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Episode 10-Gottlieb system 1 breakdown part 1

THE PINBALL RESTORER’S PODCAST·podcast_episode·39m 17s·analyzed·Jun 6, 2022
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TL;DR

Technical guide to Gottlieb System 1 restoration challenges and aftermarket solutions.

Summary

Matt Lister's restoration-focused podcast episode provides a deep technical breakdown of Gottlieb System 1 pinball machines, covering their late entry into solid-state technology, unique electronic architecture, common failure points (displays, transformers, interconnect cables), and available aftermarket solutions (Pascal boards, Neuwampf MPUs, replacement displays). The episode emphasizes restoration challenges specific to System 1s and directs listeners to vendors, part suppliers, and YouTube resources for repairs.

Key Claims

  • Gottlieb was the last major manufacturer to move to solid-state pinball; Waiko and Allied Leisure were first in 1975-1976

    high confidence · Matt Lister, host, discussing Gottlieb's late transition and competitor timeline

  • Gottlieb System 1 games use spider chips (ICs) that are about half-inch wide and have been extinct for 30-40 years

    high confidence · Matt Lister explaining the rarity and unavailability of original components

  • The interconnect cable between Gottlieb System 1 power supply and MPU can only be safely disconnected 12 times before springiness degrades

    high confidence · Matt Lister detailing design flaw in connector durability

  • Gottlieb System 1 games lack attract mode aside from displaying high scores and zeros on fluorescent displays

    high confidence · Matt Lister comparing System 1 to Bally, Stern, and Williams attract modes

  • Fibtube fluorescent displays used in Gottlieb System 1 operate at 60 volts (versus 270 volts for plasma) and last significantly longer

    high confidence · Matt Lister explaining Rockwell electronics and display longevity

  • The small transformer in Gottlieb System 1 can burn out from power supply failure; no manufacturer currently makes replacement transformers

    high confidence · Matt Lister describing catastrophic failure mode and workaround solutions

  • Gordon Morrison, the primary artist for Gottlieb System 1, was contracted (not employed) and created artwork for ~170 games throughout his career

    high confidence · Matt Lister citing information from Gottlieb company employees

  • Ed Krisky designed most Gottlieb System 1 and System 80 games exclusively

    medium confidence · Matt Lister discussing design patterns and continuity across System 1 lineup

  • Columbia Pictures owned Gottlieb and its licensed titles, making playfield reproductions legally difficult for properties like Charlie's Angels, Incredible Hulk, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Notable Quotes

  • “Gottlieb was like the giant in the room. They had dominated the industry for well over 50 years and had spawned companies like Bally.”

    Matt Lister @ early segment — Establishes Gottlieb's historical dominance and market position

  • “There are only two manufacturers that did not kind of mimic each other. That was Gottlieb and Williams.”

    Matt Lister @ early segment — Highlights Gottlieb's unique technical architecture versus competitors

  • “They don't have an attract mode...that was kind of like in comparison to what other people were doing at the time it's kind of chintzy.”

    Matt Lister @ mid segment — Critiques Gottlieb's cost-cutting approach versus feature-rich competitors

  • “I love all pinball machines. I mean, give me a reason to just play it and after a while I'll find something I like about it.”

    Matt Lister @ mid segment — Reflects restoration community's pragmatic, player-first philosophy

  • “You cannot do that [wiggle method]. You can actually cause catastrophic failure of a variety of components.”

    Matt Lister @ display repair section — Critical safety warning for System 1 display troubleshooting

  • “He has all of the exclusive rights to distribute almost every piece of every recreated Gottlieb part.”

    Matt Lister @ parts sourcing section — Identifies Steve Young as monopoly supplier for Gottlieb parts

  • “It is very difficult to get the license back from movie companies, especially when you're going to be doing a limited run of a very small product. Half the time, it's not that they're even mean. They're just not going to talk to you.”

    Matt Lister @ licensing section — Explains real-world barriers to licensed game reproductions

  • “To me, they're kind of like a resto classic car. These were the last years they made this style or this type of gameplay.”

