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Critical Mass with Eric Selak

Pintastic New England·video·1h 5m·analyzed·Feb 7, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Eric Selak unveils Critical Mass: a lost 1980s Alvin G prototype and his five-year restoration odyssey.

Summary

Eric Selak presents the deep history of Critical Mass, an unreleased Alvin G pinball prototype designed by three college engineers (Jerry, Joe, and Jim) in the early 1980s. Selak details the machine's origins from Shane Black Hole (a successful Alvin G game), its rejection by Stern, and his five-year restoration and completion project involving playfield reconstruction, electronics reverse-engineering, and extensive licensing negotiations with both Alvin G and the original designers.

Key Claims

  • Three college engineers (Jerry Yinx, Joe, and Jim) designed Shane Black Hole at Bob Brown's bar in Harrisburg, PA, which became an Alvin G production game in October 1981.

    high confidence · Direct testimony from Eric Selak with documented evidence (email from Joe in 2005, interoffice correspondence, earnings reports shown in presentation)

  • The original designers received royalties exceeding one million dollars from Shane Black Hole.

    medium confidence · Selak states he saw the check with his own eyes; Jerry showed it to him, but presented without independent verification

  • Stern Pinball turned down Critical Mass for unknown reasons.

    medium confidence · Stated by Selak in opening; no detailed explanation provided for why Stern rejected it

  • Critical Mass sat dormant in a Pennsylvania bar from 1982 until Selak found it in 2001.

    high confidence · Documented with photographs showing deteriorated condition, mouse infestation, and verified through interaction with original designer Jerry Yinx

  • Selak's reconstruction of Critical Mass took five years from start to finish.

    high confidence · Explicitly stated: 'the whole time it took me from beginning to end was five years'

  • The Critical Mass EPROM chip contained approximately 80% complete code, likely copied from a Mars God of War EPROM.

    high confidence · Selak analyzed the chip's functionality and lamp configuration, determining Mars God of War as the closest match through technical comparison

  • Alvin G retained strict trademark and licensing control, requiring permission from both Alvin G corporate and original designers (Jerry and Joe) for any modifications.

    high confidence · Selak documents multiple approval processes and correspondence with Alvin G legal/IP enforcement

  • Jerry and Joe each received one of the last two Shane Black Hole machines produced, with consecutive serial numbers.

    high confidence · Selak verified through physical inspection of display boards; someone allegedly stole one display from either Jerry's or Joe's machine

Notable Quotes

  • “This game isn't leaving our plant. This is an awesome, awesome concept. We'd never heard of anything like this before.”

    Alvin G (company representative, paraphrased by Eric Selak)@ 6:28 — Demonstrates why Alvin G accepted Shane Black Hole when Williams rejected it; shows industry appetite for novel playfield concepts

  • “Your artwork sucks. We aren't interested in that.”

    Bally Williams (paraphrased by Eric Selak)@ 6:19 — Illustrates why Bally rejected the designers' concept before it reached Alvin G; theme/art presentation was a critical factor

  • “Who in their right mind would actually look at this and say, I can rebuild that, Jerry. Guilty as charged.”

    Eric Selak@ 17:48 — Self-aware humor about taking on an overwhelming restoration project; establishes Selak's obsessive commitment

  • “I turned into the biggest asshole. Making mistakes at work, bad eating habits, bad sleeping habits... My mind was focused on this machine like an obsession.”

    Eric Selak@ 36:33 — Personal admission of the psychological toll of the five-year project; illustrates deep passion/obsession with completion

  • “Everything needed approval. Even the letter G. That needs to have the registered trademark.”

    Eric Selak@ 38:46 — Underscores Alvin G's strict IP control and the bureaucratic complexity of legitimizing modifications

  • “This is junk. Couldn't use it. It's a crying shame.”

    Eric Selak@ 41:41 — Emotional reaction to discovering that original Alvin G parts had degraded beyond usability, forcing new parts sourcing

Entities

Eric SelakpersonJerry YinxpersonJoepersonJimpersonRickpersonGil Pollockperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Alvin G's IP enforcement infrastructure (trademarks, copyrights, legal action threats) remained active decades after company ceased active pinball manufacturing, creating compliance burden for restoration projects.

    high · Selak warns 'try to pull one over on Alvin G and you're playing with fire. I guarantee it.' Describes entity as still registered with active trademarks/copyrights. Cites concern about manual reproduction enforcement on eBay.

  • ?

    event_signal: Critical Mass machine is being publicly displayed at Pintastic New England show as major historical/archival reveal, with extensive designer documentation and oral history presentation.

    high · Selak presents full historical archive including original pencil sketches, interoffice correspondence, email from original designer Joe (2005), earnings reports, and photographs documenting 5-year restoration. Describes this as 'once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Multi-level playfield designs faced gameplay criticism; upper right drop target bank on Shane Black Hole was identified as 'least favorite feature' while upper left eject hole was widely popular.

    medium · Selak cites field test data from interoffice correspondence comparing player preferences on different playfield elements. Drop targets rated poorly; eject holes rated highly by players.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Multi-level playfield design was a significant innovation point in early 1980s pinball; multiple manufacturers (Harry Williams, Bally, Alvin G) were exploring this mechanic simultaneously.

    high · Shane Black Hole featured suspended lower playfield; Dragon's Lair was explicitly three-level; Alvin G announced Pinball House as competing three-level design. This was cutting-edge mechanical innovation.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.196

