problems, plus a glorious mess when you finally tried to pull the pan out.
    31:15
    Yeah, I could see that too. Yeah, because this stuff is extremely fine. It's another one of those things you don't want to sneeze when you're pulling a full pan out. Because you will be cleaning that up for days. It's like an ashtray. Pretty much. And you know, I can attest to that, having dropped a catch pan once or twice over the years. Really? That sounds like not very much fun.
    31:46
    You... yeah. Not something you care to repeat. So, do you have a preferred mode if you're on a machine that's not regulation scoring? Um... hmm. Because by the time they started implementing regulation scoring, they'd been doing things like flash for a little while, if I understand correctly.
    32:18
    Um... Or am I wrong there, too? I could not swear to it, one way or the other. I mean, I know approximately, or have a pretty good idea, you know, approximately when regulation scoring came in. But, uh, excuse me, I don't know really when they started adding, you know, the other features. Uh, so, chicken and egg, ball and pin, uh, ups and downs, strikes and spares.
    32:53
    Uh, yeah, I honestly don't know at what point, uh, the additional features started coming in. I know, for instance, the Keeney team bowler I had, which again was before regulation scoring, it had its basic game. That was it. There were no options. The only thing you had was number of players. So now I'm feeling like I didn't do my homework here.
    33:26
    Well, you know, obviously I don't know anything at all, so this is all quite enlightening for me. But I know at least as of 1963 they were putting the toys in, because that's when they had it in Skippy. There you go. So, well, I mean, do you normally, if you step up to a bowl, is your first inclination to go for regulation, if you can? Yeah, that's my first inclination just because I like to compare myself against, you know, real world bowling and see which one I really should stay with.
    34:01
    You know, because, yeah, like everybody, I have my good days and my bad days. The PBA Tour has nothing to fear from my game. I'm not sure if I'm playing the game, but if I'm playing with friends or something or we're just out for grins, I'd say Flash or one of the Flash variations is my next favorite because it adds the, not only do you still have to make your shots, but it adds an element of timing because you have to judge when to throw the puck,
    34:43
    You know, roll the ball in order to make that first contact at the proper time to get the highest, you know, potential flash score. And you still have to make a decent shot. So that makes the game a little more challenging. And you know, when you look at, you know, the variations and the like, as I said, you know, flash basically was the one constant I think I've seen in every bowling game, you know, that could handle regulation scoring forward, it kind of became the game of choice.
    35:20
    Even if you look at, you know, like similar games, well, skeeball, for instance. A lot of skeeball games have a flash mode in them. Do they? Yes, they do. The skeeball lightning machine is one example. And even they have their own little unique variation. If rather than incremental scores, what they have is again is a sequential light, and if you manage to throw your ball at the proper time, there is an optical sensor at the bottom of the little ramp that your ball jumps up to jump onto the target field.
    36:05
    When the ball passes that, that stops the light cycling. If you can stop the light in the center, on the center position, it increases the value of your score by 10x. Wow! Huh! So instead of like the lightning scores, hundreds, hundreds, hundreds, five hundreds, and then there's like the thousand point pocket, or is it ten thousand?
    36:35
    Oh, now I'm going to feel really silly. But yeah, it basically, you know, it becomes a 10x multiplier. So you can race your scores up in a big hurry. Yeah. You know, same thing with the bowlers. You know, all it takes is one or two well-timed strikes to pull you out of a rather deep hole. Yeah, so, sounds like I need to get out more. We should all get out from time to time. It can be enlightening.
    37:14
    It sure seems that way. Um, yeah, Flash sounds like, uh, just constant skill shots, um, which is, that does sound like it would be, uh, a great competition thing. So, as far as, uh, you mentioned, uh, near the beginning, uh, about how real bowling centers are starting to change their scoring in some ways, are they implementing things like, uh, like a skill shot like that, like Flash, or, um, something of that nature?
    37:44
    Well, there has been, and I will be honest, it's not necessarily a view I agree with, but they keep searching for ways to make bowling more palatable to the attention challenge. And the recurrent drive to try and get bowling into the Olympics. But the reasoning for not allowing it has ranged everything from your game does not have a fixed set of rules and a defined playing environment to it's boring.
    38:26
    And that's the whole thing. Everything in between. So there have been variations in bowling scoring for years. Some more unique than others. In a lot of, you know, well, frequently used competitions or kind of for fun events, they They have what is referred to as no tap scoring.
    38:58
    A tap in bowling is generally what looks like a good shot which should have resulted in a strike which usually ends up leaving a single pin. What is considered to be a tap for like a right hander is an 8 pin, for a left hander a 9 pin. Although, you know, obviously there can be any number of single pin leaves. So in no tap scoring, there are primarily two variations.
    39:31
    You have nine pin no tap, in which a nine count on your first ball is recorded as a strike. So you are basically given that three pin. And then eight pin no tap allows you to leave up to two pins on your first shot, and it It will be counted as a strike. Those games have been around for ages. As I said, most prevalently they're used in youth tournaments or for, you know, recreational, you know, or kind of novelty night sort of things.
    40:06
    And then the governing bodies have actually worked, experimented with some varying models in scoring. One they tried here a year or two ago was called the Petraglia system after Johnny Petraglia, a very respected Hall of Fame pro bowler. Uh, which, as much as I respect the man, I really cannot figure out why he would have allowed his name to be associated with this.
    40:45
    Um, it basically turned bowling into golf. Huh. Uh, you were allowed as many shots as was required, or I think it was up to three, to actually knock down all the pins. And then you basically, your score was recorded as the number of shots it took to knock down all the pins. And in this case, end of the game, low score wins. Okay. Um, uh, yeah. That's about all I'm going to say about that.
    41:18
    And then, uh, more commonly you see things that are actually variations on regulation scoring. In team bowling events, particularly in the collegiate ranks, and occasionally they will do this at the pro level, sometimes when they're doing pro-ams or when they're doing, you know, benefits and like, a thing they call Baker system bowling, is where you will have five people on a team, and your first player, for instance, will bowl in the first and sixth frame.
