Episode 460 - Houston Arcade Expo, Acrylic Bingo, Williams Deluxe Official Baseball, Loof's Lite-A-Line

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·13m 11s·analyzed·Nov 28, 2019

Analysis

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TL;DR

EM pinball tech talk: acrylic bingo debut, Williams baseball repair, gambling pinball venue visit

Summary

Nicholas Baldridge recounts his recent travels, including attending Houston Arcade Expo where he helped troubleshoot Sean Farwell's custom acrylic Golden Gate bingo machine, working on a rare 1960 Williams Deluxe Official Baseball woodrail, and sharing listener Gene's account of playing skill-based gambling pinball games at Loof's Lite-A-Line in Long Beach, California.

Key Claims

Sean Farwell created a playable Golden Gate bingo machine in a custom acrylic cabinet with etched and beveled holes allowing visibility of all mechanisms
high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge directly witnessed and tested the machine at Houston Arcade Expo; he and Dennis Stoetel inspected and played it
The acrylic Golden Gate bingo had minor fabrication issues including a relay stuck due to insufficient clearance on the acrylic backdoor and a MagicScreen index coil switch failure
high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge diagnosed and fixed these issues on-site in Houston; he is an experienced EM technician
The acrylic Golden Gate bingo is planned to be exhibited at the York show with Dennis Stoetel handling transport and minor tweaks
high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge stated this as the current plan after Houston Arcade Expo
Nicholas Baldridge worked on a 1960 Williams Deluxe Official Baseball woodrail pitch and bat machine featuring physical player figures mounted behind metal plates in playfield holes
high confidence · Baldridge provided detailed technical description of repair work and gameplay mechanics
Houston Arcade Expo skews heavily toward arcade games with a party-like atmosphere and operates to all hours of the day and night
high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge attended for the first time and contrasted it with other shows he has attended
Loof's Lite-A-Line in Long Beach, California features skill-based gambling pinball machines similar to pachinko-bingo hybrids with $15 fixed payouts per win
medium confidence · Listener Gene provided first-hand account of gameplay mechanics and payouts; Baldridge notes he had heard of the venue before but never a direct player account

Notable Quotes

“It was extremely impressive. The end result is that you can see all the mechanisms moving while you're playing the game.”
Nicholas Baldridge @ early in episode — Describes the innovative appeal of Sean Farwell's acrylic Golden Gate bingo design
“It was not like working on a Golden Gate because the problems were problems of not construction but fabrication.”
Nicholas Baldridge @ mid-episode during Golden Gate repair discussion — Highlights that the issues were specific to custom acrylic fabrication rather than traditional Golden Gate problems
“It just needed that 1/64th of an inch of clearance or whatever it was”
Nicholas Baldridge @ during relay problem explanation — Illustrates the precision required in custom fabrication; the fix was extremely minor
“Beautiful game it got players actual physical figures on the field. They're mounted behind these metal plates. They're holes in the playfield instead of targets.”
Nicholas Baldridge @ Williams baseball discussion — Describes the unique and innovative gameplay mechanic of the 1960 Williams game
“It's definitely way more luck based as I was initially nudging a little bit and then read you're not allowed to do that.”
Listener Gene @ Loof's Lite-A-Line description — Clarifies that the gambling pinball games are primarily luck-based despite initial expectations

Entities

Nicholas BaldridgepersonSean FarwellpersonDennis StoetelpersonJerrypersonGenepersonHouston Arcade ExpoeventYork ShoweventLoof's Lite-A-Linevenue