Entities

Matt ListerpersonGottliebcompanyRockwellcompanyGordon MorrisonpersonEd KriskypersonSteve YoungpersonLonnie MeehanpersonJeff McCaffeypersonJeff MillerpersonBarry Ouslerperson

Signals

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Comprehensive documentation of endemic failure modes in Gottlieb System 1: spider chip unavailability, interconnect cable degradation (12-disconnect limit), small transformer burnout, display segment failures, and encoder-decoder chip rarity.

    high · Matt Lister provides detailed technical breakdown of each failure mode with specific voltage specs (60V vs 270V), component sourcing challenges, and diagnostic procedures

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Growing ecosystem of third-party replacement solutions emerging for Gottlieb System 1, including Pascal/Flip all-in-one boards, Neuwampf modular components, Wolfpack LED displays, and LIS Arduino-based MPU alternative.

    high · Matt Lister catalogs multiple vendors and solutions, noting specific pricing ($200 MPU, $50 displays) and functionality advantages (attract mode on replacement boards)

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Playfield reproduction heavily constrained by licensing (Columbia Pictures ownership of game IP like Hulk, Charlie's Angels, Close Encounters). No standard playfield vendors; only Lonnie Meehan offers direct-to-surface reprinting service.

    high · Matt Lister identifies licensing as primary barrier: 'It is very difficult to get the license back from movie companies... half the time they're just not going to talk to you.' Limited options: Las Vegas Playfields restoration or hand-painting.

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Supply chain stress reported for key Gottlieb System 1 component suppliers. Neuwampf out of stock on both MPU and driver boards; Great Planes Electronics experiencing burnout-driven capacity reductions; Weible (rectifier boards) recently expanded Classic Ballet soundboard offering.

    high · Matt Lister: 'Neuwampf is still out of stock of both their got leap system 1 mpu and their got leap system 1 driver as of right now they are hoping to get new products out shortly' and 'Great Planes Electronics... isn't so much about the supply chain shortage he's burnt out'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.118

0:01
Take a look at pinball pool. Here, look at the Simbad pinball machine by Gottlieb. Closing counter! Genie, this is told. Hulk, people call it Hurtle.
0:13
Asteroid Annie and the alien. The Gottlieb dragon. Gottlieb system one. Oh, God, there's no way I'm fixing this over. welcome to the pinball restorers podcast ladies and gentlemen welcome to the pinball restorers podcast i am your host matt lister how's it going and welcome to the gotleaf system one breakdown this is kind of a special episode i'm going to do this with every manufacturer um which i'm going to talk about the unique challenges of fixing um a particular series of games that they make and i will follow that with an interview with a person who supplies electronic components and or artwork or recreation parts what have you so this is all part of that new format but uh let's just get right to it gotlieb system one um they were the last company to move to solid state and it's not that solid state hadn't already existed um the first company to ever move to solid state pinball was actually waiko in 1975 allied leisure followed immediately in 1975 1976 uh games like take five um dino might which is actually a full-size pinball machine but allied leisure pretty much stuck to cocktail machines and so i think that's part of the reason that they didn't really take off other than they were a smaller manufacturer. Gottlieb was like the giant in the room. They had dominated the industry for well over 50 years and had spawned companies like Bally. And when you look at what they had going on, it's kind of unique. In fact, there are only two manufacturers that did not kind of mimic each other. That was Gottlieb and Williams.
2:19
Bally and Stern were cranking out solid-state pinball machines that, well, in the modern age, the parts are interchangeable when it comes to the lamp driver board, the rectifier board, heck, even the transformers. The displays were the same setup. That's why if you buy boards from Alltech, you can actually get an all-in-one board that works for every Stern. early solid state stern that was made in every classic valley game that was made well williams uh started doing their own thing but gottlieb was the last one so when you have the last seat at the table um it takes a lot to move all of your production and they did not have a lot of time they had to fulfill a lot of international orders with their electromechanical pinball machines which prevented them from kind of getting that leg up they were already the lines were already cranking games that people had paid for already so that being said they approached a company called rockwell to make the electronics for these games and they had a specific limited number of control lamps um these things don't have an attract mode the only attract mode they ever had was that the displays would um flash the high score and then flash either the dual cc or the zeros that was all that was the attract mode unless you put in twinkle bulbs or uh flashers uh sorry blinkers not flashers flashers are 12 volt these are 6.3 volt blinker bulbs and so that was kind of like in comparison to what other people were doing at time it's kind of chintzy i mean bally had to track mode stern had to track mode williams had a track and a track mode these games did not um so there was a slight disadvantage there the other big disadvantage that they had was that they designed these games instead of kind of incorporating the new technology for rapid play the layout of these games they feel and they play like electromechanical pinball machines um a lot of and it wasn't uncommon for almost every one of these companies to utilize their game designer to move into solid state i mean barry alice's first game was phoenix that was an em and then boom he was into solid state um got leave on the other hand uh ed krisky did a lot of the design in the early days john bros did some of it but I mean, when you play everything that they made from basically System 1 into System 80, almost all of the games were exclusively designed by Ed Kerensky. And all of the artwork was done by Gordon Morrison. And Gordon Morrison is well-known in this realm because the guy had done almost 170 games throughout his history as an illustrator.

