Episode 387 - Multi Progress, New Bingo Discovered, Coin Lockout Buzzing, Bounty Backglass Reproduction and New EM Game Announcement

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·21m 39s·analyzed·Jan 12, 2017

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

Multi-Bingo reaches 105 games; unknown bingo prototype discovered; new EM game announced.

Summary

Nicholas Baldridge discusses significant progress on Multi-Bingo (now at 105 games implemented), the discovery of a previously unknown United Serenade bingo prototype, reproduction efforts for the Bally Bounty backglass, and announces a new electromechanical arcade game co-developed with Ryan Claytor. He also provides detailed technical guidance on troubleshooting noisy coin lockout coils in bingo machines.

Key Claims

Multi-Bingo now has 105 games implemented, representing almost every standard 25-hole bingo
high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge, host of For Amusement Only podcast, stated this as current project status
A previously unknown bingo machine, United Serenade, was discovered this week posted on Tilt Forums
high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge citing a forum post describing a newly found machine with two-player layout and eight balls
United Serenade appears to be a prototype machine that does not appear in any known production records
medium confidence · Nicholas Baldridge speculating based on lack of documentation and production records; one collector claims possible past sighting but uncertain
Steve Smith is gauging interest in reproducing the Bally Bounty backglass
high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge reporting Steve Smith's initiative posted on Pinside
A court case in Baltimore determined that Bounty could be legally operated, which enabled Bally to sell the game in the United States
medium confidence · Nicholas Baldridge discussing The Last Arcade episode content and how it answered a long-running question about US distribution
Nicholas Baldridge and Ryan Claytor are co-developing a brand new electromechanical arcade game
high confidence · Official announcement made on the podcast; Baldridge has hand-drawn schematics in Williams 1960s style
Baldridge has approximately 28-30 games remaining to implement in Multi-Bingo
high confidence · Baldridge stated this during discussion of his workload balancing Multi-Bingo development with new EM game project
Coin lockout relay buzzing in bingo machines is caused by AC-driven chatter of the metal plate against the coil, which worsens over time due to wear
high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge providing technical explanation based on electromechanical engineering principles

Notable Quotes

“That is almost every standard 25-hole bingo. There are two games which have yet to be implemented.”
Nicholas Baldridge @ early in episode — Summarizes scale of Multi-Bingo project—105 of ~107 standard bingo games documented
“It appears to me that it was a prototype machine. I'm basing that speculation purely on the fact that it doesn't appear in any production records that anybody has found nor does anybody know about it.”
Nicholas Baldridge @ mid-episode — Indicates discovery of previously undocumented game, suggesting gaps remain in pinball history documentation
“Ryan and I have been talking about it for quite some time. And kind of in the realm of, wouldn't it be cool if... we did this one day and, uh, I've really gotten kind of confident here doing the multi that, uh, I could actually do this.”
Nicholas Baldridge @ mid-episode — Explains inspiration and confidence-building path to announcing new EM game project
“I've hand-drawn another schematic. This one was done in the style of a Williams game from approximately the 1960s, or even an earlier wood rail manufacturer like Exhibit or United.”
Nicholas Baldridge @ mid-episode — Details technical approach to new EM game design informed by historical study
“What you're hearing is really that change. And it's only because of wear in those components.”
Nicholas Baldridge @ late episode — Clarifies root cause of coin lockout relay buzzing for listeners experiencing this common issue

Entities

Nicholas BaldridgepersonRyan ClaytorpersonSteve SmithpersonMulti-BingoproductUnited SerenadegameBally BountygameFor Amusement OnlyorganizationTilt ForumsorganizationInternet Pinball Databaseorganization

