TOPCast 61: live call-in show

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Flash Topcast.

Coming to you live from a state otherwise known as Texas's ugly twin sister,

it's the this old pinball radio show with Norman Shaggy.

Norman, you alive?

I barely.

Alright, welcome to another edition of Topcast, the internet pinball radio show.

We're coming to you live today.

From North Shore.

From North Shore area.

And we've got a couple special guests here with us.

We've got Kerb who's going to be helping us out with the I survived system 80,

but he's going to be doing that live instead of being pre-recorded.

We've got Korn's conundrum today.

We're going to be taking your calls, tech calls or comments or opinions or anything you want to talk about that's pinball related.

And we also have Brian Saunders here.

He's a big collector who is going to send her out to the mic and say hello to us.

Hello everybody.

You got to be a little closer.

You got to get right on it.

Hello everybody.

Yeah, that's a lot better.

Okay.

Alright, Norm, so what you tell us about what you've been doing that pinball related?

Okay, that's all.

Alright, we're going to move right.

I'm on the hunt for a game.

How's that?

Yeah, what game are you on the hunt for today?

Should I tell anybody because then they go after it?

It's a wood rail.

It's an old wood rail from Williams.

I'm glad to look at it and I think I might buy it.

Maybe there are places everybody says I'm crazy.

You sound crazy.

You know, paying a lot of money for unshaped Williams wood rail.

You didn't think I'm too...

Yeah, it's been a while.

We've been doing the top cast shows with personality interviews but we haven't really done anything

with anything live.

And the reason why we don't do a lot of live stuff is because it's a lot more work, frankly.

I mean, you know, all the other stuff is more casual.

And the tape stuff is probably better.

Yeah, probably.

Yeah, yeah, you're probably right.

The tape stuff probably is right.

Anyways, we're going to talk a little with Brian.

We have Brian here.

And we got...

I mentioned that we got curb.

I hope...

I'm looking at curb from across the aisle.

Curve, you did come up with something for us for today for System 80, right?

I survived System 80.

Yeah, he says he's going to come up with something.

So he's drinking a beer.

He's chewing on some beef jerky and he's got his lady here on their plain pinball.

Because we're...

Today is the Detroit EM Collector's Club Summer Barbecue at the radio show.

And we've got a lot of guys coming in.

And Norm is going to be man in the grill.

Norm makes some killer ribs in chicken, which kind of fits the cause.

I mean, I'm not a chicken kind of guy.

You know, chickens is for girls like chicken.

And Norm.

And Shaggy doesn't like girls as we know.

No, I like contrast.

Oh yeah, I like you, Norm.

You dig that hunk of burning nothing.

That's why he kept telling me, make sure you bring in cooked sausage.

I'm like, no, no, I'm not going to do that.

No, I'm going to clean it up.

There's no lines to be right between.

But anyways, let's start our conversation with Brian.

Brian, you drove in from Illinois and you're picking up a game that I actually picked up before you, a James Bond.

But I thought you were...

Which is a Gottlieb System 80.

I thought you were a ballet collector.

Yeah, that's true.

Every once in a while I fall off the wagon though.

So...

Well, what do you mean fall off the wagon?

What is your attraction here to System 80?

Really no attraction at all.

I just happened to play that game at John Dayhouse House one time and I thought it was pretty intriguing because all of a sudden the machine just quit.

And they told me that's the way it was supposed to be.

Well, I...

Okay, now I picked the game off for him.

A guy here in Detroit was selling it.

I picked it up and I actually got it all working and I got it had a chance to play it.

And I thought that it's a timed game.

And I'm not a huge fan of your replay, William's travel time?

Yes, I've had that one.

Yeah, that came blows.

Well, I shouldn't say that.

I shouldn't say that.

I should say that.

I...

Not a big bod just bogged down to you and your great opinions of everything.

Pinball is like ice cream.

There's a flavor for everybody.

But given that, there are certain flavors that are vanilla and chocolate.

You know, like Adam's family is definitely a vanilla or chocolate flavor.

Like we should care what you think.

But anyway, it's travel time was another time game was an EM.

You could earn extra time when you played it.

Single player, it just wasn't my cup of tea, is it maybe.

I don't know, did you like the game running?