    41:58
    Your second bowler will bowl the second and seventh and so on. And it's scored as a regulation game, but each bowler basically only throws two shots, except for your fifth position bowler, who will bowl the fifth and the tenth frame. So this bowler could throw up to four, you know, as they have field shots in the tenth. Okay. But that again is primarily team play, and it is scored in the normal regulation fashion. There have been another couple of variants over the last few years that escape me at the moment.
    42:36
    None that I think kind of got me, gave me quite the level of heebie-jeebies as the Patraglia system, but they're still hunting. And again, I don't know if it's... you know, maybe I'm just old school. You know, I'm the dungeon curmudgeon apparently. But, you know, I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea that the current system is boring.
    43:10
    You know, I could say the same thing about golf. You're watching people plug this little ball in this giant yard and then go chasing after it. Right. For hours on end. But you know, people enjoy that. Yep. So, and I will admit to having flogged on occasion, the skill level with which I execute that particular game, flog is what I will call it. It is nowhere near called.
    43:42
    Yeah, well, you know, they're trying to do similar stuff with baseball as well. I'm not really big into any sport, so it's all kind of interesting to me from the sidelines, you know, as someone who doesn't participate really in any given sport, to see these kind of attempts because most of these games have existed for a very, very long time with the
    44:13
    scoring that they have and the rules that they have, and they've been honed to perfection over many many years and decades and even centuries so it's kind of kind of odd uh that all of a sudden we need to stop and revamp the entire thing you know yeah it's trying to uh trying to satisfy the wants of the mass media i'm afraid um you know that's why uh Well, you have these problems with, well, the Olympics is, I think, a good example of something that has kind of mutated to feed the media, I think, in a lot of cases, at the sacrifice of the underlying sport, where you look at, you know, every time it comes around where they are, you know,
    45:11
    What kind of created crime and tin-pad decks did Black Panther businessmen write about? др. So that aspect was that. Daniel Kryios? Camera Guy –頭 palavras созданы потому что в прошлом Piggin' On The Grass playfree hepegatha I was wishing I was teaching you something here where I could learn more about that.
    45:42
    Daniel Kryios – from K ciudadagine.com Marc Brey Breakdown John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, Ballywin, Straight Down the Middle, Ballywin, The discussion now, you know, if you take the media accounts at face value, when they start opening for bids from, you know, countries and the like, it's not so much, you know, yes, yes, we want it, it's like, yes, yes, can we afford it, or is this going to bankrupt us?
    46:19
    And you know, sadly, you look at the things over the last, you know, dozen years or so Where you've had host countries like Russia and China, I believe it was China Who have built these amazing, huge, you know, stadiums and sports complexes The which more often than not are basically abandoned after the
    46:52
    event finishes. Yep. You know, when the Russians hosted it here a time or two back, they basically created a whole new city. And now, you know, according to, you know, general reports and the like, it's pretty much a ghost town. So how long that model is going to be sustainable is anyone's guess. You know, a number of years ago, I think it was around 98, I actually participated in a thing called the World Masters Games.
    47:32
    I bowled in that, and it was actually an alternative to the Olympics. It's in the Olympic format. It still goes on. It's not, you know, horribly well known. It's held every four years. And it kind of bounces around the world. I got involved because in this, at that time I was still living in Oregon. And the games were held in Portland, you know, with kind of Nike as the premier sponsor, local company and all.
    48:03
    And it was convenient at all the venues because we had a really lovely light rail system in the Portland Metroplex. So I didn't even have to fight the traffic downtown. I could grab my three ball roller bag and basically hop the light rail train at a station about three miles from my house. And about 30 minutes later, I hop off a block and a half away from the venue. So that was magic.
    48:34
    Yeah. And it was, like I said, it was kind of an alternative to the Olympics in that you did not have to, well basically anybody who wanted to could participate. There was no, you know, big qualifications, no big Olympic trials or anything like that. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, Raydaypinball, Bally Williams, Straight Down the Middle, Bally Williams,
    49:19
    I think it was either the next one after the 98 game, I think it was going to be held in Australia, which is a place I would love to see. You know, circumstances didn't allow that, but yeah, last I looked, the games were still going on and kind of hip-hopping around the globe and having their own little, their own nice little niche. And you know, to a, I don't know if I would call it a lesser extent, but, and who actually organizes it escapes me at the moment, but there are also pretty much everywhere in the country that I'm aware of are the yearly state games.
    50:11
    In Kansas, in particular where I live these days, they're referred to as the Sunflower Games, but they are under the kind of blanket umbrella of this kind of national state games organization, which organizes this in the states every year. And again, it is a kind of a pseudo-Olympic sort of model where they have, you know, there's track and field and there's gymnastics and various outdoor sports and then there's sports, you know, the things I do like bowling, I believe there's a golf segment in it.
    50:47
    So, you know, there are opportunities for, you know, participation in these kind of grander events out there for anybody who cares to seek them out. You know, it's actually great fun. I have done the state games a time or two. And they're a good time. Although I must say the best time I think I've ever had in any sort of large competitive environment was during the Masters games because it is a worldwide, you know, organization.
    51:19
    And even in the bowling event, there were teams from, I mean, just in the bowling event, I know some sports had wider representation. But as I recall, in the bowling event, there was representation from something like 27 countries. Wow. Uh, and I am here to tell you the Aussie bowling team knows how to have a good time.
    51:50
    Let me tell ya, those boys are fun. Um, and then the complete counterpoint to that, I was actually, uh, I was actually bowling on a pair with, with a person that I found out was the president of the Hong Kong Bowling Association. And as one might expect, he was rather sedate, you know, rather, you know, somewhat reserved. I'm not trying to be like stereotypical here. I mean, it was just, you know, he presented himself very formally, which was fine.
    52:23
    But he also, you know, once the competition actually started, yeah, do not take the man for granted because he's very polite and very well dressed. The man had game. So that was great fun, just dealing with meeting and bowling with and competing against people from all over the world. You know, that's an experience I would never regret.
    52:55
    And, you know, if the opportunity presented itself again, I'd be on that in New York minutes. All right. So, well, I mean, that begs the question, I suppose. How'd you do? I tied for 25th. Wow. Okay. Which all considered figuring, you know, we're telling, as I said, we're talking, you know, people from, you know, 27 countries and there were, and as I said, anybody who could, anybody who wanted to could participate. That included professionals.