Signals

?
machine_intel: Previously unknown United Serenade bingo prototype discovered this week; posted on Tilt Forums; appears in no production records; in excellent condition; planned for Multi-Bingo implementation
high · Nicholas Baldridge confirmed receipt of pictures, backglass image, and chronological placement; stated 'it's a brand new machine. It's one that nobody had known about previously'
?
product_launch: New electromechanical arcade game co-developed by Nicholas Baldridge and Ryan Claytor announced; schematic complete; parts acquisition in progress
high · Baldridge stated 'Ryan Claytor and I have announced that we are pinball co-developing a brand new electromechanical arcade game' and described hand-drawn schematics in Williams 1960s style
?
product_strategy: Steve Smith organizing Bally Bounty backglass reproduction; gauging community interest through Pinside; addresses collector need for restoration part
high · Baldridge reported Steve Smith's initiative and stated 'Bounty, uh, as I outlined in The Last Arcade episode was the subject of a court case' and 'those that are, uh, many need a new back glass'
?
historical_signal: Court case in Baltimore determined Bounty could be legally operated; decision enabled Bally to sell game in United States; answers long-standing question about US distribution
medium · Baldridge explained: 'the upshot of that court case was that the bounty was allowed to be operated in Baltimore, And the outcome of that case actually allowed Bally to sell that game in the United States'
?
design_philosophy: New EM game designed using historical methodology and aesthetic from Williams 1960s era and early wood rail manufacturers; inspired by hands-on experience with Multi-Bingo project

Topics

Multi-Bingo development progressprimaryBingo pinball game discovery and documentationprimaryNew electromechanical arcade game announcementprimaryBally Bounty backglass reproduction effortprimaryCoin lockout relay troubleshooting and maintenanceprimaryHistorical pinball game documentation and archivalsecondaryElectromechanical circuit design and wiringsecondaryPinball regulatory history and legal issuessecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.82)— Baldridge expresses enthusiasm about Multi-Bingo progress, excitement about the United Serenade discovery described as 'really interesting and unique find,' confidence in new EM game project, and satisfaction in solving historical questions about Bounty distribution. Tone throughout is engaging and collaborative with community. No negative sentiment detected.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.065