0:00
Good afternoon everybody. We have been selected by Eric Selak to have the first showing outside of Pennsylvania. Well you'll get the whole history but the game has been sitting in Pennsylvania with a great story behind it. A story that not all games made by major manufacturers are designed in-house, and this is a great example, and it's also an example of a game that got turned down for some reason. And I know there's been a lot of interest, so Eric, let's hear that story that we've been waiting so long to hear.
0:46
Thank you, Dave. So my name is Eric Selak. I'm from York, Pennsylvania, and used to run the White Rose Game Room show for 16 years. It still goes on to this day.
1:03
But the factor of York and where I found the game is actually in Middletown, Pennsylvania, about an hour north of me. and the three designers actually didn't start with critical mass. It was just three college guys trying to come up with some kind of concept and just make a game.
1:36
And what they actually came up with was black hole. so you wonder okay well this is a Gottlieb game how did they even start with this so there's a lot of little details to go over and it's going to be a lot of little nitpick information but bear with me I'll try not to go too fast on this you know so yeah it's unscripted too so So, if you're familiar with New Wave Toys at all, they make replicated video games. And they're also doing a pinball machine as well. It's a miniature pinball machine that you can purchase for $200. It doesn't play. It is a Gottlieb Black Hole. and as I'm scrolling down through here it shows some information about the Black Hole Pinball Machine released in October of 81 and the game designers are Adolph, John, and Terry.

  • “Alvin Gottlieb never asked for any of this stuff back. Not even the three-ring binder with all the drawings and everything.”

    Jerry Yinx (paraphrased by Eric Selak)@ 41:57 — Demonstrates Alvin G's abandonment of the project and tacit permission for the designers to retain intellectual property materials

    • Alvin G
    company
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Bally Williamscompany
    Harry Williamscompany
    New Wave Toyscompany
    The Pinball Resourcecompany
    Critical Massgame
    Shane Black Holegame
    Dragon's Lairgame
    Mars God of Wargame
    Volcanogame
    Haunted Housegame
    Hot Shotgame
    Bob Brown's Bar and Puborganization
    Pinsidewebsite/resource
    Flyland Designscompany
    Dick White Axl Rose Game Room Showevent/venue
    ?

    leak_detection: Critical Mass is a previously unknown/undocumented Alvin G prototype machine being publicly revealed for the first time at Pintastic New England show.

    high · Selak states this is 'the first showing outside of Pennsylvania' and the game has been kept private in a bar since 1982. Historical documentation (interoffice correspondence, earnings reports, designer emails) supports previously unreleased status.

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Alvin G maintained aggressive trademark and copyright enforcement even decades after production, requiring explicit approval for cabinet art, lettering, playfield modifications, and parts sourcing.

    high · Selak documents repeated approval requests for even minor design elements (letter 'G' needing registered trademark symbol, cabinet lettering, drop target banks). Alvin G explicitly stated 'no way' to unauthorized modifications and required designer permission in addition.

  • $

    market_signal: Stern Pinball's rejection of Critical Mass is unexplained and possibly related to design philosophy, theme preferences, or business strategy differences in early 1980s.

    low · Selak states Stern turned it down 'for some reason' but provides no details. Implies this was noteworthy enough to be a known fact in community, but reasoning is not disclosed.

  • ?

    community_signal: Jerry Yinx and Joe maintained ownership rights and approval authority over Critical Mass even decades after Alvin G abandoned the project, supporting fan/hobbyist restoration efforts.

    high · Selak had to obtain permission from both Alvin G AND original designers for modifications. Both gave approval ('yeah that's fine whatever you want to do'). Alvin G never requested return of design materials or parts inventory.

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Original Shane Black Hole designers (Jerry, Joe, Jim) were college engineers with no formal pinball industry background; concept originated on a bar napkin and succeeded through persistence and design innovation.

    high · Described as 'three college guys trying to come up with some kind of concept'; conceived at Bob Brown's bar; prototype built in Jerry's mother's kitchen; taken to multiple manufacturers before Alvin G accepted it.

  • ?

    product_strategy: Critical Mass development stalled for 19 years (1982-2001) due to abandonment after initial prototype phase; original designers deprioritized it after Shane Black Hole success.

    high · Machine sat dormant in Pennsylvania bar from 1982 until Selak discovered it in 2001. Jerry admits wind was 'out of their sail' after Dragon's Lair abandonment. Selak took 5 additional years to complete restoration (2001-2006).

  • ?

    technology_signal: EPROM preservation and code recovery is technically complex; battery acid damage renders circuit boards unusable even when machines sit dormant for decades.

    high · Selak discovered battery acid had eaten through circuit boards in Jerry's garage cache. Original CPU boards were unrecoverable despite being in original packaging. UV-erasable EPROM windows are sensitive to UV light and require careful handling.