high confidence · Matt Lister explaining licensing barriers to playfield recreation

  • Lonnie Meehan, who worked as engineer for Alvin G, Daddy East, and Jersey Jack, has the ability to reprint Gottlieb playfields through direct-to-surface printing

    high confidence · Matt Lister identifying unique playfield reproduction resource

    • Matt Lister @ closing segment — Frames Gottlieb System 1 as transitional collectible with nostalgic appeal

    Pascal
    product
    Neuwampfcompany
    Rotten Dog Amusementscompany
    Alltechcompany
    Wolfpack Technologiescompany
    Boston Pinballcompany
    Las Vegas Playfieldscompany
    X-Pincompany
    Big Daddy Enterprisescompany
    Marco Specialtiescompany
    Classic Arcadescompany
    Shea Arcade Groupcompany
    BG Restocompany
    Joe's Classic Video Gamescompany
    Alvin G.company
  • ?

    community_signal: Restoration knowledge and solutions distributed across YouTube creators (Joe's Classic Video Games, Classic Joe's, Pin Rescue, Pitbull Mayhem), Facebook groups, and individual vendors (Steve Young, Lonnie Meehan, Jeff McCaffey). Community-driven innovation evident in workarounds (piano hinges for backglass bezels, medical/industrial transformer sourcing).

    high · Matt Lister repeatedly references YouTube channels and Facebook groups for technical guidance; mentions multiple community-sourced solutions like piano hinge workaround for missing bezel hinges

  • ?

    product_concern: Small transformer burnout in Gottlieb System 1 represents cascading design vulnerability: power supply failure → transformer burnout → no displays → no common replacement part available → requires workaround solution (arcade PSU swap + new displays).

    high · Matt Lister case study of friend's Countdown machine with burnt transformer: 'the entire thing was burnt up... the only thing left was... very thin strand of wire going into the mpu the actual wire itself the outside casing had melted off'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Gottlieb System 1 restoration heavily dependent on single-source or few-source vendors: Steve Young holds 'exclusive rights to distribute almost every piece of every recreated Gottlieb part'; Lonnie Meehan is sole playfield reprinting source; Jeff McCaffey is primary plastic vendor.

    high · Matt Lister: 'Steve Young's Pinball Resource... he has all of the exclusive rights to distribute almost every piece of every recreated Gottlieb part.' Repeated references to specific vendors as only option for components.

  • ?

    historical_signal: Gottlieb's late entry into solid-state (vs. Waiko 1975, Allied Leisure 1975-76) attributed to large installed base of electromechanical games and international order backlog preventing rapid production transition.

    high · Matt Lister: 'They had to fulfill a lot of international orders with their electromechanical pinball machines which prevented them from kind of getting that leg up they were already the lines were already cranking games that people had paid for already'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Gottlieb System 1 designed with cost constraints limiting features relative to competitors (Williams, Bally, Stern): no attract mode, limited control lamps, basic display functionality (60V Fibtube vs. plasma alternatives), spider chips versus standard DIP packages.

    high · Matt Lister compares Gottlieb approach to competitors: 'Bally had to track mode stern had to track mode williams had a track and a track mode these games did not... it's kind of chintzy'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Gottlieb System 1 characterized by slow, EM-like playfield feel and layout design despite solid-state electronics. Described as 'fun' but with acknowledged limitations; community appreciation for retro gameplay aesthetic.

    high · Matt Lister: 'They play like an em... they're floaty... I love them' and 'kind of like a resto classic car... these were the last years they made this style or this type of gameplay'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Aftermarket repair market offering two competing strategies: all-in-one solutions (Pascal, Alltech) prioritizing convenience vs. modular solutions (Neuwampf, individual component vendors) prioritizing flexibility and cost optimization for partially functioning machines.

    high · Matt Lister: 'All-in-one is the most convenient... But the Neuwampf board, if all of your other components are good... you can get a new MPU for $200... you don't have to buy the all-in-one'