what's that sound it's for amusement only the em and bingo pinball podcast welcome back to for amusement only this is Nicholas Baldridge well it's been uh several weeks i guess four weeks since your last on air update on the multi and uh i'm up to 105 games now implemented in the multi-bingo. That is almost every standard 25-hole bingo. There are two games which have yet to be implemented. One I had previously misclassified, and that was United's 3-4-5. United came out with their first bingo, A-B-C, and their second bingo was Bolero. Their third bingo was 3-4-5, and I had assumed that it used the same playfield as ABC and Bolero. They used this really cool, pretty funky, and very difficult to control, at least from appearances, roulette wheel style tub, where you shoot the balls around in a circle, and gravity helps them settle into a hole. If gravity doesn't do the trick, then there's a pop bumper at the center of the bottom of this bowl and they'll be popped into a different hole, depending. So those aren't implemented, and I had assumed that 345 was one of those. As it turns out, that was the first game that United made that used the standard Bally layout of 25 descending holes on the playfield. Unfortunately, there's no good picture of 345 that exists anywhere that I can find on the internet. There's one collector that I know that happens to have a 345. Unfortunately, it is very, very deep in storage at the moment, So I'm unable to get a good source image to use to implement in the multi. I could implement something off of the flyer, but those are black and white. It wouldn't be the same. So I'll just have to wait on that one. The other interesting news, very interesting, is that a previously unknown bingo pinball machine was found just this week. somebody posted on Tilt Forums, which is a competition-friendly forum for pinball people, and they posted that they had this game called United Serenade, but it wasn't the same flipperless game that was shown on IPDB. It was a different game, and did anybody know anything about it? the gentleman mentioned that it was a two-player game and that there were eight balls and immediately I thought bingo but the way it was pitched it sounded more like something like Twin Joker which isn't a bingo per It is a card-themed layout, kind of like Williams-Yukon, which I had talked about in a very old episode some time ago. Those had a playfield that's similar to a bingo pinball machine, but not quite the same. And the post layout and hole layout is actually quite different. So I had assumed, hey, maybe it's one of those. I didn't know that United made one of those, but interesting. So I end up talking with the gentleman, and as it turns out, he sent some pictures and uploaded some pictures to Tilt for him. It's a brand new machine. It's one that nobody had known about previously. It appears to me that it was a prototype machine. I'm basing that speculation purely on the fact that it doesn't appear in any production records that anybody has found nor does anybody know about it there is one collector that I've talked to who says that they think they've seen one in the past but they're not sure and this one happens to be in excellent condition it's just, it's a really interesting and unique find, especially for this day and age, where many of us thought that a lot of that information had already been documented. So this is, you know, doubly interesting for that. I be implementing that in the multi as well I got a very nice back glass image and I have a good feel for where this game fits in the chronology and what the internals will look like The beautiful thing about United games is that from game to game, unless they change the internals, which they did two times, there is very little that's different in the portioning circuitry. So if you look at a late model United game like Brazil, the portioning is very similar to something like Caravan. In fact, some of the same rivets on their version of the spotting disc function the same way. They'll turn on corners, for example, or they'll step up the selection feature unit. Uh, something of that nature. So, um, I should be able to implement that fairly well. In other bingo news, because there's a whole lot of it here recently, um, Steve Smith is looking to get the Bally Bounty backglass reproduced, and he is gauging interest. Um, If you are interested in getting that reproduced, please contact Steve and let him know. He's posted about it on Pinside. Or you can email me if you like and I'll get the message to Steve. That's something that is sorely needed for those who don't know. Um, bounty, uh, as I outlined in the last episode was the subject of a court case. And, uh, as such, there weren't a whole lot of them that were released in the United States. Uh, those that are, uh, many need a new back glass. So this would be a great service if the back glass was available and the original back glass is quite beautiful. there is mirroring and this reflective gold screened ink that was used in several of the sections. It looks beautiful, so that would be quite wonderful if we had a new reproduction of that. So speaking of Bounty, and getting a little more into it here, Um, the last episode was a dramatization of a court case, and of course I have no legal knowledge whatsoever, but, uh, I thought that was fun. Uh, the upshot of that court case was that the bounty was allowed to be operated in Baltimore, And the outcome of that case actually allowed Bally to sell that game in the United States. On the flyer, it says that they were waiting on the outcome of a court case before they would open that up to U.S. distribution. And as it turns out, that court case, which ruled that it was, in fact, okay to operate Bounty, made it so that games could be shipped in. So that answers kind of a long-running question that I've had, which is, if Bounty was only manufactured for international use, why are so many of them in the United States? Of course, there's re-imports. People could have them shipped in from Canada or brought back from Canada or the like. It's highly unlikely, though possible, that someone would ship one from overseas. But that would only account for a very small number, and I've seen them popping up occasionally here and there, much more frequently than I have in the past. Um, and that just leads me to believe that there's more in the United States than previously suspected. Uh, so it's nice to have a little clarification there and, uh, be able to, uh, match point A with point B. Uh, in other news, uh, Ryan Claytor and I have announced that, uh, we are co-developing a brand new electromechanical arcade game. Uh, I'm doing this kind of on the side of the multi. I still have about, uh, 30 games left to implement somewhere in that neighborhood, maybe 28. total, and that requires me to develop all the additional playfields. So while I'm working on a cabinet stencil, which I'm going to do before I develop those additional playfields I working on creating a brand new electromechanical arcade game I sat down this weekend we had a nice snowy weekend where I played outside with