Signals

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event_signal: Houston Arcade Expo characterized as arcade-focused venue with party atmosphere and extended hours; differentiated from other pinball-centric shows
high · Nicholas Baldridge's first-time attendance report noting the heavy arcade skew and party-like atmosphere
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design_innovation: Sean Farwell's acrylic Golden Gate bingo demonstrates innovative use of transparent materials for visibility of internal mechanisms during play
high · Custom acrylic cabinet, playfield, etched and beveled holes allowing full visibility; debuted at Houston Arcade Expo
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product_concern: Minor but precision-critical issues in acrylic Golden Gate bingo: relay clearance insufficient by ~1/64th inch preventing proper spring flex; MagicScreen index coil switch failure
high · Nicholas Baldridge diagnosed relay stuck due to lack of clearance and MagicScreen index coil switch cutting off bingo card lights
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restoration_signal: Nicholas Baldridge repaired rare 1960 Williams Deluxe Official Baseball woodrail with issues including blown transformer fuse and excess lubrication on trip bank pivot points
high · Multi-month repair project involving transformer fuse replacement and mechanical lubrication cleanup
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venue_signal: Loof's Lite-A-Line in Long Beach operates gambling pinball machines with skill/luck hybrid mechanics and fixed $15 payouts; machines mounted at fixed points preventing nudging
medium · Listener Gene's first-hand account of pachinko-bingo hybrid gameplay with plunger-based mechanics and automated payout system

Transcript

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0:00

What's that sound? It's 4 Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to 4 Amusement Only, this is Nick Baldridge. I've been traveling around and taking care of some electromechanical stuff, so I thought I'd talk a little bit about that. First of all, I went to the Houston Arcade Expo a couple weeks back, and that That was my first time going to that show. It's a very different show than any other show that I've really been to. It skews very heavily towards arcade games and the atmosphere is very party-like. It's really pretty cool and it goes to all hours of the day and night. It's a lot of fun. So I went out to Houston Arcade Expo because Sean Farwell had created an acrylic bingo and not just any bingo, it was Golden Gate. What he did is took a GoldenGate that was mostly functional and moved it over to a cabinet that he made custom out of acrylic. He also created a playfield out of acrylic and then etched it and beveled the holes. It was extremely impressive. The end result is that you can see all the mechanisms moving while you're playing the game. Pretty neat. Very helpful for troubleshooting in some instances. So, Sean was right up to the deadline as far as finishing the project and I flew out there just in case there were any problems with it after transport. Bingoes were a new thing to Sean, so I wanted to make sure this had the best debut that it possibly could. So Dennis Stoetel and myself went out there and we were both on hand and inspected the game and played a couple rounds and found out there was some stuff that wasn't working right. So just real quickly, I wanted to talk about some of the fixes. They were all extremely minor and it was a lot of fun honestly to get this going because it was like working on a brand new game. It was not like working on a Golden Gate because the problems were problems of not construction but fabrication. So, for example, there was a relay bank that's attached to the back door and it has four relays. One of those relays controls the payout for the red letter game. Well, the red letter game was going all kinds of crazy. And it wasn't any of the traditional relays. It was just one of the relays was getting stuck that stops the forward movement of one of the steppers Code bursting 112307 8 Sten The relay was actually getting hung up when it actuated it couldn unlatch because the relay was actually screwed to the acrylic backdoor but there wasn quite enough room for it to flex and move that spring so the the construction was correct you know it was in the right spot and it was doing the right things it just couldn it needed that 1 64th of an inch of clearance or whatever it was pretty Pretty neat. And the MagicScreen coil, MagicScreen Index Coil switches, my old nemesis, caught up with me in Houston as well. So one of the switches shuts off the lights to the bingo card. So the lights just mysteriously stopped working all of a sudden and that was the cause. Aside from that, there were a couple other little minor things, but I thought the game held up very well. And I also thought it was a lot of fun to play being able to see the interior. Now, it did make it a little difficult to explain because for this debut release here there was no art on the back glass, it was just a piece of glass. So luckily both Dennis and I know these games pretty darn well I'd say. So I was able to I teach people how to play by pointing to the various parts of the backbox and saying, you'll have to take my word for it, but this is what this means. But people were very receptive. I got to meet several folks that I hadn't met before, but we communicated over the internet. I thought that was super cool. Everybody was really nice. I got to see some of the custom pinball folks, which I always have a blast talking to them. I got to sit on a couple custom pinball seminars and or a custom pinball seminar and then the Multimorphic seminar so I thought that was nice and I got to see Jerry again from Multimorphic. It's always a pleasure and he got to show me his bingo prowess so always good. So, that was Houston, and I think it was great. So, the game actually came back with Dennis and will be at the York show this year. At least that's the current plan. Sean wasn't going to be able to take it out over the next year to any shows, and as he said, this is a game that needs to be shown, so people need to be able to play it and see it. And York seems like a logical place for that to show up next, So Dennis has got it back with him and he is going to make a few tweaks and then it'll be out again for bingo row. In other news, I worked on a Williams Deluxe Official Baseball 1960 Woodrail Pitch and Bat from a very patient owner. He been waiting on the repair for a couple months while I was at York and traveling for work and so forth So thanks to him for the patience But also I got to fix a Williams Deluxe Official Baseball which I never seen one before Beautiful game it got players actual physical figures on the field They're mounted behind these metal plates. They're holes in the playfield instead of targets. So when you're hitting the ball, it sinks into one of these holes. Some of the time it will knock you out if you hit one of the players and other times the hole will be lit and it will score a single if you hit it. Pretty neat. Most of the high value targets are way in the back. The game doesn't count strikes or balls or anything like that, but it does play, you know, phenomenally well. I think it's a really neat game. It's two player and it has a feature where it Knew at the time things might worry more and more about playLastilos The Bad Things Can Happen