I would about go along with that.

It's really not much of a player.

It's just more of a...

Oh, it's just kind of a unique thing.

You have to play it and keep hitting the right targets.

And so you can gain more time to stay on the game.

It doesn't really just meet or out the balls to you.

You've got to earn them.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't mind the earning part.

Oh, Norm wants to say something.

I can't believe it.

We're going to give these guys credit.

I mean, they're just making old still games forever.

They come up with a new idea.

And then 30 years later, you guys rip them, you know.

I mean, it's like, what the hell have you done?

What's your life?

What did you design?

Give these guys some credit.

Man, this is history.

Some of us never got a chance to play those games 30 years ago.

Yeah, yeah.

And as Norm knows, I'm not a huge cordack design game fan.

There isn't a lot of his game trigger.

But anyways, so James Bond back to James Bond is kind of similar.

It's an essentially available in two ROM versions.

You can run it with a ROM that's timed in one that's just three or five ball.

I originally burned the timed ROM in there.

And I thought the same thing that you thought, Brian.

It was really bizarre how it just kind of shut you down.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

So I ended up taking the ROM out.

And I put the three in the five ball ROM.

And I thought it was a lot better game.

But what's cool is that you knock down the drop targets.

And that's the bonus.

If you knock down five drop targets, it keeps track of them.

Actually, I want to score displays.

And you get a bonus for each one of those drop targets.

What's the more and more do you want to do?

Okay, forget it.

Enough about James Bond.

So anyways, you drove up here to get the James Bond.

Yeah, and it was a long way.

I was just happy to see you.

There's only one.

It's somewhere out west of here about 75 miles.

And they were sending amulets as out there as hard as they could.

So I kind of got held up.

Right.

Probably some guy with a sugar issue.

Anyways, we, Brian came in and you actually brought me a game, too, didn't you?

Yes, I did.

It's a twin rifle gun game.

It's big and heavy.

And I got to load it all by myself last night.

Wait, it's twin rifle or twin pirate?

Twin pirate, I think.

Okay, good.

Have you scared there for a second?

Twin pirate.

If you like the pictures, that's the same game that you're going to get.

Okay.

The back of his car, probably.

Well, and I should also, well, we'll come back to that later.

But anyway, Brian, how did you get into collecting?

I mean, what do you think?

Brian, how did you get into collecting?

I mean, what is your, which of your early memory of pinball here?

Probably my very earliest memory was, I was probably four or five years old, playing one in a laundromat.

So I could, my mom gave me nickels just to stay away from her and go put them in the machine and do something.

But it was probably a godly wood rail.

Chances are, because this would have been about 1959 or 1960 maybe.

You know, Shaggy's the other interesting story, some of that.

His mother used to give him nickels, but she would actually throw them in the ocean.

All right.

So when did you, I mean, did you play off to high school?

Yeah.

Pretty much.

I got a paper out when I was like eight years old.

And after that, any money I could make, I was down at the ice cream shop, put them in the games.

And these were all EMs, I assume, your plan?

Yeah.

And the vast majority of them, I can remember what they were.

There were a lot of godly wedge heads in there in some of the mid-60s Williams stuff.

So there's a few of those that I managed to get and just keep around for collection sake, just so I could play them again.

Yeah, where did you grow up?

I grew up in a town called Mattoon Illinois.

It's Mattoon and Charleston, Illinois, are almost grown together now.

And that's where Eastern Illinois University is.

Did you, did you play through high school too?

Yeah, high school was where I really started developing a big passion for these things.

The arcade that I hung out at, they used to have a contest every week.

And whoever got the high score, either the first, second, or third high scores on that, would end up getting free food.

So I pretty much fed myself all through high school off of a couple of games.

Okay, now did you go to college after that?

Yeah, I went to Illinois State University after that.

I majored in pizza and bowling and pinball.

Do you ever get a degree?

No, that kind of escaped me. I was too busy.

You started actually collecting games.

It wasn't really all that long ago.

I'd say probably 1998 or 9.

I got to where I remembered some of the play I'm against, so I started looking around for them.

And about the year 2000, I really got serious about trying to get a bunch of the ballies back.

Why Balli? Why are you concentrating on Balli?

That was the ones that I played most of the time in high school.