the kids and had some very nice family time this weekend and during my downtime I was able to really think about the mechanics of the game and draw the schematic. So I've hand-drawn another schematic. This one was done in the style of a Williams game from approximately the 1960s, or even an earlier wood rail manufacturer like Exhibit or United. Not exactly like United, but something like that. So I have worked out how all the circuitry is going to function together and drawn it all out. And we'll see what happens when I go to wire it up. It's either going to work very well or not at all. I have a good feeling about this game. Ryan and I have been talking about it for quite some time. And kind of in the realm of, wouldn't it be cool if... we did this one day and, uh, I've really gotten kind of confident here doing the multi that, uh, I could actually do this. So I said, Hey, why don't I give it a shot and, uh, see if I can develop the circuitry. Um, and, uh, we both have quite a lot of hobby irons in the fire and, uh, You know, this is going to happen on a fairly slow time scale, but I'm accruing parts at the moment. I've got relays and score reels on the way at the moment, and I'm working on making a deal on some transformers and some score motors and a couple other things. I'm going to need to find some good trip banks and get those set up. But other than that, I'm off to a very good start indeed. And as far as cabinet artwork I mentioned for the multi, I've started on that. I haven't gotten very far, but I have started on that. Artwork, as I've mentioned, is not my strong suit, but I'm giving it a shot. So we'll see how it looks. Hopefully not too bad. and I'm going to get several people's opinion before I actually spray the thing. So that's what's been happening with me. Matt K. writes in and asks, What can you do about a noisy coin lockout coil? And for those who don't know, there is a coil which is behind the coin mechanism in Ballybingos that will pull in when it's ready to accept coins. And it pulls out, or releases, when it shouldn't accept coins. now unfortunately when it's ready to accept coins what happens is it generally starts buzzing after a period of time this is the same uh issue that happens in flipper games with hold relays over time just about any uh flipper pinball machine will get a buzzing in the hold or lock relay and this is because this is a constant duty relay so it is typically of a higher resistance than the coils which are beside it and therefore stronger and because it's a higher resistance more heat is generated and some of the energy which is typically used to move the relay is expelled as heat. But at any rate, over time, because these machines are driven by AC instead of DC, there will be a slight chatter of that plate. and that slight chatter will eventually develop into a much larger chatter and that's what causes the buzzing. Now because of the nature of AC, it changes direction 60 times a second. I mean that is much faster than the human eye can really detect or the human ear for that matter. So what you're hearing is really that change. and it's only because of wear in those components now the coin lockout relay is comprised of a coil and a big metal plate and this big metal plate and the coil bang up against each other those 60 times a second Now because of residual magnetism it is not going to let that plate go in the down times, the negative part of the arc of electricity, but it will make that chattering. So, how do you stop it? Well, one thing you can do is disassemble that unit completely. To do that, you have to take the coin mech out. You may have to remove several screws so that you can free up the relay. This sometimes requires loosening the entire unit that surrounds the coin reject return button. But once you do that, you have access to the relay. and at that point you can inspect it to see if there are grooves being worn into the metal plate, and if so, you can do a couple different things to stop or lessen the buzzing. One thing you can do is put a piece of cardstock in there. This is for home use. I wouldn't recommend doing that if you were putting it out to be used by the public but for home use you could probably get away with that the other thing you could do is take a file to the metal plate and try to smooth that out or a grinder the idea is that you would very very lightly grind it until the metal is even The other thing you could do is just replace that metal piece with another. You can also replace the coil. You can also bend that metal piece so that it is closer to the horseshoe part of the coil that's exposed at the top. this would give it less freedom of movement and prevent it from buzzing a whole lot one other thing I've seen done is electrical tape I wouldn't recommend that because it's going to leave a big sticky nasty mess when you go to remove it later on but that's something else that could be done the last thing you could do is just disable it And that was most frequently what was done with these games on the road. You just desolder one of the wires and cap it off to the coil, and then you don't have to worry about it. Now, the thing about this coil is that it is player-friendly. So if you put money in and the machine can't accept it for whatever reason, for example, you have replays on the meter, or the game is not in a state where it can accept money, for example, if it's in replay reset, then it returns your money to you directly without you having to press the coin return. But it won't pass it all the way through to the coin switch. If you disable it completely, what's going to happen is that the game will always accept the money, and it won't care. So if you put in a coin with replays on the meter, you will automatically play off one of the replays when you drop your coin. So that's an interesting question, and one that occurs frequently. I mean, if you own a bingo for really any length of time, you'll probably end up hearing that coin relay, the coin lockout relay, start buzzing. And that's why. Now, one thing is you have to decide, does it bother you? Because there's also, you can just leave it alone for a little while. of course the longer you leave it alone the more likely it's going to be to wear and then cause more noise to occur so basically if it bothers me I'll take the thing apart and inspect it and then from there I'll decide what I want to do usually I end up bending the metal slightly closer to the horseshoe but not in every case so it all depends so I hope that answers your question Matt thank you for listening and thank you all for listening that's about it for tonight my name again is Nick Baldrige you can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com or you can call me on the bingos line that's 724-BINGOS1 724-246-4671 you can listen to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Casts via RSS, on Facebook, on Twitter, at Bingo Podcast. You can follow me on Instagram, also at Bingo Podcast, or you can listen to us on our website, which is foramusementonly.libsyn.com. Thank you very much for listening, and I'll talk to you next time.