    53:31
    Wow. Okay. There were area professional bowlers that came in and competed in this. Some of them I knew, some of them I met for the first time. I was properly, you know, reminded of my relative skill level as I was doing good, as I was, you know, managing to stay in the, you know, pretty consistent, consistently in the low 200s. And I watched one of the local professionals who was bowling one pair over drop a 300.
    54:11
    And I'm like, okay. Okay, I am guaranteed out of the top 10 or out of the top anything, I think, at this point. So I was extremely pleased to actually crack the top 25. You know, that was... So how many competitors were there? Uh, you know, this is stretching the memory quite a bit now. Uh, I believe there were over 700.
    54:41
    Good grief. Wow. Well, congratulations. That's amazing. Well, thank you. And, you know, that was, uh, you know, in cases scattered across different, uh, because there were singles, there were doubles, there were team events. So I will not claim that I, you know, necessarily took on 700 people from around the world in the singles event, but, you know, I was still quite happy with my results. I would be, yeah. That's, even if you have that, I mean, that's just a ton of people, or a third in it, or, you know, however. That's not a word, but I just made it up.
    55:21
    So, I'm looking at your Skippy behind you, the backglass, and I noticed that it's got two sections in the bottom left and the bottom right. The bottom left has what looks to be red with white lettering, and the bottom right has some form of rectangle, and I was just going to ask you, what are those? Okay, the red block to the left is the tenth frame display. Okay.
    55:52
    It just says tenth frame, and there's three frame boxes, and there's two for strikes and one for a spare. So that basically indicates your tenth frame fill counter. It's displayed that way so that you can see how you're doing in the tenth. You would also notice below the score reels for each player position there are three frame boxes which are used also to indicate strike or spare accumulated for that player, again, primarily during regulation scoring.
    56:29
    Okay. Where the most you would ever need, the most the machine would ever need to display would be two strikes or one spare because, again, a strike being ten plus your next two balls. At that point, you know, unless you're continuing to throw strikes, the counter would reset. And a spare is 10 plus your next ball, so one spare indicator, and then that clears, unless again, you've thrown another spare. And then the rectangle to the right side is your frame counter.
    57:04
    It's a continuous stepping reel, similar to a square reel, except in this case, instead YOU PLAY OUTGUN OF Jung Lee
    57:38
    This is your number of players. Okay, okay. It actually just says bowlers and then, you know, indicators for one through six. So that's number of, you know, number of people that are actually in the game. And then next to each score reel there is a bowling ball, appropriately enough, next to a pin. And it says, each one it says first up, second up, third up, to indicate, you know, which player's turn it currently is.
    58:09
    Okay. And, so, I see you've got the back box here, but you don't have the full game anymore, correct? No I actually have it It is currently folded up and stored out in the trailer because I just don have room to set it up at the moment Gotcha okay It was actually in my game room and then when I got a couple of skee lanes everybody goes, oh, we've had bowling forever, we want skee-ball. So there was only room for one 10-foot alley game in my house.
    58:45
    So unfortunately Skippy was relegated to storage currently. But yeah, at some point I'm going to have to build my, put up a building or I'm, I will not say get a larger house because I am not moving again in this lifetime if I can't avoid it. I have done it more times than I ever envisioned already and it never ceases to be a major pain in the posterior. Well, I think everybody loves movies.
    59:17
    And especially when you have these amusement devices, which are huge. Yes. Skippy, I would say, is every bit as heavy as your average bingo machine. Wow. Because of its back box and you have basically a, you know, a 10-foot lane to drag around. Now, unlike the bingos, all of the electronics, or the electrics, I suppose more properly, for Skippy are in the back box.
    59:49
    There is... Really? None of the electrics are in... are on the lower lane unit. The closest you get is the coin reject relay in the coin box. And that's it? There's no coin stepper or anything like that down there? Nope. Everything's in the back box. You've got, you have three buttons on the foot rail, and you have your coin mechanism and a coin switch. That's it.
    60:21
    And it's game select, handicap, whip it, quickly whipping back into my photo file. Okay, it's two buttons. Yeah, okay. One to select the game, you know, from the game variations, and the other to select the handicap mode. So yeah, that's it. You have the two buttons and your coin slot. And that's it. That is all that is in the lower section of the machine. Everything else is in the back box.
    60:55
    Now that backbox looks a little more squat than a normal bingo backbox. Is it as deep as a bingo? Yes, actually it is. And it is actually taller because the bottom of the backglass that you're seeing sits on top of the shelf that, or the top of the box that holds the pin mechanisms. Oh yeah. So, yeah, this, this, uh, Scooby has the flip up style of pins.
    61:26
    Uh, so the mechanism for that is contained in this, in this box and this sits on top of it and then the back box actually extends, uh, it, it steps back about four inches or, you know, cuts back about four inches from the front door, which is what the back glass is mounted in, and then goes all the, all the rest of the way down to the latent surface. So the back box is actually about a foot taller than this back glass and door assembly would suggest.
    61:56
    Wow, okay. It is also impossible to get it to stand upright if you have it off of the unit and sitting on the floor because it is very nose heavy. Don't ask me how I know this. So you either have it tilted back at a very jaunty angle or you have it laying on its side, unless you wish very unpleasant things to occur. Gotcha. So in that respect, it is very similar to a bingo backbox.
    62:27
    Yeah. Okay. Well, before we got on the line, I started playing some bounty, as I am wont to do. I got a hit in all three colors, which is always an entertaining thing to happen. All, you know, on the same game. Yes. So, just an update. How's London going? London, unfortunately, has kind of been in stasis for about the last month because I have been up to my ears in projects both here and at work.
    63:08
    We're in at work. As I mentioned, I spent most of today under a vehicle replacing a fuel pump. I think I would take an afternoon fighting with London over that any day of the week. So yeah, unfortunately London has been sorely neglected here over about the last month. I am hoping here in the next few weeks that things will calm down a bit. Of course, I have been saying that for the last month or two. So we shall see how that works out, although just getting this one vehicle's issues sorted should contribute to freeing up a little more time, so that's a bonus.
    63:53
    Always good. Yep. Working on your car is no fun. So, are there any, I think, we may be recreating ground here, so my apologies, but are there any bingos locally that you're able to get your fix on, should you want to? Not that I have found so far, at least, definitely none in the wild.