They were pretty popular in our town, so I just kind of got used to the way they were.

Now do you like the single player, the theme, or rhyme or reason?

No, it doesn't really matter to me.

Some of the multiplayer ballies were actually a lot more fun to play than the single players.

Right.

Well, what are your subtitles that trip your trigger?

My favorite is called Big Valley. It's an EM multi-ball game from 1970.

I keep telling people on RGP all the time it's pretty underrated because I would sell every other game I have before I'd sell that one.

In RGP, some people that don't know it, that's a USENET news group that's about pinball. It stands for Rec. Games. Pinball.

But anyway, so Big Valley, what's that theme all about?

It's a Western theme. Probably it was patterned a little bit after the TV show that was on in the 60s.

What, Benanza or whatever?

Somewhat, although it doesn't have the characters or anything on it, it was maybe, you know, the picture on the front of the glass is a valley with a mountain lion on it.

And a guy on a horseback riding after the mountain lion.

No, is it two inch or three inch? Zipper flipper or not?

It is not zipper flipper and it's three inch. It's one of the first ones I did three inch on.

Yeah, three inch flippers.

In fact, I think it's the only multi-ball game they had other than balls of pop and they had three inch flippers.

Balls of pop and you talking about the 1956?

That would have been the 50s game.

That had two inch flippers, didn't it?

Yeah, and that's right.

Okay. So, it's multi-ball, is it two or three ball?

It's a three ball multi-ball.

What it's got, it's got a couple captive holes up near the top of the field, which was, they kept the same play field design around for quite a few games.

They used it in space time and time zone and rogo and just some little variations on the bumper placements and stuff.

The big valley game, there's just a unique way that it flows and plays that is so different.

What we discovered back playing it in high school, I mean another guy got onto the ends and outs of it,

was that the real secret to playing that game is not to release all the balls on the field at once.

You mean just getting two at a time?

Well, ideally you just want to play two at a time if you can and leave the third one still up in a captive hole so you've always got a gate open to shoot at.

And if you can get these things, if you can kind of get it going on a sequence, you can just nail it again and again and again on this one gate.

And that's really the secret to getting a lot of points on that game.

Pointy Art?

Yes, it is.

Okay, now you see that's the big problem I have with Valley pre-Dade Christians in them who is the famous round girl artist,

is what I would call them, is the pointy art.

The pointy art stuff just drives me nuts.

They were only surpresidents against games.

Just prejudice against that style of artwork, it just does, I don't know, just drives me nuts.

And I'd have to say to be honest, I never really cared much for the artwork and anything.

I didn't collect them for artwork, I didn't play them for artwork, I played them because I really liked the way the game would play.

Right.

And then that was their whole ballet.

Now do you have like all the ballet eems or anything, you know, Tim Arnoldish type of new year collecting?

I'm beginning to get pretty close, I think I'm missing 18 of them now.

Ballies are there that, you know, in total.

I think there was 119 different ones.

Wow.

So you were a three digit collector then.

Yeah, three digit.

Yeah.

That's three.

Norm, are you a norm?

He's like a...

He's a one digit collector and he's giving me the finger.

Two digit.

He's a two digit collector.

What do you keep all this stuff?

Well, I just did build a new shop here not too long back and I'm starting to get those lined up in there now.

Up until now it's just been a thing where I had to rotate in 10 or 15 at a time and shop those out and get those done.

So you can get those ready.

And eventually just for your own playing it to bring in what you want and try it out for a while and then swap it out.

Now, you've also straight off the Ballie road here a bit too.

I heard that you have some solid state stuff too.

It's just not all about EMs, right?

Yeah, that's true.

I weakened one time and bought a deal of 30 solid states from the late 70s and early 80s.

And they were all Ballie and William stuff so I figured I would go ahead and just start learning.

I'll those, eventually sell those and keep trying to complete the collection of the EMs.

But the EMs is really your desire.

Yeah, that's what I like the best.

You have the pitching bats too?

I don't actively pursue them if they happen to come, that's fine.

Norm has a real sauce spot for pitching bats. He got me into pitching.

No, I got me into everything.

Of course, Norm, would you like to comment on all the things that you've turned me on to?

Here it comes.

No, I've done pass.