    • 2:55
    Okay, well, were they the designers of the Black Hole for Gottlieb? Yes. Were they the original designers of the Black Hole? No. Black Hole started off on a napkin at a Brown's bar and pub in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
    3:16
    where three college guys, Jerry, Jim, and Joe, you'll hear these names repeated throughout the seminar here, got this wild idea to come up with a black hole pinball machine. So what you're looking at, in most of these pictures, nobody's ever seen.
    3:37
    This is their pencil sketch of how to come up with a black hole play field, how to put in a lower play field, and what their design is. They actually had it suspended from the upper play field, by the way.
    3:58
    Some very, very crude artwork. If you notice that some of the stuff in the production run game, like the swirl up in the upper left hand corner, actually had drop targets that you would actually hit. But they didn't have enough room to put this stuff in.
    4:20
    And here's their full pencil sketch. You can see the drop target's a little bit better. Yeah. Yeah, no wonder they didn't have enough room to put all that stuff in.
    4:38
    So they wound up making an actual game. And why do I have this slide up here? Oh, so they stopped at Brothers Brown. The moment of Black Hole's conception did indeed happen in the early afternoon at Brothers Brown, a bar and local night spot with a good selection of pinball machines.
    5:11
    Anyway, this was an email that I got from Joe back in 2005. I was working on an article for a pinball magazine at the time and was in contact with him. I've already thought of one thing that I'll have to mention. So this was Jerry, Joe, and Jim's prototype black hole. No head, no scoring.
    5:41
    I think they had some power to the flippers and maybe the bumpers and kickers, but that was about it. this shot this shot's pretty interesting you can barely see it in the background but they built this game in Jerry's mother's kitchen and so anyway they took this game to Williams said we're doing a double level play field game like Black Knight or Jungle Lord and actually went to Valley and Valley's like Your artwork sucks. We aren't interested in that. Neat concept.
    6:25
    Then they went to Gottlieb, and Gottlieb said, This game isn't leaving our plant. This is an awesome, awesome concept. We'd never heard of anything like this before. So that's how it turned into a production-run machine. this was the original interoffice correspondence for the black hole this was like the uh the test the testing compared to like at the bottom it says williams jungle lord and valley's embryon you know they took this the black hole before they actually ran it in production and put it in the field.
    7:08
    Again, you'll have to bear with me. I know we're not to critical mass yet, but I have to go with the flow on this. So, Williams-Farrow, Stern split second. You know, received the lowest ratings. Well, that's up to the godly people that are writing this inter-office correspondence.
    7:29
    You can read between the lines on that. and here's some players that were interviewed in different cities and towns and some of the people down at the bottom their names from Gottlieb
    7:52
    and G Pollock Gil Pollock that name is going to come up again near the very end so you'll see why. Here's the earnings reports for the black hole.
    8:07
    I'll zoom in a little bit. Nobody's seen this stuff before, but Jerry, Joe, and Jim did, because it was really their machine that they had the concept for. So let me elaborate a little bit on Jerry. Jerry is what I consider the talking head of the group. Actually, he's more of the spokesperson, but his job was to sell the concept.
    8:36
    He's the talking head. He's to sell the concept. Joe is an engineer, a designer, through and through. He still works on certain redemption games to this day. He's self-employed.
    8:55
    And unfortunately, Jim, he wound up just sort of not really getting into it anymore. You know, once Critical Mass started, you know, he was like, I got other stuff to do. I'm out of college now. I've got to get with the program and start my life. So he sort of disappeared. Well, when you go to Gottlieb with a concept machine and you decide that, well, you're going to make another game.
    9:29
    Well, how about we use your parts? And we need the drawings. So Gottlieb actually gave them. This was just one picture that Jerry left me take. This is a three-ring binder full of hundreds of different prints and drawings. This one says copyright 1953 on it. This is just a kicker assembly and how to lay out the holes above and below the play field to actually make a kicker.
    10:01
    Circuit boards, targets, spot targets, anything they wanted. Anything they wanted. They just picked up the phone and called up Gottlieb and said, hey, I need this.
    10:15
    All these parts. ridiculous, right? It's hard to imagine. I probably do in a pile of paperwork that I've accumulated, but for the presentation I didn't. No, no, no, you're fine.
    10:41
    Oh, yeah. Yeah, they did. Yeah, I can elaborate a little bit of what I've read. So they would say something like the upper right drop target bank on black hole was the least favorite feature of the machine. But the upper left eject hole, people really liked that. for some reason, I don't know, that shot doesn't really do anything for me, but, yeah, I guess when, you know, back in 81, when the game came out, you know, that was something that was different and interesting, yeah, it was ridiculous, yeah, it's, but that's a good question the second game they decided to make was this one and this is in the barn this was a it was the was called dragons lair and it was a three level game this is the only picture that I asked Jerry if he still had this I need another like I need another hole in the head or another game to work on no he threw this thing away so it doesn't exist this is the only picture I got left of it still sitting in the barn and oh yeah so one thing I forgot to mention so my email address at the time when I was running the show was black hole pinball at AOL and when I was running the show I had my email address on the web page and my phone number and Jerry called me up one day and said hey can you work on a black hole pinball machine I said no yeah I've done two or three in my time well I got one it hasn't worked in 20 years. Okay. So he brought the game down to me from Middletown down to York and I worked on it for six months. This was a basket case. It was completely dead. And I got it working, but I noticed the serial number was extremely high. I've never seen a serial number so high my life on these games. I didn't know it went up that high.
    13:15
    I didn't know anything about it. Jerry never led on to any of this stuff until I delivered the game back to him.