    • 5:15
    Things I discovered after talking to some of the guys who worked for the company at the time, Gordon Morrison was contracted he was actually not employed not actually in the building kind of day in and day out despite the sheer quantity of what he produced so it gets to be a little bit more interesting when you're trying to find recreation artwork, recreation parts and the biggest challenge is repairing these MPUs in a system one so when they approached Rockwell made their electronics, and they were supplying to cash register companies. They were supplying to vending companies. They used Fibotube fluorescent displays that operate at 60 volts versus the 270 volts that it would take for a plasma display. So the advantage of this, unforeseen at the time, is that Fibotube displays pretty much last forever. in fact uh because they're fluorescent because they were lower voltage they didn't burn up as fast i mean short of the encoder decoder chips going bad more often than not or you know the connectors your gt connector off of the mpu having corrosion or a few of the chips that actually encode and decode on the mpu to the displays these two pretty much are bulletproof and last short of shattering the glass.
    6:43
    Anyways, they have a beautiful look. I actually like the look of these displays. I do like the vibrant blue that they typically are. I don't mind seeing those when I walk down a whole row and I know that some people cringe. It's like, oh, it's Gatlieb System 1. They're slow. They play like an EM. They're floaty. I love them. But then again, I love all pinball machines. I mean, give me a reason to just play it and after a while I'll find something I like about it. But enough said on that.
    7:10
    Houston Pinball. Atari Pinball MPU and driver repair service. Send us your dead MPU or driver board and have it refurbished to good as new. 90-day warranty and fully tested upon shipping. Find out more on eBay. Username Houston Pinball. All one word.
    7:32
    Pinball Pimp. Your source for museum quality restoration, maintenance, as well as Jeff Miller's world-famous cabinet stencil kits. For Williams Valley, as well as other manufacturers, all available at pinballpimpstencils.com. Um, does internet porn know you're cheating on it? Titan! Titan Pinball, your source for Titan's tournament silicone rings, LED bulbs, mylar protection, comfortable pin mats, and playfield posts, all at titanpinball.com. so the getting to the electronics fast forward in time you know company is long gone um and we are as restorers or hobbyists enthusiasts general tankers side side electrical engineers and so forth we're kind of put in a bad spot when it came to the got leaf system 1 mpu because it used integrated circuits ics except it used spider ships these are slightly wider they're about oh let's say about a half inch wide and those have been extinct for almost three three and a half decades probably longer which made repairing these things almost impossible at this point. It is very rare to find these on eBay or out in the wild, like an unused set. Typically what people have done to repair these is they've cannibalized the games. They'll cannibalize a functioning MPU or one that the game is destroyed, but the electronics were good. They'll take the chips off of it and put them into a different game. that becomes a nightmare and well as time has passed there are solutions you can buy a brand new mpu an all board an all mpu driver board power supply from pascal which is sold by flip they are in france you can get the MPU or a new driver if the rest of your components are good and have been recently serviced You can get those from Neuwampf. Both of these sets of boards are a great product. All-in-one is the most convenient. I'm not going to lie about that. But the Neuwampf board, if all of your other components are good, your driver board was recently rebuilt, or you bought a new one from Rotten Dog or you got a new power supply from X-Pen or you've repaired your power supply using parts from Big Daddy Enterprises or you have a new, you know, you don't have to buy the all-in-one. You know, for $200, you can get a new MPU.
    10:28
    And the nice thing about these is they have an attract mode. So that means all of your control lamps actually do something When the game is over, it has an actual attract mode.
    10:42
    And so that's one benefit to those. The other is it's just a solution in general. You don't have to mess with trying to burn ROM chips, swap out ROMs. You can just pop this board in and be done. That was one of the challenges. So a few companies have made products. I've also found out recently there is the LYS, I don't exactly know how to pronounce it, but I'm aware of it, the LIS system, which actually is an MPU that runs off Arduino because there's not a lot to these games. So I'm not surprised that somebody has done this. I've also seen people convert these using an Alltech board and swapping out all of the coils and pop bumpers. or sorry, just actually, it was just all the coils to a Classic Ballet, Classic Stern, and they rewired the game to work with an Alltech board. That was interesting to see because they had taken out all of the displays, replaced them with new, I don't know if they were pin score or not, but they literally threw in the Classic Ballet, Classic displays, and they had modified their baffle board to hold them. i was like that was an undertaking but that was a solution somebody came up with and i'm pretty sure at the time there wasn't a lot available so enough being said on that that's some of the solutions other problems that these have these things had a have an interconnect cable between their power supply and the mpu this cable those ends were not designed to last more than 12 uh you could only remove it 12 times before you actually were wearing away or removing the springiness of its connections to clamp on and so i don't know who designed that like hey we're only going to disconnect this 12 times well depending on the environment you left this game getting played in people just beating the crap out of it you might have had to remove that 30 in the three years you had it on site or four years that you'd have it on route. So that was just kind of a huge disadvantage.