Man, the opportunity of a lifetime, the one that he rarely ever turns down to.

So, now, what do you do for a living now?

I'm actually a glorified janitor.

Yeah, me too, I'm Mary.

We have a 28 room church building in our town that's almost like a convention center now.

So they keep me pretty busy there.

Well, what I was trying to, the road I was trying to take you down wasn't so much that road.

What I was trying to get at is you do in-home service in your area, right?

Yeah, I do that on nights and the weekends.

Right.

Is that a pretty good job, I mean?

Yeah, yeah, I like that because that's just money that I make to spend on other machines.

I can kind of keep it all separate from the family stuff.

Right. Right.

Why, does the family give you a hard time about the pinball thing?

The only time the family gives me a hard time is when there's not enough shoe sales or things like that to go to.

Now, what's your trick to finding?

I'm sorry, normal, what you gonna say?

I was gonna say, what did you do before all this?

I worked at a nap auto-part store for about 12 or 13 years before that.

Oh, okay.

So, you don't have insurance then.

Actually, I do, thanks to my wife.

Oh, yeah.

I've heard this, not heard this story before, have we normed?

He's giving me a bike look.

Yeah, I did.

Pass, pass, norm passes.

I can't believe it.

Yeah, exactly.

Nevermind.

But anyway, so, are your family's pretty supportive?

Yeah, I'd say they tolerate it well.

Yeah, that's about my family, too.

My son isn't, won't even play the games really.

He's more of a video head.

Yeah, the pinball in my house anywhere.

Really?

Nope.

Not allowed in there.

Not even in the basement?

Don't have a basement.

And you don't have anything anywhere.

Not inside the house, no.

In the garage?

No, I've got a small garage and then I've got this huge shop that I just built to put all the rest of them in.

Now, is the shop on property?

Yes, it is.

Okay.

So, now, how big is the shop?

It's 42 by 48 and it's 16 feet tall and I'm in the middle of putting a second floor up in it.

Wow.

Okay.

So, how many games can you fit on the bottom?

I'm thinking I can get 75 on each floor.

Oh my God.

That's great.

Man.

Wow, I'm stuck in the basement and I'm pretty much at my catch.

Yeah, but you're under the weird people that have actually dug another basement next to his house and bridged it.

How many people have ever done that for pinball machines?

I only know of one.

You know, Vinnie?

Seems like there was some guy in California that raised his house clear up off the foundation.

Yeah, and then he did one thing.

Yeah, yeah, that was the charlond.

Yeah, you know, I annexed my basement to the neighbors and put a tunnel between them.

And they haven't figured out yet that I've got games in their basement and I sneak over there and plan and fix them at night.

Well, that's one way to get around the zoning laws.

Yeah, yeah, sure is because, yeah, I'm maxed out.

I can't expand my house any bigger on my current property because, you know, I'm at my max.

So, I got to live within these constraints.

What do you need a bedroom for?

Or a bathroom or kitchen or garage.

I've been to a lot of guys' houses ahead of me in the kitchen.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah.

They've all dropped off games to people out east.

You couldn't hardly get through the house.

They were just so cramped and tight.

They had pinballs everywhere in them.

Yeah, okay.

No, go ahead and let them.

No, I saw a guy at jukebox collect.

I had the two bedroom house with 65 jukeboxes in it.

It's like all along the wall with jukeboxes.

Everywhere you look in the center was four jukeboxes.

It was just a path to walk around jukebox.

The laundry room, four jukeboxes, bathroom, jukebox, kitchen, four jukeboxes.

I don't know where that went to hell.

This guy slipped living room was just jukeboxes and a TV and a chair.

There's some really messed up people.

Wow.

Okay, well back to your collecting.

I saw that you also got, somehow you got promoted like on the local news or something like that.

You got kind of some kind of a news segment?

Yeah, for some reason I guess that where I live since there's nothing but cornfields and beanfields.

Every time they come across somebody that's doing something a little out of the ordinary, they do a story on that.

So you got on the nightly news?

Yeah, I was on the Terahose station a while back.

They did a little blurb on me.

Customers or anything from that?

Yeah, actually that generated me some work in an area that hadn't been through very much.

I think it's just a matter of they got to get to know who does that kind of work in the area and then they start calling.