    64:24
    I'm a collector. I've been out here for a while. And, uh, out in, well, it is, it is, it is curious. I was about to say that the, you know, the collector, uh, population out here is fairly light, but, um, as soon as that thought formulated, then I immediately thought, okay, how many people have you gotten phone calls from in the last six months asking you to come and work on machines? Uh, so, okay, I would probably then not say that the population here is horrible. ��ben Choices,
    65:16
    Bости Boie, I'm a little bit of a fan of the old days, you know, when you're in a room and you're sitting in a room and you're like, you know, I heard you work on, you know, machines and jukeboxes and stuff. Could you possibly come take a look-see? And I go, sure. And I'm figuring, you know, one fairly sad machine in the back of a, you know, the back of a basement or something. And I, you know, wander into somebody's house and they take me downstairs and there's a small arcade. I'm like, all righty then.
    65:47
    So yeah, they're out there. We're just stealthy. I'll go with that. Just curious, just curious. But, you know, not like there isn't the interest there. I think I mentioned earlier that I had kind of gone into the mini-route mode. I had put some machines up at the Bowling Center initially for some after prom festivities that were being hosted there.
    66:18
    And we decided, much to my relief, that after we put them there, he said, oh, well, let's just leave them for a while and see if there's any interest. And they were all on pre-play for the after prom parties, but they have since been switched back into feed me mode. And I was over there last week, and he goes, yeah, well, I don't know how much traffic they're really getting, because, you know, I haven't been watching. Uh, so I went and took a look and I said, well, you know, you know, I understand they are, they are in a section that is, you know, not readily visible from the front desk.
    66:59
    Uh, but there was a sufficient number of porters rattling around in all of them to, uh, make their presence worthwhile, at least in my book. So, the, the interest is there. Yeah, well, you know, arcade games and bowling centers is something that, you know, I still to this day look for. And I'm sorely disappointed when there's none present. It is a fairly classic model. So that reminds me, are there any bowling games or shuffle games or puck games anywhere in town there?
    67:42
    Not bowlers. There are shuffle boards at a number of the establishments in the area, largely the taverns or other adult gathering places. New York Times Press AG News http://www.newyork.com
    68:22
    Other than shuffleboard, any sort of puck or ball games, well, okay, shuffleboard for puck, skeeball for ball, yeah, I've not stumbled across any bowlers or other sort of variant games in the wild in this particular area. So yeah. Well, there you go. Yep. So, how... when you had Skippy set up, now I know that you bowl fairly frequently, or at least I get that impression. Maybe I'm making that up.
    69:05
    Yeah, no, I'm still a fairly regular... my wife and I are fairly regular league bowlers, so... Your wife was in the league as well? Yes. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, in fact, she bowled with me in one of the doubles events during the Masters games. Awesome. But yeah, so fall and winter, we're out at the center. Well, we are there at least once a week and I tend to be there another night or two because I tend to be the shift mechanic for some of the other leagues.
    69:36
    So yeah, fall and winter, we're there pretty regular. Gotcha. So I guess my question is, when you had Skippy set up, how often would you be playing it? Or were you getting most of your fix from the actual bowling? No, actually, when I had it set up, I played fairly regularly. It's, you know, any excuse to go wander into the game room. I hate to let any of the games feel particularly neglected.
    70:08
    And we also know the tendency for EM games to get cranky through lack of use. The Maryland Michigan
    70:45
    when Jim Vasco said what I do is my thing typically and that said they were not asking the
    71:15
    the same you with the skiball lane that's sitting in sitting there now you know it's getting it to getting enough getting enough oomph on the ball in this case to get up over the hump and actually make it up onto the target field so with the with ski ball in your home do you ever have the issue of the ball going flying um well the my skeeball machine has
    71:45
    Well, the press from
    72:15
    Everyone, fill this place up. Conначала, Brent Stitchmore from Hayden's American School of dasskind Hey. That little virtue having saved me from having to track down a replacement backglass more than once.
    72:47
    Yeah, I ask as the father of a couple young kids. So, well, that's really all that I know, which is not very much as you've heard. Do you have anything to add on bowling games or just in general? Um, no, I think we've hit, you know, really the, uh, you know, the main highlights. I mean, the only other thing we might mention, and I think we may have, I believe you and
    73:21
    I have talked about it, and I don't recall if you mentioned it in the, uh, you know, in the segment on bowlers, uh, that there have been, you know, some variations in the, The pins down at the end of the lane, as I mentioned, for instance, my bikini team bowler, the pins did not move. They were internally illuminated. So when a pin was considered to be fallen, the light in that pin would go out, which was a nice visual, although it could make it rather interesting if you leave some back row pins to figure out exactly what was standing there,
    74:01
    The Skippy did not have any sort of pin decatur on it. The Skippy and many similar putt bowlers, I think I would be fairly safe in saying all putt bowlers or shuffle bowlers, have what is, I believe, is generally referred to as the non-contact pins, Uh, is that the puck does not actually strike the pins. Right. Uh, it strikes these rollover switches on the laying surface and they trigger, uh, solenoids which release a latch and then a, uh, spring-loaded mechanism causes the pin to flip up out of the way.
    74:42
    Mm-hmm. Uh, like I said, I feel fairly safe in saying that's the, you know, the predominant model in the, uh, if not the only model in the shuffle bowlers. Now, ball bowlers, on the other hand, operated in bulky contact and non-contact model. The non-contact, where there were rollover switches, again, on the pin surface, although I suppose we might note, and this is where one or the other of us may have to, you know, post some pictures, because this is the sort of thing that will get people to say, you know, I wish you had some pictures.
    75:15
    If you look at the rollover switches on a shuffle bowler, they are oriented along the long axis of the lane. Whereas in your ball bowler, they will be oriented across the lane. Really? They're actually the switches mounted crossways across the short dimension. And if you think about it, there's a very good reason for that. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Laser Los, Bowen Kerins, Lyman F. Sheats Jr., orbit ramps, Automated Amusements, Python Anghelo, Joe Kaminkow, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi.