    13:22
    And he says, hey, come down to the bar and I got something to show you. And I saw this game and I was like, what the heck's this? and of course Gottlieb said we're already developing a three level game so this dragon's lair machine yeah so they abandoned the dragon's lair and Gottlieb came out with pointed house so this was so they decided to build a critical mass pinball machine and this was one of the first paperwork items that jerry had to deal with it's all legal tender you know this was their correspondence between jerry's last name is yinx by the way that's why it says gottlieb and yinx this was in april of 81 that they were going to hold on to the critical mass pinball machine and see if they were interested in what they had.
    14:35
    They were just doing concepts, little toys, little features on the play field, just to mess around. The wind was out of their sail when they abandoned Dragon's Lair. They were just trying for something. They made some good money on the black hole. They got royalties out of it. And I saw the check. I mean, I saw the check with my own eyes. Jerry showed it to me. It was over a million bucks. I swear to God.
    15:10
    It was like, are you serious? Yeah, yeah. It was, anyway, that was a flashback. I do. I actually darkened it up and put it down to, it looks like January 13th of 82.
    15:32
    I had to get Jerry's permission to make photocopies of this stuff, you know. Because when you're dealing with the Gottlieb name, everything has to be just right.
    15:45
    You try to hose over Gottlieb in any way, shape, or form. Like, you can't copy a manual and put it on eBay. They'll come after you. This entity is still there. Registered trademarks, copyrights, and all that stuff.
    16:01
    You try to pull one over on Gottlieb, and you're playing with fire. I guarantee it. So this was what critical mass looked like. And you can see the cupboards in the background. That still Jerry mom kitchen Must be nice to build a game in your mom kitchen
    16:28
    So I'll try to zoom in a little bit here for you. This is what it was when now they had the programming.
    16:38
    They had the computer software to make the code. And they had one sound board in it. And it just had a little beep of sound and one speech line.
    16:53
    Which the game I still have. The game that's over here in the showcase room now still has that plus a couple other speech lines.
    17:02
    And so this is the way I found it in the bar. It's sat since 82. I found this in 2001. Yeah, yeah, right. This is a rat's nest in the lower play field.
    17:24
    There's dead mice in there. Yeah, yeah, that's mice pee all over the play field. Disgusting, isn't it?
    17:41
    Oh, it's terrible. It's terrible. Now, who in their right mind would actually look at this and say, I can rebuild that, Jerry.
    17:57
    Guilty as charged. I wish I had somebody standing next to me saying, what are you thinking? Were you smoking something before you came up here? Now the reason I found this was Jerry still never led on to Him even working on the black hole Or his group or anything Being involved with Gottlieb He just had to sitting there Since 82 And I'm the one that took it Oh yeah I got some more juicy pictures for you See what the mice did to the transformer I guess wax paper tastes good they got poo all over the place too what a wreck the original cabinet was a james bond cap i don't think james bond sold too well back in the day because it didn't use like a ball feature it was based on time and anyway gottlieb had tons of these leftover james bond cabinets and that's what they they put it in. And here's some homemade wiring under the playfield as well. It's just a mess. it is a little cleaned up still has the mice nest in the in the bottom lower playfield so I think most of these pictures are just random shots of it's still in the barn yeah you can see the wood rafter next to it and there's the mouse nest gone
    20:00
    Yeah. So those two displays sitting on my workbench reminds me. So when Jerry told me that he was involved with the black hole and the critical mass and Gottlieb in general,
    20:21
    he said that him and Joe got the last two black hole pinball machines off the production line. And that explained why the serial numbers were so high.
    20:34
    And I tried to find a picture. I took a picture of this, and I couldn't find it. I searched in vain. Those two displays have serial numbers on them, and they're consecutive.
    20:45
    So somebody stole a display out of Jerry, stole out of Joe's game a display, or vice versa. Yeah. Anyway, so they were the last two games, and they each got one. of the black hole.
    21:01
    That's the display board. That's what that looked like. That's a mess. I know not everybody's into the electronics or know electronics here.
    21:14
    If you want to talk more about electronics and everything, I'm more than happy to answer your questions on that. We can go over to the next room and open up the game. You can take pictures and ask a million questions. That's fine. I'm here to answer everything I possibly can about the game.
    21:34
    Plus a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at this show. So code for a game is in an EEPROM. It's just a chip. It has the code for the game. And in the bottom of critical mass, I found one chip and one sound board with a sound effect and a speech line on it.
    22:02
    And the code wasn't complete. It was about 80% complete. So now the fun begins. You've got to keep everything gaunt. because these chips, these EPROMs, are copyrighted material.
    22:23
    And the sticker that would normally be over this window, which is how you erase the code is you blast UV light into the chip and it erases the code, the programming. It's not like a USB thumb drive like we have today. I think this chip holds 16K of memory. not meg, not gig, not even close to terabyte if you would have said the word terabyte to an engineer back in those days their head would explode. This is 16k and it's copyrighted. The tape actually blocks the light from erasing the chip. So what I had to do is figure out according to Gottlieb if I wanted their name on the game I had to be within a couple years of when their game was actually made so I got a pin side website is a great place to go to to find chronological order of games so okay you can see where black hole and critical mass are you know off to the left there and the years actually go from the bottom up so 81 to 82 on the top of the house so knowing that so the one picture of the lower play field has all the bonus lights to it so it's my job to figure out what game is going to be the closest match only having 80 percent of the code what game is going to be the best fit that's going to be a Gottlieb copyrighted registered trademark code or game that's going to be so close to critical mass. I just couldn't plug a chip in because no manual and the wiring harness is all chewed up anyway. So let's start at the top haunted house. Well that doesn't even have bonus lights. It has a display for the bonus on the lower play field. It's called monster bonus.