    13:00
    These games use two transformers. They have a large one and they have a small one. The small one's actually designed to run your displays.
    13:09
    And so here's another challenge about fixing games. That small transformer can cook. a failure on the power supply board will cause that small transformer to burn up once that's burnt up you have no displays nobody makes this transformer so what do you do this requires two-part a two-part solution and if you go on a pin wiki there's instructions for replacing the small transformer with a typical arcade switching power supply and once you've done that you have to buy a different type of displays you actually have to buy displays from boston pinball why because theirs are designed to operate without the small transformer so if you buy for instance the other displays from wolfpack technologies x-pin is making them i am aware they are not to market yet uh a while back big day enterprises and um x-pen uh brett and todd had shown a little video of them testing they were finishing making a set i do not have the details on that because they're just not out there yet but boston pinball is the only company that makes these operate with or without that small transformer so there there's another challenge um unless you want to sit down and have one made there are other industries that have used equivalent parts. Sometimes when you have a transformer failure, you could look into medical device companies. You could look into a few industrial motor companies or what I would say manufacturing systems, conveyor belt systems. They use stuff like that. However, trying to match that is going to be a pain big time, but the best of luck if you try to. There's other little solutions. You should fuse that small transformer to prevent if there's a power supply failure for any reason it prevents that from cooking it and i have seen what happens when these have cooked sadly i helped a friend with his countdown you know he it was they had a beautiful play field he had a reproduction back glass in the back he had all were functioning displays he put in a new mpu and driver board he had a new power supply on there and new interconnect i mean everything looked good everything had all the connections had been repinned and the reason i was coming over was he's like i can't get this thing to work it doesn't even turn on and i'm like well that's unusual to check all your fuses he's like yeah i've looked at the fuses they're fine because i swapped them out what he didn't see is when he was looking in the bottom of the game he didn't look over at that small transformer the entire thing was burnt up the only thing left was obviously you could tell that it had started on fire at some point but you can tell that the wires all was left was very thin strand of wire going into the mpu the actual wire itself the outside casing had melted off if you could find another uh transformer on ebay at least you had a you could see how to reconnect and patching wires if need be. Anyways, what ended up happening? He took, he found in his kind of his collection of parts that he had bought, and he had found a small transformer and popped that back in, rewired it, game worked great and played. But again, that's kind of a headache. That's a catastrophic headache. Well, now you know that if this has happened, there you go on Pinwiki. They talk about the small transformer, and they talk about how to fuse it, and then you swap out the displays. This should work. So there's that. Now let's talk about these displays. All right, so these are, again, fluorescents. They are unusually shaped, too. They do have that classic cash register look to them. if they fail and they rarely do but typically if one fails it can cause problems with the rest of them and so you end up having to unplug and test each display at one at a time and you have to make sure that the power is off if you move a connection on a got leap system one display or any and this is just this is a rule of thumb for any games you should not turn the power on and then start unplugging connections and plugging them back in i know there's people that try the wiggle method with gotleaf system ones you cannot do that you can actually cause catastrophic failure of a variety of components and so that being said the encoder decoder chips for these are very rare to find occasionally you can find a set of them for about 50 to 60 dollars on ebay well you can do that or you can buy a wolf pack technology one for um i believe 50 bucks that's a brand new display they're led segments and they look just fine once you pop you can replace once you've tested you finally only have one bad display buy the wolf pack one pop that in you know you just have to solder it together has very clear instructions and then that's working great Like, repinning connections is always a good idea unless, you know, you've looked at them, they're not looking bad, and the game's working properly. Like, you don't necessarily have to. Some people have had games that have just not been exposed to moisture, and coincidentally, those connections are looking good. That's rare. If you need to repin the connections for this, you need to go to Steve Young's Pinball Resource. and just as a heads up to anybody who actually orders from steve young he is old school he is he's kind of he's kind of short he's a typical new yorker but he operates like a warehouse you need to have part numbers so if you need new connections and new pins you have to save those part numbers you can ask him a lot of questions about the games he a warehouse he very busy He typically doesn he just one of those guys like he like you need to already know what you looking for and he has it And he basically has all the exclusive rights to distribute almost every piece of every recreated Gottlieb part And so he has all of the connector housings. He has all of the connection pins. You have to order those.