    76:14
    One switch or multiple switches that have to be contacted simultaneously as the puck traverses the lane to score a strike. A ball, on the other hand, has a contact area of probably less than a quarter of an inch. Right. So, if your switches were oriented a long way, not only would you probably never have a decent score, but half the time you would probably never trigger anything at all. Right. So the switches are oriented across the short dimension of the lane, so they make up the width of the switch that makes up for the lack of contact surface on the ball.
    76:53
    Okay. So there's, you know, there's a little visual for people to contemplate for a moment. And then you have the contact form of the game where there were no switches in or on the lane surface. Right. The ball actually struck the pins and they would, they would, the impact on the pins would trip a release mechanism and the pin, the, when the pin released, that would close a switch in the, in the pin mechanism to indicate basically what the ball had hit.
    77:30
    So in that same respect, by hitting the proper sequence of pins, the machine was able to determine whether or not you should be awarded a strike, or if there would be pins remaining after the shot, you know, and so on. You know, which brings to mind for a moment, too, a consideration from the mechanical standpoint, or more properly, the electrical mechanical standpoint.
    78:02
    In a ball bowler, the ball will traverse the lane, hit whatever collection of switches it is going to strike based on its trajectory, and then drop off the end of the lane and into the ball return mechanism. So, you know, dealing with your switch closures is going to be fairly straightforward. The shuffle bowler, on the other hand, the puck rebounds out of the back, which means
    78:33
    it is coming across another collection of switches on its return trip, which may be dramatically different from the switches it contacted all the way down. So that had to be compensated for in the design of the unit, that there are actually a line of switches across the back of, behind the last row of pins, which are effectively your lockout for the scoring system.
    79:04
    Huh. So when the puck contacts any of these switches in the back row, it says, okay, we're done. Do not register any more switch closures for purposes of scoring. Do not accept any additional scoring input until this scoring cycle has been completed and it has advanced to the second shot, you know, if this was your player's first shot, or it had advanced to the next player.
    79:35
    Because it had to basically ignore all these additional switch closures. human development was boil, yasg JS gokult sup, Oh, you mean, you know, pinball machines, so, yeah, they, you know, it's, it, you would have to send the puck down at a very, basically impossibly obtuse angle to, you know, strike one of these switches on the side to the point where you could, like, bend the actuator.
    80:18
    Okay. Uh, that would have to, really, when you consider the length of the lane, and, you know, considering the shuffle bowlers are dramatically shorter than your average ball bowler, Your average shuffle bowler is between 8 and 10 feet. Or your average ball bowler is anywhere from about 12 to 16 or 20 on some of the very large ones. It would take a malicious intent and basically somebody wandering down to the wrong end of the machine to be able to put enough angle on a puck to do any damage to a switch.
    80:51
    And in a ball bowler it would basically be impossible because you just don't have that much contact area. And you don't have a hard edge. Gotcha. Yeah, I was visualizing that row of switches incorrectly. But now I, yeah, I see it in my mind's eye here. And even on the puck, you really don't have a hard edge because the edges on all the pucks are rounded. Right. So, yeah, it would be like an impossibly, you know, steep angle.
    81:22
    You would have to be able to, you know, send a puck in there out to actually damage one of the actuators. Or, you know, maybe Clark Kent. At that point, it's just probably going to shoot through the back of the machine. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah, I think I did touch on most of that. And so out of those, what's your preferred machine? What, as opposed to like a puck bowler versus a ball bowler?
    81:55
    Puck bowler versus ball, but more importantly contact versus flip up or lighted. I like the flip up, you know, regardless, you know, contact or non-contact variations, just because it's, you know, it's a more satisfying visual. Right. You know, it's like watching the pins fly around in actual bowling. Um, and I will admit, you know, even though I, you know, I don't have one, I have owned them over the years, you know, unfortunately.
    82:28
    In my younger days, I tended to let machines go much more often. Uh, you know, I do not have a ball bowler these days. Um, and I love my Skippy. It has been with me for a very long time. Um, but yeah, I really do like the ball bowlers. uh... you know i i don't i wouldn't say substantially more but uh... i do like it just from the little extra physicality of it because even though it is you know rather silly to try
    83:01
    you always see people who are you know who are actual bowlers if they are confronted with a ball bowler they're trying to get the ball to hook or curve or they want to crank the thing over and They are, the look of shock on their faces when the ball gets two or three feet down the lane and it's like ricocheting off the opposing sides because, you know, you have to point out to them and, you know, a ball bowler doesn't have the, quote, waxed or, you know, the ground up walnut shells on the thing because it doesn't need it.
    83:39
    And unlike an actual bowling lane, there is no oil or conditioner on the lane to create slickness or allow your ball to skid. So, your average, you know, ball in a ball bowler is either going to be compressed wood similar to a ski ball or a phenolic, like Bakelite or something similar. and they've got a fairly notable surface to them so yeah you're not going to be able to do the whole curve thing anywhere like you're going to do on a real bowling alley because the conditions are just not analogous in any way shape or form
    84:25
    well actually that brings up another question here and that's uh care and maintenance so On the shuffle bowlers, you've got shuffle wax, the walnuts, but on the ball bowlers, so you don't even wax the lane at all? No, all I ever did with a ball bowler was basically, you know, pledge the thing once in a while just to keep it shiny. Keep it shiny, yeah. Because they are, you know, generally the lane surfaces on the bowlers, and pretty much regardless, shuffle bowlers or ball bowlers is formica.
    84:58
    Formica, yep. Yep. Generally, so it's fairly rugged. It's a fairly smooth surface. The only, I mean, the primary reason you have the ground walnut shells or, you know, shuffleboard wax, which a lot of times is just more ground walnut shells, on the shuffle lanes is to make the puck move more smoothly or with less effort. You know, and to an extent to protect the surface, because Formica is relatively tough, but you are talking also a solid steel puck that is, you know, the better part of a pound by itself.
    85:41
    If it was just skidding back and forth on that bare Formica surface, you know, you're going to develop some wear in that fairly rapidly. If you don't think that's the sort of material it wears, look at an air hockey machine that has a few years on it. Yeah. You know, I've seen some of those that, you know, they don't maintain the surface of the well and it gets dirty and it builds up friction and they've just worn holes in them. So, you know, that's really what is behind the need for, you know, some sort of, you know, friction reducing element on the shuffle bowler.