8:00

Luckily in this case nothing bad happened No bulbs got fried none. No coil problems anything like that No transformer issues. It was just a matter of unplugging one of the fuses and then Verifying that all the mechs and everything were working and that fixed the majority of problems another problem excess lubrication The were metal pivot points on the trip bank On Williams trip bank. There's this big metal arm and a huge 120 volt coil when that pulls in it's got a Slam that arm into the bottom of the trip relays so that they reset well, it was so gummed up that it just kind of lazily flopped up against the bottom of the trip relays when they were tripped and Then went back down so Nothing was getting reset. The game was totally confused. Thought it was in game over mode. All kinds of problems were related from that. Once those two items were done, there were only a couple of things that needed some schematic tracing but uh... it was generally working pretty well at that point. Fun fun game and really beautiful. If you happen to come across one, give it a look. That brings us to some listener mail. Listener Gene dropped by a place in Long Beach, California called Loofs Leidelijn and he sent me some impressions of the games there. They're kind of bingo-esque games where you plunge and the balls have to go into particular lanes in order to win and when you win you get paid off Pretty interesting little gambling pinball game and and let see what he has to say Hey Nick so I dropped by Loose and checked it out I actually played with to start since it a game and I wasn sure if I would like it and or how much of a game of skill vs luck it is It's definitely way more luck based as I was initially nudging a little bit and then read you're not allowed to do that. It was hard to actually nudge since the machines are all in line and mounted to the place that you sit at. I did end up winning twice, so you earn 15 credits per win and each credit I guess is a dollar. There's a $2 perfect bonus and basically it's like pachinko bingo. You have a plunger, you plunge the balls and then they bounce around into color sectioned areas with the numbers 1 through 5 in them. So if you get all ones in each color, that's a bingo and I think you're spotted the red three in the middle to start with, like a free space I guess on regular bingo. There's a bit of skill to the plunge, but after that, it's a lot of lucky bounces, or not. You play against everyone and once someone wins, it stops the machines from letting you plunge. It's automated and if someone hits their bingo while your ball is bouncing around and you hit your final bingo on that ball, you also win. Payouts are fixed at $15 per win and I think the business model is the more people that are playing the more the house wins since someone has to win each round. The perfect I think would be four plunges to a bingo. It was pretty fun and I cashed out at $15 so I was $12 up. I'd suggest checking it out if you're in the area ever. Definitely worth a short visit and there's some more memorabilia there to check out as well. Gene. Well, Gene, thanks very much for writing in and I very much appreciate hearing about these interesting little gambling pinballs on the show. There's a few different kinds that I've heard of and I've heard of Loops Slide Align before but I've never really heard anyone's first hand account of playing the games. And that's all for tonight. Thank you very much for listening. My name again is Nick Baldrige. You can reach me at Thanks for theyin.