    19:57
    Now, that solves a lot of problems, plus the pin extractor tool. there are actually a few guys who've shown videos on youtube about how to deal with this uh joe's from uh joe from uh classic joe's classic arcades has done this um i have seen a couple other guys like pin rescue and so forth that have done this and pitbull mayhem they they'll they'll talk about that stuff fixing those it's very if you've never repinned connections before it's not a hard thing to do it just means you have to buy the right crimper and you have to basically and strip the wires you have to buy the decent wire stripper and the right crimper both of uh which are available on amazon and ebay i'll have links um on our our home page for this because uh it's just a helpful resource to somebody else who might want to be doing this later So if your displays are missing segments, typically J2 connection is what went. Double check, repin if it doesn't work. And you turn off the game, take all the displays out, pop them in one at a time into player one. And all of them work, but one doesn't. Then typically that's a display issue. But more often than not, it's hard to decipher whether it's the display or the connection on the board. typically if it's a connection on the board problem that same segment is bad on all the displays or two of them but if it's just one typically it's just that display that went bad and so there there are your options there with the displays as for like other parts i have found that uh jeff mccaffey classic arcades makes the plastic sets for almost all of got leap system one so that's whether you have pinball pool close encounters of the third kind genie dragon he has most of that if you're looking for the back glasses for these um shea arcade group is uh and bg resto okay she arcade group sells these brand new made bg resto operates on the fact that you basically can send him a bag of broken glass and he sends you back the new um back glass but That's because you've sent him the original.
    22:16
    He has done quite a few of these too. There is nobody currently that does the play fields for these.
    22:25
    And there's a couple reasons for that. One, Columbia Pictures owned this company. And any of the licensed artwork, so think about this, like Charlie's Angels, Incredible Hulk, just like I said, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Those are licensed titles. It is very difficult to get the license back from movie companies, especially when you're going to be doing a limited run of a very small product. Half the time, it's not that they're even mean. They're just not going to talk to you. That's the thing. So what do you do? Well, there's two options. One, there is a company in Las Vegas called Las Vegas Playfields that restores playfields. They also correct and level inserts. they've done beautiful work but that's going to they're pretty spendy just letting you know but it is a high quality job when it's done you can also just take your hand at you know lightly sanding using testers model paints or if you want to use airbrush enamels or if you're really a talented artist you know restoring playfield isn't a problem as long as you have something to work with if these things are fully blown what do you do well there happens to be a guy that is well first in Gottlieb because he worked for the family um Lonnie Meehan was an engineer for Alvin G uh Daddy East and Jersey Jack he has the ability to reprint play fields so he has instructions on how to lightly sand these you ship them to him he does direct to surface printing reprints it and sends it back you still have to automotive clear coat this or do uh the two two pack method 2pk method polyacrylic where and by the way one of the best uh videos i've seen done of how to clear coat a play field uh carrie hardy actually did it so it's a very good video i do recommend watching that if you're looking for a little you know heads up on how to do that if you're and if you're part of the community and you're in pinball repair or pinball restorations projects facebook groups just look for lottie mehan he's a member if you and just contact him he may be able to help you he's done the uh translates for uh ryan mcquade's uh sonic spinball and uh he's done he's just done a variety of reprint work he's done work for the burke family over the years and yeah if you he's your He's a guy. He's a solution because there is nobody that makes a Gottlieb playfield with the exception of Mirko. And nobody's touching these System 1s. So that's another challenge. There's the artwork. What do we do? Drop target units are available. Classic Arcades makes the drop targets for all of these, and they make the bumper caps. Gottlieb bumper caps are unique in how they were made because the cap, instead of being screwed on from the top down over the light bulb, these use tab inserts. They break.
    25:26
    Sugar Ray Games on eBay sells these as well as Marco Specialties and, again, Jeff McCafe's Classic Arcades. So that's where you can get all of these things. And so it's just, as I said, they're fun to play. They're a little slower. They play a lot like EMs, but they're a lot of fun. They're like the, I would say, to me, they're kind of like a resto classic car. These were the last years they made this style or this type of gameplay, and I do thoroughly enjoy it.
    26:03