    86:21
    But on the ball bowler, again, you're talking, you know, generally a wood or a phenolic ball, which is, you know, either less, you know, is... I would have softer is probably not not quite the right word but is a less dancer less less solid material than the formica and you you have a ball which is predominantly rolling and a very small contact surface right so the need for anything to you know improve the balls you know reduce friction for the ball really isn't required.
    87:08
    I mean, granted, when I had ball bowlers, you know, I was kind of the lemon-pledged sort to keep it shiny, and, you know, that does add a little bit of slickness to it, which was not necessarily a bad thing, but not required. But again anything in the long run because you consider that the bulk of these machines I mean if you talking an EM bowler of any sort you talking a machine that is you know 40 years old or older At a minimum yeah Yeah so those machines have you know seen a good deal of wear on their playing surfaces
    87:49
    already. Right. So even though, you know, in the case of the ball bowler, it's really not required, you know, anything you can do to, you know, kind of protect that surface and, you know, with the bird softball Fifn or past them you know i I dont my. or and virtor
    88:22
    all that it provides Reed you not one Uh, laying surface on it unless the machine in general had just been atrociously you know cared for over the years. Um... Yeah, I've only had a few where it was a problem. And um, the surface, like, it wasn't Formica so maybe these were earlier machines. Um, you know, earlier than the sixties or so.
    88:53
    What... do you happen to know when Formica was invented? I believe for Micah it was late 50s. Late 50s? So, yeah, I mean I've seen some that appear to be wood planking and, you know, they've been worn, especially in the area right in front of the player where the ball has the most kind of speed. Yep. But, yeah, that's all I know. You know, that's something, you know, it might be a worthwhile inquiry.
    89:26
    There is a company in St. Louis that specializes in the restoration of bowlers, predominantly ball bowlers. Yep. And that might be an interesting question to pose to them. To see what their experience has been with wear on the laying surfaces of the different and if they have any, uh, any perhaps more experienced view on, uh, you know, care, proper care and feeding of a ball bowler's, uh, lane surface.
    90:00
    Uh, you know, cause, you know, as I've commented, you know, before, I do not claim to be the ultimate expert in anything in particular. I just have been fortunate enough to cross paths with these things and own one or more of them over the years. So I poked it. I like to think a fairly large amount of things and a fair variety, although I will freely admit, I can't really admit, and I think I commented on it in some of the pictures I posted from my excursion to the Pinball Hall of Fame, there were some machines there that I am pretty sure I have never seen before in my life, a couple of which, and they had a ball bowler and they had some, they did not have a shuffle bowler, at least not that I saw, but they did have some assorted shuffle puck games.
    90:57
    There was one that was actually a baseball-themed game, which was, I guess, most easily described as a sort of a skee-ball sort of target field, but you are using a puck rather than a ball. And the different target rings were like your single, double, triple, home run. So that was great fun. I believe I've seen one of those before, or at least I have seen shuffle puck games, the kind of hybrid shuffle puck, skee-ball, target field sort of games over the years.
    91:37
    Although there was one, and I would have to go back to the pictures to come up with the name, what I just kind of generally refer to as the bouncy ball games. Yeah, the ones where you have a 5x5 grid in the bottom of the machine and five rubber balls. For those who are looking for replacements, here's a clue, they are racquetballs. Or at least that's what I always used in the ones I had. I had a Rocket Shuffle at one point, which was a shuffle puck bouncy ball game, which I never should have let go.
    92:14
    But there was a kind of a poker themed bouncy ball game there that I am pretty sure I had never seen that before in my life because I walked up to it and the first thing I did was, you know, throw a couple of quarters into it just trying to figure out how to play it. Uh-huh. Uh, and then after I figured out how to play it, uh, probably shoved a couple of dollars into it in quarters over the next 10 or 15 minutes because, uh, you know, it is kind of similar to the bingo games.
    92:45
    It's like, I, I need just one more number, one more roll in the right frickin' row. Yeah. So, those, those, those I find just, you know, similar to the bingos. Mark I'm marvelously entertaining and aggravating at the same time. But this was a very unique example and I'm very happy to have had the opportunity to go there. Las Vegas is a very odd place for me to end up because I have basically zero interest
    93:22
    in gambling. I had a slot machine for a number of years and I finally sold it here a couple years ago just because I felt sorry for it because I hadn't touched it in years. Um... So I can say with absolutely no reservation that I spent many multiples uh... of the amount of money while I was in Vegas, many multiples more in the Pinball Hall of Fame than I spent in all the casinos we wandered through. I can say that absolutely without reservation.
    93:57
    And had a glorious time doing it. At some point I need to make my way out there. Now, does he still have a couple of bingos? I did not see any. Oh. Does not mean that they might not have been off the floor for maintenance or something. Okay, well, okay. Okay, I'm going to retract that because now that I think I'm fast forwarding through the photo file in my head, there was one bingo game on the floor.
    94:31
    Okay. I don't believe it was operating, which is probably why I slipped my mind all of a sudden. But I do recall seeing it when I went through my picture stack that I shot there. I do recall seeing it in the pictures. So yeah, there was one on the floor. Like I said, there may have been others that were currently off the floor for maintenance or something, but yeah. There was definitely at least one.
    95:01
    Well, good. Representation, that's good. Yes. So, those bouncy ball games. Now, you speak of them as if they're more the roll-down style where they have a lane, but the ones that I've seen are uprights, similar to a gun game cab. So, can you clarify the one that you're talking about with the poker theme, was that more of a roll-down style or one where you push a button on the cab and it shoots the ball?
    95:41
    Well, that's where this one was particularly unique, because I've seen all variations. I have seen the way a bouncy ball game is just the name I kind of group them under. That's probably not the correct name, but, you know, it escapes me. I mean, I've seen the gun-type games, the upright gun-type games. I think I've owned one or two over the years. There have been things like the Rocket Shuffle, which were a shuffle-puck sort of game You were aiming at targets at the end of the lane in order to launch one of the vertical rows of balls.