I've been collecting all that long, right?

I'd say about eight years real strong, but before that it was just simply to find certain games that I used to play and wanted to play them again.

So how do you find all your stuff?

I think it got me in contact with other people that did.

And as most of you know, once you get to kind of networking out there, you start finding out who's got what and then they know what you're looking for.

And they're always feeding me leads from out of east on stuff.

Over here it's everybody's for themselves and they try to screw you.

Yeah, I'm putting shaggy.

I would agree with Norm on that comment.

And I get screwed the most.

But you like it that way.

We call Norm, Mr. Grease and take it.

Oh yeah, there's no response there. There's no denial.

I got an address book full of leads. I give to everybody. I'm the only guy and I get nothing in return.

Everybody wants to trade me their crap and just take advantage of me.

Yes, yes, I know.

Okay, should we start the list of games that I've gotten for you?

Should we start? Do you want to even go down that road?

Let's go back and talk to your mother. What do you think?

Yeah, okay, the $500 Twilight Zone, the $500 Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Yeah, it just keeps going.

That's when all games were coming out of Europe and they were $200, $300.

Yeah, so we're making a killing off you. Is that where you're going to go next?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I see where all this conversation's going.

I guess I must have shown up a little too late for those deals.

Oh yeah, it's funny. Norm says me these emails every once in a while.

I get them, you know, remember the old days and you know, all this the games, you know,

we're buying for, you know, out of containers at Europe for $200, $300, $400 for games.

I mean, if we paid $500 for Twilight zones and stuff like that, that was, you know, we were like, you know, crying.

You know, Star Trek Generations for $400.

What was the medieval manist, you remember?

It was $900 bucks.

Yeah, I was going to say $750.

Yeah, I mean, the stuff was, and it was all good stuff at that time.

Yeah, the condition was actually pretty darn reasonable.

Yeah, it was, you know, people, yeah, pretty much was, you know, how things have changed.

While you guys were buying your $400 and $500 Twilight zones, I was buying those $50 and $75 EMs that came in the containers they didn't know what to do with.

You know, we never got any EMs in a container, never.

Not one. I mean, yeah, we didn't even get any early solid state stuff.

About the oldest stuff we get would be maybe fun house type thing.

All diner, we got a couple of system 11 games, but you know, 1988, 89, mouse and around.

Remember they got them, remember we got the diner, it was $160.

Do you remember that? You sent me that email.

Yeah, I think it was a pop-up for $100 in the quarter.

I mean, it was, the shipping, I think, was $75.

Yeah, the shipping was more expensive than some of the games.

This is like two year 2000 and it was, it was, they had no place to put it.

Yeah, yeah, I would have to agree that it was kind of really, it was interesting.

But okay, so you know, what else are you, are you into collecting besides the pinball, anything else? Any other wacky stuff?

No, I kind of do one hobby at a time. I do it real strong and I wear it out and then I go to something else.

I used drag race pretty heavy back in the late 80s and all through the 90s and do there, got two or three track championships and I was good with that and I went on to something else I wanted to do.

Wow, so when you were drag racing, I mean what, you know, I don't know much about it, I don't know anything about it.

Used to go when I was a kid but I didn't really know anything, but I mean what kind of, you know, what kind of cars are we racing?

Well, being one of the weird and unusual guys like I am, I like to race rambler stuff.

And what kind of mortars are in those things?

Well, they have their own brand of engine and I'm the one that I ran most of the time was a 390 AMC.

A lot of people thought Ford made that motor but they didn't.

Huh, interesting, interesting.

Okay, all right, great. Anything else that you want to add Brian? It's kind of, it's some interesting stuff you got going there.

Oh, I thought about something you asked me before about how I really got started on collecting.

The first thing I really started building a collection of was a zipper flipper games and that was because I played Fireball when I was back in high school and I was just fascinated with how that through curve balls that crossed the field and the little flippers going in and out was pretty unique.

So I finally started just trying to get all the zipper flipper games first just because I thought that would be something nobody else had.

And how hard was it to get all those?

It took me probably three and a half years or so to round all those up.

What's up, that? And what was the most you ever had to pay for one of your ballies?

I should have to really think back on that. I'd say probably $800 maybe.