    I'm Kent Brockman, and I'm bringing you Pinball News. And with that, music folks, it is time for some Pinball News in the realm of pinball restoration. so classic playfield reproductions has a new back glass for bally space invaders and the plastics for both the solid state and em versions of bally night rider shea arcade group has new back glasses for got leaps haunted house bally's medusa and williams space shuttle supply chain shortages oh jesus affects everybody from uh great planes electronics uh his isn't so much about the supply chain shortage he's burnt out but that creates a supply chain shortage for us shut down periodically just because he's just getting inundated with orders he also has a full-time day job and just a lot of you know regular real life responsibilities knee wumpf is still out of stock of both their uh got leap system 1 mpu and their got leap system 1 driver as of right now they are hoping to get new products out shortly weebly little uh unknown company, but they have made a few things, including they make a build-it-yourself rectifier board for Classic Ballet Stern. Well, they have just released a Classic Ballet soundboard that was previously non-existent. You can buy every board but that board. Well, you can get it from him. It's about $100.
    27:30
    That's a wrap for Pinball News in the Realm of Restoration. Stay tuned for more as this hobby just keeps cooking up. More stuff becomes available. The community all contributes to each other solutions get found products get made and the whole thing keeps on spinning enjoy the insanity and as i said share kid group does back glasses bg resto you can contact them in a pinch um and those are again those are all solutions but depending on the condition of these um it might be a project you don't want to tackle you know the got leap system ones do not have a typical lift channel back glass their back glass is mounted into a cabinet face uh bezel that you open up then there's the light baffle board you open that up now you're to the electronics um the hinges for these are not available so say you get a game and you're like sweet can i find the bezel and you look around like you there's no hinges available for this i have seen guys who have basically taken that filled in where that hinge hardware goes on the top and the bottom and they have used the piano hedge hinge with two spacers on the inside to give that distance so that they were able to fix these. So again, it's just unusual things. Another good resource for a lot of these older back glasses, and I've gotten some from him, is Mayfair Amusements. He has a huge collection of originals and probably a few pieces that you're going to need. Things like the Lockdown Bar. Again, that's Steve Young. That's where you're going to have to get it. Plunger Units, all that stuff. You can get that all from him. Marcos does sell quite a bit of this stuff Just to throw it out there Marcos actually sells a lot in fact they sell the original inserts if you have to do play field work um the nice thing is is that all the coils for these are available including the cage mounting brackets that they used to hold these in because like for the drop target units as well as for the rotary targets if you end up with a damaged rotary target uh again steve young sells all those parts but you say you need some help on figuring out how the heck it's why it's seized and why isn't it working look up kim oswald the goat shed um pinball repair look up the goat shed on youtube they have done a lot of work with e electromechanical repair well gottlieb uh roto targets were the same in their em as they are in their solid state. So it's the same process to fix both. So that's another thing I highly recommend.
    30:24
    So anyways, these are just, they're fun. I love these games. My favorite one out of Gottlieb System 1 family, oh, I would have to say I really did like playing Roller Disco and Asteroid Annie and the Aliens. and I have I've played Hulk I have played Charlie's Angels I've played Countdown I've played Torch I've played Genie I've played a bunch of these I love Pinball Pool just because I like two sequences of all the corresponding drop targets and I put it on to five ball versus three so it means those two banks of drop targets drop independently not if you hit one the corresponding side It drops down two like it does on three ball.
    31:13
    I just enjoy that challenge. And then getting the five-time multiplier, go down the three lanes, get your extra ball, and just keep racking that score, keep racking that score. So, you know, this happens to be a favorite. Luckily, I own it. Now, the cabinet artwork, Jeff Miller from Pinball Pimp Stencils, he has all of Gottlieb's work. A lot of their titles are very simple for the cabinet artwork, especially for the EMs. but he does have the entire solid state collection.
    31:44
    And so, anyways, I'm going to go to a brief commercial here. I hope you guys haven't minded listening to me ramble so far. I'll get a lot of the technical specs for a lot of these solutions. They'll be all posted on the Facebook page. And feel free to send a message out. I like talking to other guys who do this. I like talking to guys who've restored games and so forth. So just hit me up. This is Drew Bouvier. And when you're done listening to Matt talk out of his ass, head on over to the poor man's pinball podcast and have a drink and play some pinball classic arcades classic arcades your source for pop-up recap recreations playfield overlays insert decals apron decals cabinet artwork decals and much more at classic-arcades.com who's your daddy big daddy enterprises your source for pinball electronic repair products featuring boards from Flip, X-Pin, Alltech, and more. Wiring parts, e-proms, replacement displays, flipper rebuild kits, and more at BigDaddy-Enterprises.com.
    32:49