    24:35
    So right away, that's out of the question. Let's try another one. Let's try Black Hole. We're in the same spot. That's not going to work.
    24:47
    They had eight drop targets in the middle of critical mass and four drop targets at the top. You know, Haunted House didn't have really much of anything except on the upper plate field. and this game, Black Hole, has nine drop targets altogether, five and four, and some on the lower play field. Well, let's try another one. How about Volcano? Ooh, we're getting closer. Okay, well, we got five drop targets at the top and five on the right, and bonus lights. Well, that's sort of close, but I don't know what to do with the critical mass. It don't have a skee-ball lane at the top. so we finally get to mars god of war m-a-r-s the first thing that popped out at me m-a-s-s oh okay four letters mars mass all right let's uh let's try something here okay so So, hey, we have the bonus times and the bonus count.
    26:02
    They're a match. And it's a six-digit game, too. Okay. So that's the game I chose to actually get the closest to critical mass. so I figured and when I actually hooked up the EPROM and started experimenting with like a fake play of critical mass and what I wanted it to do that 80% was almost exactly 100% of what Mars God of War was so I could tell, okay, they probably ripped an EPROM chip out of a Mars God of War somewhere and plugged it in their programming device and said okay well we got most of this done phew okay we don't have to worry about too much code do we you know well i guess i only got still got to 80 percent and that was about it so these next pictures start at the top left play field and work their way to the right and then we go down to the left and to the right again so you can see how i'm trying to incorporate Mars God of War lighting and other items into critical mass like the four green lights there for the warden it's going to become mass target which they actually had penciled over underneath there underneath those green lamp inserts has the word mass on it and i'm trying to lay out some aluminum track and try to figure out how to turn this thing into a playable game and so i took pictures of this and i sent it to gottlieb and gottlieb was like no way you need permission from Jerry and Joe the original designers to make any changes whatsoever emails phone calls you know trying to get Jerry's and Joe's permission which they were like yeah that's fine whatever you want to do is fine with us we could care less okay thank you know but But you could see, you know, and trying to get the approval from Gottlieb and Jerry and Joe were, you know, it was just so difficult. This is what I want to do. Well, I don't know. What's your plans for the lower play field? What are you doing? Anyway, these pictures show me, like, filling in the original play field with wood putty and laying out some kind of design that they were happy with. that I could sort of get away with in a way, but they could give me approval for it.
    29:07
    Yeah. Just a total mess. I'm using the original play field. So here's another question. I get a lot of this. So it's not original. It's not the original play field. No. would you want the mice piece of playfield with the paint flaking off of it to bring to a show and you know have somebody play no well that was just the top side I forgot I had bottom side pictures do I had to rip out their wiring harness and figure out how to lay stuff out that drop target bank is an eight drop target bank that's a Gottlieb part has to be all Gottlieb parts circuit boards parts everything has to be Gottlieb if I'm gonna put their get permission to get the Gottlieb name on that drop target bank came out of a hot shot and I had to buy the parts from the pinball resource because they're the license licensee license or whatever a bunch of legal stuff
    30:23
    So where do you start? You buy two sheets of 4 foot by 8 foot burled maple veneer plywood. It costs $800 for two sheets. And you have to get picky because some of them have knots in them. Well you don't want to have knots on the playfield. Yeah. So and you experiment how to drill holes for the lamp inserts. Now my buddy Rick that I've known from high school, he did all the woodworking. He did all the playfield stuff. That's not me. I'm nowhere close to doing woodworking. Now electronics I'm okay with, but I left him mess with the blank playfields. he lived in Philadelphia at the time and we started laying this play field out by measuring from the top down on the original play field he would measure the top down and I'd throw a number out for like say the 1000 bonus light on the lower play field 24 and 11 16th of an inch and he'd measure that on the blank play field and make a mark and I'd come from the left side and I'd say 6 and 5 eighths and he'd make a mark and he'd write on the play field in pencil that's 1000 bonus life and we stayed up all night till 3 in the morning and transferred the play field over and he started doing his wood cutting skills. He did this all by hand.
    32:15
    He had everything laid out exactly where we wanted. And the lamp inserts. You just can't go out to your local Home Depot or Lowe's and buy a wood boring spade bit and expect a lamp insert to fit in there exactly right If it one inch I guarantee it not one inch
    32:51
    So what you need to do is buy an adjustable spade bit. That's why I put this in here because this is the kind of tooling Rick needed. I paid for everything out of my own pocket, including the tooling and the time for him to do this. But it was way out of my league. So you actually have to dial this thing in to the exact size. and we would take the lamp insert and take a crab mallet and tap it in.
    33:27
    And if it was snug, we knew we had it. He knew he had it. I didn't know what he was doing. He had this play field for four months and I'm just trying to work out the electronics at this time.
    33:45
    This is more of Rick's handiwork. So this is the play field as it's sort of coming to life. He built some side rails for me.
    34:04
    And all the angles and everything, he did this all by hand. He has no drill press. he did this the round the round window that you see the lower play field sort of peeking up at on the right hand side he did this by hand with his with a router i mean this guy's good yeah just just just yeah i'm swear to god yeah yeah he once i gave him the dimensions i let him do all the work yeah with the thickness of the window and everything like that yeah I'm not lying he did all this by hand you see the knot in the portion of the upper left hand side that's why we had to buy two sheets one did not have a knot this one did but we picked a spot where the lower play field wouldn't show a knot you know fuss butts trying to get it right there's the that was the original one that I sanded down just to get an idea of what it would look like.