All right. Okay. All right. Now, what do you think of my favorite, which I just kind of, you know, maybe tainted the stew? I like 4 million BC.

Yeah, that's that would be my second choice on a zipper flipper game. Probably Fireball I'd have to go with first just because I played it early on and I never got the chance with the 4 million BC.

There just wasn't one of those around town anywhere to play.

Right. Okay. So back in the old day, you never played it.

Right. And there was lots of games that I never played pretty much just whatever was local to me was all I could get to.

You get for you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'd traveled 10 miles just to play that one.

Really? I mean, you know, a lot of people bitch about that rotating ball or radically around and kind of wide out lanes.

It's kind of a lover hate on that one. I think what I really like about playing that not only was the spinning this thing, a real unique thing that that kind of added a dimension of the game I hadn't seen before.

But the plunger shot is pretty important on that game. Right. I had never seen anything like that before either. And if you don't do it right, it really costs you in regard to amount of points on the game.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Well, cool. Is there anything I forgot to ask you that you want to you want to bring up?

You want to plug anything? Oh, I know I forgot to ask you. You were involved with a pinball show out in Illinois, right?

Yeah. We do the hair and super show with Rob Craig and Steve Ross child and Kenny Hall down there. They're all Southern Illinois guys that ended up kind of finding out about it really on in this decade anyway.

And eventually they kind of invited me in because I think they needed all my games to put down there. Well, they probably those they're kind of solid state guys.

Yeah, so they probably needed somebody that represented the EM side of the world. Yeah. Actually two of the four are the solid state guys and the other two of us, me and Ken are EM guys.

What is what covered it? What was Kenna into? Ken's kind of a got-leab guy and I do the ballet and the William stuff.

So he ended up becoming my traveling partner on a lot of these pinball runs that I make out east and the nice thing about it was we never had to fight or anything because I didn't want any part of his territory and he didn't want any part of mine.

Right. Right. Now what's um, you know, how much work do you do with the show? I mean, what do you what do you have to do? What is your, you know, what is your responsibilities?

I live the farthest distance away. The other guys are all right down in that area, but I'm about 125 miles away from them. So I don't really get super involved and really much of the background stuff.

What I do is whenever the day of the show happens, I'm supposed to bring in as many games as I can pack into a trailer and then I help them just do the duties that go on during the show.

So basically they just abuse you and use you. Yes, but I take it on willingly. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. So I mean, is it worth it? Is it, I mean, how many games do you bring?

Somewhere 12, 13, 15, somewhere around in there? Is it, is it worth it? I mean, you know, is it, is it fun? Yeah, I really like it. In fact, I try and bring some of the weird or nondescript stuff that nobody's ever seen. I like rare games.

And I don't mind bringing them for people to play. It's a lot of times I get pretty good comments on that stuff. They just people see something they've never seen before and they're just appreciative that it's there and somebody's willing to let them play it.

Right. Right. So well, that's pretty cool. So you don't get into the promotion or anything of that. No, I'm a little too far away to really get deep into that. Right. Right. Well, cool. All right. Hey, Brian. I appreciate you coming in. Thanks for going out and you know,

growing up, going to be cooking hot dogs soon and play some pit mall. Yeah, her teller was good food up here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's worth 500 miles. Probably not trust me there. So.

All right. Well, that was Brian Saunders. He was, you know, coming up and visiting us for the EM club meeting and picking up a game and wrapping off a game. So,

I'm really looking forward to seeing you guys. Thank you. I'm really looking forward to seeing you guys for the next episode. Thank you.

Appreciate him coming in. Special guest. Special guest. Special guest. Special guest. Special guest. All right. I get curb with us. Now, curb is our systematic guru. Our resident systematic guru. And he normally does a pre-warth that includes system. I survived the system.

And he's going to be doing that live today. What do you got for us today? curb. Just going to go through a systematic startup. We play site links my page with the Marvin 3M page.

Yeah. Yeah. But the you'll hear a mention if anybody mentions my site, they pretty much mean pin repair.com or Marvin 3M.com slash fix.

I'll be one of the two. But you're going to talk about some systematic startup stuff. Yeah. I'm I'm the Marvin 3M pages. There's a link to the my page, which has the how to start up a game if you've got one from scratch.