    And if you know where that audio file came from, you are a shameful individual. I'm just kidding. That just means featured internet slash YouTube video in regards to pinball restoration. And the channel that I'm featuring this time, it is on YouTube, is Joe's Classic Video Games. This guy has done a lot of videos and restored a lot of games, mostly just repairs them. I mean, it's just get it back up and running, but the client dictates the extent in which we'll go. But they are a vintage video game store and classic arcade game store in downtown Rock Hill, South Carolina. And they post the videos of them doing general repairs. I've seen them do a variety of titles. In fact, a lot of times, if you type in a game, it brings one of these up. He's encountered numerous problems, melted parts, brokenness, hack job repairs from the past. And I always find it entertaining just to watch it, so please check him out. You can also check out their website. It is lions, spelled with a Y, lionsarcade.com. And he does videos of basically covering the gameplay when he's finished, so please check out this channel. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Joe's Classic Video Games back with another cool pinball repair video for you this evening. This is Gottlieb's Big Shot pinball machine that we are working on for a client, a customer. And so far, it's been awesome. Boy, it's a pretty cool machine. Now, on the last video, we had it kind of up and limping along. Clean, clean, clean. Get it as clean as you can. You might want to put a little bit of grease right here where this metal runs through that metal.
    34:30
    One, two, three. Four bulb doesn't work. Five. You're on the glass. It basically soaks up that foam so that it doesn't get down inside the game. So you just need some kind of little cushion there so that whenever it falls, it doesn't hit the metal. It hits. Nothing but chimes ringing. Come on, people. You got to put something. Come on, people. You can't look.
    35:00
    greetings and welcome i want to play a game time for a featured please space and so um yes i've actually been there this is in detroit barcade um they are styled a lot similar to like up down if you guys have ever been to those locations so they do have a variety of arcade games but they had a huge selection of pinball machines and i got to just sit chill play i got to meet some of the staff it was great titles rotate in titles rotate out um did play junkyard uh played uh champion pub and uh sadly got the ball stuck behind the uh giant bash toy in there that has all those opto switches except for some odd reason it wouldn't detect that the ball was there um got to play uh theater of magic star wars um and then they had new titles like stranger things and so forth but they had a huge drink selection they had food and it was a very classy detroit experience and so if you're ever in the detroit area look it up i got sent there for work and on my weekend off i went there two nights in a row and just kept playing games i'm going to feature more locations um i'm getting information from some of the guys who are operators in other states and so i'm trying to get you know more of a thing put together not so much as an ad but just Just kind of a shout out to these businesses because public space is how this still survives. Even though a lot of these games are being shipped and sent to homeowners,
    36:34
    people still love playing things in an arcade. Now that we're all adults, we get to drink and play games in an arcade. So please hit up Barcade in Detroit. It was an awesome experience. But I'm going to close this episode. It is just fun to get back into doing this again. I'm going to keep these coming out. I do have a few other interviews. I'm going to be continuing to edit these shows. I needed to tie this show in with the second following, which is going to be the interview with David Humphrey.
    37:04
    And as I said, check out the Poor Man's Pinball page and the podcast. Drew Bover is awesome. And you know what? The Super Awesome Pinball Show is back up and running, so please give Christopher Franchi and Christian Lyon a listen. It is always worthwhile. while. I've listened to a lot of these other guys because, you know what, it's something to do while I'm working. I just enjoy these shows. So hopefully I'm on that list if you guys do, or if you just think I just talk out of my ass, which I kind of do. I'm not going to lie. I'm not a complete expert. And sometimes I butcher information, so I just try. But the big thing is, is I just try to find solutions for everybody. I try to find, I support the businesses that do this. I support the businesses that have these. I support the YouTube channel guys who do this. And it's just an awesome community and I just want to say thanks again for just letting me be a part of it and and for everybody who sent me feedback thanks for reaching out and thanks for constructive criticism or corrections but thank you I really do appreciate it and this is Matt signing off and as usual keep it flipping always practice safe pinball oh wait no that's uh that's Zach Meaney's line but again thank you so much this is Matt signing off what are you buying? what are you selling? the pinball place your premier retailer and authorized dealer for stern, jersey jack and american pinball large selection of new and used games, parts and accessories find out more at pinballplace.com tactical nuke incoming!
    38:46
    TNT Amusements, the largest new amused game showroom in the world, featuring pinball, shuffle bowlers, arcade video games, bubble hockey, from EM machines to high-speed games of today, parts and accessories, shipping worldwide with weekly auctions, streaming online on YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook. Find out more at TNTAmusements.com. This has been a Ruby Butt Production. Ruby, get out of the litter box! Thank you.