    35:11
    It's slowly coming to life. And there it is in the game. By this time I had most of the electronics done,
    35:22
    but didn't start any wiring yet. In fact, I didn't even undercoat or spray paint the bottom primer yet, so this is how you spray paint the bottom primer. Where you get some cork. And you get some gray spray paint. And I did this in my backyard.
    35:41
    And I just spray painted the underneath of the play fields. And started putting the parts on. One at a time.
    35:50
    Each lamp socket. New screws. You know. I'm a fuss ass. Can't help myself. It's all stainless. You know. Go for broke.
    35:59
    If you're going to spend money. You spend it. For the love of the hobby. so there's the underside of the play field sitting in the game so one thing i didn't mention is the whole time it took me to from beginning to end was five years right now we're about year two and a half maybe three and uh slowly methodically trying to figure out how to wire the thing and make it somewhat playable to the public. It was that point in time I turned into the biggest asshole.
    36:41
    Making mistakes at work, bad eating habits, bad sleeping habits, you know, order out for Domino's pizza, have them deliver it to the back door. My mind was focused on this machine like an obsession. Terrible, terrible way to, you know, I think I did snap myself out of most of it, but I still at least worked on it every day for a minimum of like two hours because I couldn't help myself. You know, it really sucks when you realize it's 8 o'clock at night and you haven't eaten any dinner and you get one last pizza showed up by Domino's and it's like, oh, now it's 1 in the morning. I gotta get three hours sleep and go to work gee no you don't it's yeah you got this thought process and you might have like three or four things going on at the same time I got this I'll remember where I'm at and doing this wiring but I really need to get these lamp sockets in the head where I wanted to create this atom spinning symbol or whatever and then you work on this and then you go to work and you come home and it's like, where the hell am I? I didn't write anything down. I don't even... Anyway.
    38:09
    So the lettering on the cabinet, I had to pay for this font style and I printed out these letters and the symbols on 8 1⁄2 by 11 sheets of paper.
    38:26
    and I cut out anything in black with a razor blade. This took me a long, long time. This was just a cabinet design. I asked Joe if it would work. Oh, yeah, anything science-related, you know, stick-and-ball atoms and all that good stuff. Yeah, no, that's fine. Yeah, like, okay, good. Everything needed approval.
    38:51
    Even the letter G. Got to have the registered trademark. So this is all of the 8.5 by 11 sheets of paper taped together with painters tape. And I would spray paint the cabinet. Let's see, the main cabinet is blue, so blue goes on first. And then I did the black, and then I did the white critical mass. I had to lay all this stuff out, all held together with painter's tape and held all the 8 1⁄2 by 11 sheets of paper together. And that's where you come up with the cabinet art.
    39:36
    So there's the cabinet art. Yay. And we're still working on the wiring harness, still being the world's biggest asshole.
    39:50
    but I felt like I got one thing done anyway. I got the cabinet done. Woo-hoo. And now it's time to lay this stuff out on the upper play field. So here's some marks.
    40:03
    Now I'm finally transferring. All these are new parts, by the way. Everything's brand new parts. I forgot to mention that. So let me back up a little bit. so when I picked up Critical Mass I asked Jerry about more of his story with the black hole and if he had any paperwork to go along with it that's where Gil Pollack's paper from 82 I got the copy of that and then he said well I got parts you know because we ordered parts from Gottlieb all this time to build more games for them.
    40:50
    And I said, oh, where are they at? Oh, in my mom's garage. They've been sitting in there since 82. So I said, okay. He says, well, show up in a couple weeks.
    41:04
    So I showed up with the company van and went into the garage and had all new plastic posts, all new metal guide rails all that stuff was in perfect shape still in the bag and everything but here's something that'll make you cry so we get to the circuit boards and i'm like oh cool brand new cpu boards still in the gottlieb hologram you know bubble pack and all that stuff and open it up for the first time and it's got battery acid damage eating holes through it and everything. It's like, this is junk.
    41:44
    Couldn't use it. It's a crying shame. Yeah. Unfortunately, they really just dropped the ball, so to speak, on working on the game, and everything's set. And Jerry told me, he said, Gottlieb never asked for any of this stuff back. Not even the three-ring binder with all the drawings and everything.
    42:06
    So it's still here. If you want to tackle the project, go ahead. Oh, sure. Yeah, sure. I'll tackle the project and beat my brains out.
    42:16
    So anyway, we're getting closer to building things. I had to get steel cut and all new parts put in. So now you can see where I'm starting to lay things out a little bit better than the wood-filled original play field that I had. I'm just sort of going down the list, laying everything out. Let me back up one. If you notice the red lamp inserts don't have any letters on them yet. I'm about ready to make a major screw up here. So I'm getting the play field laid out, putting things in place, and I could actually play the game at this point. There it is being sort of being played, or at least it's in a track mode, so to speak. And it does work. I had to do the apron. So I found an apron in my former job that I was at when I was working on critical mass. I was a field service technician for a bunch of different places that did heat treating for turbines and medical equipment, calibration, process control is what I was into. So I got a chance to go to a bunch of different businesses, such as Harley-Davidson, let's see, Voice Hydro, which makes hydroelectric generator turbines. Anyway, the cool thing was I was able to, after my job was done, to get access to certain things like a blast feed machine. so you find a an apron that looks like crap and you blast beat it and then you get the paint and then you get the decals because there was no way I was going to paint the apron and get the decals and lay on one color at a time and try to do these jagged edges with the black without screwing this up was just I got lucky I got lucky oh yeah well here's the the card that would normally tell you what your replays is actually has a chronological list of all the people involved from 82 to 2006 it's on the game you can take a picture of it so now I get to realize I don't have any extra ball don't have special I don't have shoot again I don't even have the words critical mass on so okay this is what I want I had some labels made up the drop targets I got those they're like a mask and on the right hand side is is more more or less labels itself the labels never made it on but the other the other mask stuff did so I had to tear everything off of the play field.