And it's sometimes there's a lot of steps, but they're sort of important. The first one if you go through the pages is you plug in the bottom connector on the power supply. Unplug all the other ones and just check all your voltages. Assuming you're going to do the upgrades, you may not have at this point, but it always helps to make sure you don't have some outrageously high five volts or something like that. Right. Right. And that's especially important on systematic B. On systematic B, the

there's no crowbar circuit for the five volts. So if there's a problem with the five volts, it can actually pass up to 12 volts down the five volt line. So what I always do is I pull the connector off the left side of the CPU board. And that takes five volts away from the CPU board and from the driver board.

The sound boards usually have their own power supply. So that's not really a big of an issue. So yeah, I started up with the CPU and the driver board disconnected and then you know, check all your voltages on the power supply.

Once you got to that point, you pull all the connectors off the CPU and the very left connector, which is the power supply right adjacent to the C1 cap, you put connect that one up, power it up again. Make sure your CPU isn't dragging down the five volt one chip or something on the CPU. It can actually drag the five volts down. So make sure that you still have good five volts.

And then you can start adding connectors, the display connectors on the far right side of the CPU board. Add those on there, power it up again, look for some displays.

So keep troubleshooting as you go through because you don't have your slam tilt connected. You're just going to get strobing displays at first unless you've done your slam tilt mod.

Right, right. The reason why you mentioned this is slam tilt. Slam tilt on system 80s, different system 80 and system one got leaves is different than, you know, say Williams or ballet on Williams, ballet. The slam tilt is normally open. You don't really have to worry about it unless the slam tilt switch is actually closed. And the slam tilt is located inside the coin door.

It's like a switch you'll see. It's like a weighted switch that if somebody kicks the door, basically it's going to lose their credit or lose their game. On godly, that's a normally closed switch, which means that the CPU has to see that as being closed through the wiring and through that switch where in ballet and Williams, it's a normally open switch. And you don't have to worry about it in that regard.

And you leave all of the bottom of the CPU connectors off that way if there's something weird going on with your game, you're not affecting the booting of the CPU.

You got the strobing displays. You can keep moving on. You got a decent, you know, running CPU at that point.

The next connector is the center connector on the bottom of the CPU that labeled J5. And that's your coin door and slam switch connector.

Put that one on there and you'll be able to power it up. You should have the zero just like you're trying to start a game. You'll be able to operate the coin door, test switch button, all of that.

You can run through and make sure that you're getting good test switch buttons and the slam switch and all that.

You can use the internal diagnostics. Also like on system 80 and 80A, be aware that there's a five second boot up delay if the slam switch is connected and closed.

When you turn it on, you can just one, two, three, four, five. Score displays on. You'll hear the relays under the play field if you have all the thing. If you get the driver board connected, you'll hear the relays clip.

If the system 80B, they kind of stop that five second delay. It's just actually a pretty much a one second.

Yeah, it boots right off. It boots right off. That's for sure.

Then once you do that, of course every time you're adding these connectors, you're shutting the game off. You add the switch connectors and then go through all the menus and do the switch test.

That's internal diagnostics. Do the whole matrix. Make sure you test all of the switches to make sure you don't have any bad diodes under the play field because they're not on the switches like the R and Williams. They're all on these diode boards that are scattered around the game.

So you're just taking some time, but once you get through it all, it's worth it. You're crawling along, but in the process, it's easy to find issues instead of just trying to hook everything up and backpedaling through it.

It's like swimming upstream or swimming downstream. It's a lot easier to swim downstream.

And then once you get the last connector, which is the CPU to a driver board connector, then you can start testing your coils and lamps and things like that.

Those usually give you the most grief. So testing those last helps you eliminate them from the problem, you know, possibly not booting your board or something like that.

So you're going to have a lot of issues, usually small issues, but you want to make sure that you've got a good booting board before you go troubleshooting the rest of the play field and so forth.

Now, when do you do your ground modifications, Kirk?

I usually make sure I've got a good CPU board. And then once I've got a booted CPU board that goes into the displays coming up, I usually then pull all of the boards out and do all the mandatory upgrades.

So then, you know, you do all the ground mods and I do all the ground mods on the driver board, attaching all the grounds together.