    96:18
    Or there were also like a, you know, launch all balls target. Okay. And then there were, this particular poker-themed game was actually an upright cabinet. There was no lane. And the thing that puzzled me initially, as I said, I had to roll a few quarters into it I'm going to do it to figure out exactly how it worked. There were four rows of buttons on the console of the machine.
    96:50
    Each one corresponded to a card, basically to one position on the grid. Okay. Okay, so it's basically you put a quarter in it, it launched all the balls, they bounced The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi.
    97:34
    Well, that's some fairly decent scores, but yeah, it was basically a one-shot. You know, you pick the collection of balls to fire and hit the go button, and they fire, and you hear a timer unit cycling in there, waiting for all the balls to settle, and then it would scan for a winner, and then that was the end of the game. That's cool. Huh. So, yeah, like I said, I have never seen that variation before, ever. So that was a really wonderful thing to stumble into.
    98:05
    Yeah, like I said, a bit of a head scratcher at first because, you know, that is a significantly different mode of play from any of the bouncy ball games that I have, you know, experienced in the past because, you know, as you mentioned, the upright gun style, you know, you basically have X number of shots where you can shoot a particular ball to launch to try and improve Trent P winner D o u n s
    98:44
    But yeah, this one was definitely a unique example of the genre. Sounds like it. Sounds cool. Yeah, I've been looking for one of those for a while, just for the novelty factor. Plus it ties into the whole bingo thing. But yeah, so one more thing that occurs to me on the bowlers Did any of them have a free game mechanism?
    99:17
    Um... Because the games are so lengthy, you know, I would think that that wouldn't be something that the manufacturers would want to put in there. Yeah, I do not recall ever having seen one. I think the closest thing was the games that had the add-a-frame variation. Extra frames? Extra frames. Yeah. Uh, but no, I do not believe I've ever seen a, uh, a, uh, a bowler game that had, that awarded free plays.
    99:50
    Yeah, not, not, you know, not that, not that I recall. As I say, that's probably for the best. Um, from an operations standpoint, it's like, you know, you wanted to make the next guy's money. Yeah, so, and especially when you consider, uh, well, Skippy, for instance, keep in mind, you know, In the 1960s, it was $0.10 a game. Yeah. So, you know, you need to get those dimes rolling. That's a penny a frame. Yeah.
    100:21
    And if you put six people on there, that machine is going to be busy for a while. Yeah. I wonder how much they cost. Do you have any idea how much they cost new? I believe a Skippy new in 1963 was $800. That would take a while to pay off. I'm just doing some math here. But yeah, huh. Yeah, at least that's the number that comes to mind from, you know, some, you know, trying to figure that out, you know, at some point, because that's one of my, you know, little OCD sort of obsessions.
    100:59
    Whenever I get a new game, one of the first things I do is I go out and try to learn the history of the thing. You know, I mean, aside from the obvious, when it was made, when it was put out, you know, what sort of other things were going on at the time. You know, yeah, what did the things sell for? You know, about how many of them were made. You know, and then we kind of get into the, you know, how many of them are left. Well, Skippy, for instance, it did not have any of its documentation with it when I got it originally, which made it rather interesting to maintain.
    101:37
    You know, I had been fortunate in it had been fairly well behaved over the years. Okay. But I had, you know, had been pretty much since, you know, since I had had it, had been trying to locate a schematic for it. Because inevitably at some point something's going to go wrong where that would be really, really handy. Right. And it was, I mean, I had, the Skippy followed me out here from Oregon and that was 15 years
    102:08
    ago. I had had it for probably, yeah, it could have been, you know, eight to ten years prior to that. I only finally found a schematic for the Skippy, I believe it was about five years ago. Wow, really? Which struck me as just amazing because I was able to, you know, readily trump information and schematics on pretty much any other bowler that had ever been made, it appeared.
    102:39
    But when I came around to Skippy, you know, you got the virtual looks like I had just fallen off of the flying saucer. What is this mysterious game of which you speak? I mean, I have the flyer. I have a thing. You know, they sold it. It's real. It's in the arcade flyer database. They have the flyer. They have no other useful information on it. I really have been remiss. I've been saying for years I am going to scan the schematic and send it to them to try and save some other poor soul who has this creature from going through these same sort of pain and agony that I went through over the years trying to figure out...
    103:24
    You know, you know, again, that's just one of those, you know, curious, improbable events, you know, that seems to make up this thing I call my life. Because I find these machines that are, they are lovely creatures, and it looks like you get it and go, this is cool, it's pretty, they must have made a million of these. And then I go looking for, like, a schematic or a manual for it, and I might as well be hunting chicken lips. I'm going to find it about as quickly.
    103:58
    These things amaze me. It is just like, it is some of the most improbable stuff. So, well, was there a sister game or something that was more readily available that you could reference? Um, I don't recall ever, you know, ever hunting, hunting them down. I mean, United was, like a lot of the companies, they were churning out, you know, a couple of new bowler games a year.
    104:28
    Right. And Skippy was the first one I believe, or at least the first one I ever saw, that had the large seven segment display on it, which intrigued me. Yeah, and that's, it intrigues me too, but that would be kind of challenging without the schematic. Yeah, because, you know, in the flash game, you know, as I had commented before, that a number of machines would have, like, a secondary backglass on the front of the pin mechanism housing where they would have your flash scores or your particular bonus scores.
    105:04
    Uh, so you know, they would just have the lights. Well, in the case of Skippy, no. Uh, the secondary backglass on the front of the pin housing just displays what game you have selected. So, in this case, the seven segment display, that's it. If you're talking bonus score, it's coming up on the big green lights. So, uh, if you're gonna play anything beyond regulation, this thing better be working. Yeah. And uh, that's curious, I wonder how many machines they made that use that feature because it seems like that would be a great expense over, you know, just a lamp or two in the secondary glass that they still have.
    105:46
    Yes, uh, but when you figure, uh, when you consider that each of these segments in this display is made up of between three and four lamps, three or four individual lamps. So you're talking like 35, 36 lamps per display, per digit. There's four digits. So that's a lot of light bulbs. Whoa! Just for that! That's a lot of heat. So, you know, I, sadly, I think this is one of those features that probably got cost reduced out in a large hurry.