    45:30
    Why didn't I do this the first time? I don't know. Maybe because I wasn't thinking. And there's up for debate on this. Did I have the letters screwed up? Was C supposed to be at the top or C at the bottom?
    45:48
    I don't know. And it got mass right. At least it didn't spell it backwards. So here we go again. anything that needs to be spray painted black, get out the 8.5x11 sheets of paper and pretty much coat 99% of the play field except what you want to spray paint black.
    46:09
    So while I was spray painting black, I started working on the head of the game and the electronics, which I'll skip over. I can explain this stuff if you see me, stop me, whatever, we'll get into this. it had to be original Gottlieb circuit boards and code. If it wasn't the original stuff, or as close to original as possible,
    46:35
    Gottlieb would have never let me put the name on it. And even Jerry asked me, why would you want to even Gottlieb's name on it? Well, you don't know until you ask. It was at Gottlieb. You got the paperwork to prove it. You did the same thing with Black Hole. I'm just trying to finish up what you guys sort of stopped working on. If I can do it, great. If not, it'll turn into a homebrew or homebrew hybrid or whatever you want to call it.
    47:13
    Yeah, the wiring. I bought two junk pinball machines just for the wiring harness alone. a force 2 and I forget what the other one was, too long ago. So now we're to the back glass. I think the play field was out getting clear coated at this point, I'm not sure. But anyway, I had to come up with a design for the back glass. I asked Jerry, did you have an original design? he says we did and I said well when I come up to pick up the parts I'd really like to have that he searched in vain couldn't find it at all he couldn't even remember what it was that was more Joe's thing you know Joe was the designer Jerry was just the spokesperson so So, you know, he, but Jerry kept all the paperwork. Anything legal tender, that's what Jerry held on to. That was his job. So I'm trying to match up the features of the back box, like the score displays and the cutouts and everything. Game over, shoot again. And the name of the game. So this is just a piece of paper that I was using to line up everything. and if the cutouts were too high I had an art shop come up with come up with this you know still had the same logo and the Gottlieb logo and the window cutouts but I had to cut all those windows out of the sheet of paper and put it in the push it against the glass and actually put the back glass in so to speak it's just a piece of paper and make sure things got lined up I'm sort of jumping around here but since I didn't have all the code necessary to make it work 100% I had to buy a PLC. That's what that tan brick is on the left. PLC stands for programmable logic controller. You use a computer to hook it up and you write what they call ladder logic. It's just a form of timers and normally open contacts and relay outputs like you can see the relays to the right of that and I had put labels on them so I didn't know anything about PLC programming but I bought one and Christmas Eve I got on this website called mrplc.com typed in the MicroLogix 1000 for an Allen Bradley and taught myself how to program it. At this point the play field is clear-coded. That's seven layers of automotive clear-code that a buddy of mine from Mechanicsburg, Bill Heatherly, he actually did the clear coat for that and I was running on a deadline it was coming up to the 10th anniversary of the White Rose Game Room show and I had invited Jerry, Joe, and Jim to show up and Bill that did the clear coat says hey I got it done you got I got it done two months before your show, but don't put anything on it for two months. What do you mean? Well, what? I'm totally oblivious to what he's about ready to tell me. He's like, it's not set up yet. It has to cure. It's going to take six to eight weeks. You start playing this, it's going to start dimpling all over the place. It's going to turn into a golf ball. You tighten it down, it's going to ooze out. The clear coat is going to ooze out from underneath the post that you're going to tighten down. So that was the hardest part, was just waiting.
    51:38
    And I had about two weeks to throw everything together and make sure it played. Yeah, I do have a funky memory of I had a 94 Honda Civic,
    51:57
    and I had both playfields in the back seat, and the fumes were coming off of this thing. It was 30 degrees out in the middle, you know, for whatever reason. I'm driving down the highway getting high as a kite.
    52:16
    I'm so glad to get the playfield out of the car. Oh no, it was bad. I think I got sick for a few days too. But it's a funny story anyway. Once I got the game completed, yes, I built a manual for the game with all the rubber ring sizes and lamp assignments for the lower play field. I'm going to skim over this. I got the manual over in the other room, too. Open it up. Take a look at it. I shouldn't say I don't care. I don't mind. You know, this game's here for you guys to enjoy, too. You know. And ask questions. You know. And there's some other really nice games over in the showcase room as well. You got to check them out.
    53:07
    So, anyway, I made a manual for it. Blah, blah, blah. Switch Matrix. Yeah. and the manual looks just like a Gottlieb manual. It has the same font style.
    53:22
    We go through, yeah, I literally, I did copy part of a manual, but every letter I needed to make, you know, to,
    53:35
    I don't have that on this picture, I don't think, no. well like the switch matrix like like the word critical c critical wherever it is
    53:47
    a and l drop targets i and c drop targets that's an interesting thing so when you hit i only had four lamps to work with for a mars god of war for the four drop targets well they had eight lamps for the word critical so all I did was just wire the two targets in series so both lights light up at the same time so yeah it is what it is yeah because it looks weird because if you hit the four targets nothing lights up until you hit the other target and then they both light up but I was you know I couldn't I had no way of changing the programming or the code or anything like that but every little letter I did this in Microsoft paint I would copy and paste every letter and line it up yeah I know I'm nuts nuts in the head but it was all for the love of the hobby so anyway here's a couple pictures of the finished clear coated play field and there's the back glass I got so a couple things in this in this back glass is that's That's a Hess truck.
    55:07
    And on the right-hand side are playing blocks that kids use. Bob did all the artwork for this. And on the right are the white tanks. They're just a paper plate with the edge ribs sort of Photoshopped in there.
    55:25
    We couldn't use actual products. We had to come up with something original again. anyway there's there's finished game I want to get to something else here oh yeah so I've been trying to donate this game to the pinball Hall of Fame and haven't heard anything so if you don't have a will get one because you can get an executor to your will and they have to execute whatever you have, and it sounds like I'm being a lawyer, but I'm going to say that if Bob Fezian, the guy that owns the Gottlieb copyrights or the Pinball Hall of Fame doesn't want the game, we'll blow it up on YouTube with explosives as a live broadcast.
    56:23
    If I can't have it, you can't have it. Yeah. That's in my will. That's actually out of my will. I'm not lying. So if you haven't seen the video that TNT did, Todd, Tucky, and I, and Jerry, we actually did a video at the York Show about seven years ago. It's number 1197. Check it out.
    56:45
    Rick Mason, he did all the play field work. Hopefully later on today I will start posting something to Rick that we had a little seminar. or I'll put something on there if you want to jump in and add your comments. That would be great. I think you'd freak out.
    57:08
    Also, the same with Joe. Joe, like I said, he was the engineer of the group. He still does photography, product designer and everything, but take a look at this. He has high friends in high places. Steve Ritchie, George Gomez, Roger Sharp. those are the friends that come up on his Facebook page I'll do the same thing for him too I'll tell him that I had the seminar if you want to add your comments do the same thing this is also about him game design is one of his things and Bill Heatherly I'll do the same thing he did the clear coat let's see here I don't want to mess this up so back to this screen we saw Pinside had critical mass, blah, blah, blah. And if you click on Pinside and you click on critical mass, you actually see the design team was Jerry, Jim, and Joe.
    58:11
    So it's official. Let's see. Here's a funny one. I don't know what the hell. This comes from Bob Fezdian in 2005. I mentioned Gil's name is going to come up again.
    58:28
    Well, I still didn't have his approval. I still didn't have Bob's approval from Gottlieb to even do anything with this machine yet. He had just the next day after he got my emails of the pictures of the play field and the game and the cabinet, he says, oh, I'm going to take these to my meeting with Gil. He was having lunch with him the next day. Since his name was on the original paperwork from 82, that tied him into having approval as well. So just when you think you're all over and done with this, you know, the good folks at Gottlieb still get in the way.
    59:16
    And this is my licensing paper. I'm not going to dwell too much on this. I'm running real short on time.
    59:25
    This is just me. It's all lawyer talk. I'm not going to bore you to death with any of this stuff. But it's two pages worth of licensee this, licensor that, and the official signatures had to be notarized, all that good stuff. So it finally became like an official prototype game at that point. the date was June 14th, a day after my birthday.
    59:55
    Okay. So here's one of Joe's paperwork emails. It's not an email. This is before email. This is 81. This was Joe. He had his own place called Ad Factory in Harrisburg. This was from Valley. It has Valley Letterhead on it. This was from the vice president of marketing saying, hey, I heard about your black hole experience. Boy, I'd really like to know if you'd like to come to work for us. I'd be more than happy to sit down with you. And we talk about future developments on games. Well, sort of lost out on that.
    60:39
    So anyway, before I get to the next slide, I do have some things to hand out. So, I'll, I'll, I got this.
    60:56
    So, the first person to raise their hand with the correct answer. If you were paying attention, what day is my birthday? I think I saw your hand go up first. Yeah.
    61:17
    No, no, I'll let you open it up if you want to. Well, I guess I can tell you. The paper cutout that I used to line up the back glass, this is it.
    61:37
    And this is licensed by Gottlieb. I just got these two weeks ago. Yeah, the things still continue with the licensing on this mess. It says not for sale. And it has Gottlieb Development, copyright, blah, blah, blah on the back. It has this show's name and date and the year on the back of it, too. And they're all numbered.
    61:58
    I have five other ones that I'll hand out on Sunday, I think around noontime or so. Next question. So I mentioned Middletown, Pennsylvania. What famous event happened in Middletown, Pennsylvania?
    62:16
    And Jim, you're disqualified. No, he's from York. Yeah, you can give him a hand. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah, you got it. Which is why I didn't bring up this slide because this is Joe's email that said it's interesting to note that critical mass was practically built within sight of Three Mile Island.
    62:59
    One thing I didn't mention, and this is going to be number two. Number two of ten. is so a lot of the photographs that I took were actual photos on film with my Pentax camera or Polaroids back in the day even up to 06 you know because digital cameras and cell phones weren't around by then what year was the first iPhone released now you're close it is 07 yeah it's more fun than I thought if you want those autographed I can do that too but not necessary it's not necessary okay so this one doesn't have anything to do with the game or anything but it has to deal with the location so I mentioned Middletown and I mentioned Harrisburg So this is, Mechanicsburg is a town about five minutes across from Middletown, across the Susquehanna River.
    64:15
    What famous singer comes from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania? I will accept either the name of the band or his name.
    64:32
    Yeah. No? Sorry. I thought it was. Oh, wait. It is poison. He got it. Way in the back there. Poison. Brett Michaels.
    64:52
    Brett Michaels. Anyway. That's all I have, folks. If you've got any questions, please ask me. I'm here all weekend.
    65:04
    Thank you.