    106:25
    I would imagine so. Gee, cost reductions and features and stuff. That sounds like a topic for a show. I couldn't resist that one, I'm sorry. Well, yeah. So, yeah, I've been enjoying your latest segment, especially on the Magic Pockets. I love that feature and it's really, you know, I've got to blame you I guess to my wife that started looking kind of in detail for a gay time or a gay-ity that has that feature now.
    107:05
    Well, you know, I say I'm sorry but you know I seem to have this effect on a lot of people. Ask Ryan Clayford. You know, they talk to me and then, you know, somehow the addiction begins. Yeah, I've been talking with some other bingo guys and they've been talking up the magic pockets as well and it's something that I've kind of breezed past because I've heard reliability problems with them over the years.
    107:40
    and um... but now I'm really in a mode to try and get one so we'll see. Yeah I mean I've been kind of in the back of my head saying I'm going to uh like pull the manuals out of Gayety and see if there's actually you know any useful information on the Magic Pockets mechanism in the in the book because I you know I don't think I've ever seen one you know for real so I I, in my mind, I kind of have an idea how I suspect the mechanism works.
    108:13
    So it would be, you know, it would be interesting to compare the reality versus my little envisioning. Yeah, it's all up on Phil Hooper's site there, bingo.cdyn.com. You can pull up the manual and the schematic and he's even got a little write up on Magic Pockets up there. I'm going to be talking about a site I am intimately familiar with. I have spent a lot of time pulling stuff from that site. I suspect everyone who's ever messed with Domingo recently is pretty familiar.
    108:49
    Yeah, because I actually mentioned it, I think, on the first episode I did, of the dungeon where I started talking about bingos. I mentioned it as a reference point because, again, I figured, okay, now I've started on this topic, I'm going to manage to infect some poor person's mind, so I better give them a reference point or I'm going to start getting emails going, You caused this, now show me how to fix this. How does it work?
    109:22
    Like, ah, Marthy, obviously based on my success or life thereof with London so far, I don't know! Or at least, or at least it's going to be some silly little thing that I've overlooked so far and it's going to be, it's going to be equally aggravating and very, very, very joyous when I finally sort out what that is. Because... Always the way with bingos, you know, you find that one little problem and it's just some little switch tucked away.
    109:55
    Yeah. And then boom, everything's great. Yep, or one dirty contact that you haven't gotten to. It is, you know, tantalizingly close because, you know, I fire it up and reach in, flip a coin, switch it, or drop a coin into it. It drops the balls out. I mean, it cycles up properly, starts the game properly, progresses through the game properly. I can step up odds, step up futures. The only thing, really, it does not do is score. You know, does it actually release the search at all?
    110:28
    Yes, yeah, I can actually hear the search unit scanning and you know I wander back there and you know whack the R button and you know race around to the back of it in a hurry. Yeah, it is scanning, it just doesn't, well and even to the point where it's, you can see the five bank of search relays. You see them cycling. Okay. On winning combinations. So, what you're just seeing are the combinations. There is just something else missing.
    110:59
    So, yep. Two things. Again, I've always got two things. In case one fails. But the first is, you know, rather than run around the machine, if you just push the armature plate, it'll restart the search. So the little lockout plate? Yep. I usually do that because I'm just so lazy. But then what I mentioned before is that tiny switch stack which is underneath the search disk to the left, that's the next place to look.
    111:40
    If you're getting chatter, you know, it's probably that. You see that pulsing at all and trying to latch in? And it's going to be very faint, probably. The switch adjustment on that, again, is just so sensitive. You got to have it exactly perfect or it does nothing. And you'll get the chatter, you know, it'll pretend like it's doing something and nothing at all. Of course, I think you had mentioned at some point or somewhere that you had cleaned the switches or redone the stepper on your red odds.
    112:18
    Yes. So the switches there also have an impact, and of course your counter units that count the number of replays. If that is out of adjustment, then the game will think that it's already scored in that particular section, and you'll get odd. But normally then you would get, so say you had an 8 in a particular color, you'd only get 4, or you'd only get 2, or some odd number.
    112:51
    Subtitle by Rev.com. I'll see you next time on the show. So, anyway, I can dive into bingo tech all night. But yeah, that's, that's very close. And if it's already doing the search, that means that your, your trip bank is working. And so, you know, your timer is working therefore. And yeah, I mean, you're seconds away. So that'll be exciting.
    113:23
    Yes it will. Something I've been thinking about more and I'm going to start to ask folks here. Have you, and this drifts widely from the topic of bowlers and I'm sorry for that. Have you ever played a magic ring or, what's the other one? Any of the circle bingos? There's only two of them. And I suspect that they were mostly made for export only. They're 20 hole and you rotate the numbers in a circle instead of, you know, having to fix columns.
    114:05
    Right. No, I do not believe I've ever seen one of those in the flesh, as it were. Read about them, they look interesting, but I do not believe I've ever seen one. Yeah, they're odd ducks. Just curious, because I've never played one and never seen one, and just interested in how good of a player they are. They seem like they'd be really tough to beat. But, at any rate.
    114:36
    Well good. Anything else you'd like to add? Uh, not that comes just immediately to mind. I think I have perhaps drugged this out on long enough. The last time you asked that, you know, I suddenly go, oh yes, we should address this, and that let off for another half hour or so. Well, fair enough. Thank you, Jim, for coming on, and I really appreciate it, and enlightening everybody in an area where I have, you know, very limited understanding.
    115:10
    Jay Smith, Douglas Weiss Le Thanks again and I'll talk to you soon. Very good. I'd like to thank my guest James Willing,
    115:41
    the EM Dungeon Master from the Spooky Pinball Podcast. The Spooky Pinball Podcast is available at spookypinball.com slash podcast and they put out a monthly show of which James Willing is a long-time contributor And I highly encourage, as I have done several times in the past, anyone who may not be listening to that show that is listening to mine, check it out. It's good fun and always an interesting topic when Jim comes on.
    116:17
    So, and thank you again for listening. My name again is Nick Baldridge. You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com. You can listen to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, VR, RSS, on Facebook at 4amusementonlypodcast, on Twitter at bingopodcast, and I'm on Instagram at nbaldridge. Or you can listen to us on our website which is 4amusementonly.libsyn.com.
    116:50
    Thanks again for listening and I'll talk to you next time.