It helps eliminate the flaky edge connector problems that are pretty common.

Then do all of the standard mandatory upgrades. And then once you're beyond all of that, you put them all the boards back in and...

Yeah, I probably do it a little differently. I check the power supply and make sure it's working. Then I usually do the ground modification to the power supply, assuming that that's working.

And then I'll make sure the CPU is working and then I'll do the ground modification. You know, I kind of like do the ground modifications.

You're doing them all at once. I kind of piece me a little bit after I test each section. I kind of do the ground on that.

There's something about those ground modifications. I just really paranoid of lightening these games up without them. It really... I don't know. You know, it raises the hair on the back of my neck with little I have.

You know, to run the gat leaves without the ground mods.

It's usually what I was doing board repairs at home for a long time. And I would have somebody send me the whole board set at once.

So I got used to just pulling everything and doing it all at once and then putting it all back in and then worried about the rest of the game.

But either way, it's always good to make sure you have it right before you start powering things up.

Yeah, I should also mention that I do System 1 is the same way too. And you basically got to test System 1's just like Kerb was saying too, where you start with the power supply and work forward.

And you can do almost exactly the same procedure.

You know, just be aware though that on System 1's there's actually two slams switches. There is the one inside the coin door and then the ball roll.

It's actually part of the slams switch too, where that's unlike System 80. System 80, the ball roll mechanism is a normally open tilt switch.

So they change their mind about that ball roll mechanism.

And I'll tell you that Pascal's board on System 1, I've got to do a little work on one of them, a game that had one in it.

Wow, that makes working on those games so much easier.

You mean because of displays, he actually uses like text in the displays.

If you have a shorted coil diode, it actually shuts down the voltage to the coil so you don't fry transistors.

And there's a lot of neat features. Now I've tested an earlier version. He's added something since then and I believe some some board issues.

But there's a lot of neat features in that board.

Yeah, I've never had the Pascal. I've always used the 9W stuff for System 1 just because it's made here and it's just easier to get.

Yeah, well that's true. Yeah, the Pascal you've got to go out of your way to find.

Yeah, and they're not readily available. You just can't go and pick one up at the screen.

Yeah, Marko or whatever, yeah, you just don't call them up and order one.

But I normally, and they're not exactly inexpensive, but if you've got a really nice game that you want to hang on to, it's worthwhile looking into.

Now have you tried the 9W System 80? That was kind of interesting.

Longer boot up time instead of the 5 second delay, it's like 10 seconds at boot up for some reason.

But the ballerad is smaller, cuter, but it's pretty much the same.

It's not really much different if you needed a new CPU board for your haunted house or black hole, I want one.

But he's rewriting that software from the beginning.

So he's kind of like, you know, if you had a, you know, whatever, a James Bond or something kind of strange you can't use the 9W board at least at this point.

No, he hasn't written the code yet.

Well, he is the same thing that he did for System 1. You know, they rewrote the code for each one of the games on the 9W.

And I think Pascal had to do that too because they're not using the same processor as the original System 1 was using.

And they would probably get a little bit of grief from Gottlieb.

Yeah, perhaps.

Because they're still actively going after the copyright issues and so forth.

Right. Yeah, which I don't understand a thing like that, but whatever.

Well, what else got for Scurvent and nails?

Well, that's the startup. Really, you know, like I said, go to, you can link it through in the Marwan 3M site.

Get the startup link through there and it's linked to my page, which is a horrible webbing.

Yeah, scroll through it and go through it step by step.

Yeah, you're on Geocity, so it's, which now that page is pushing it overhead.

Yeah, pushing eight years old now. I think it is or something like that.

Right, right, right.

But the data is all there and hasn't changed much.

Right. Yeah, and you got some good repair tips there too.

Yeah, there's a few other links for other problems.

If you have display or switch problems, it tells you where to look and what switches to focus on.

Right. Well, cool, cool.

Well, I appreciate you coming in today, curb. That was, that was great.

Special guest. Special guest. Special guest. Special guest.

All right, so, you know, that's real nice.

Norm Norm's got his hand in his pants. Why is that not a big surprise?

You know, we're waiting here for Norm to santa rub.

This is how you don't like our studio.

You know, this is a great studio.

Excellent. All right, so Norm, what I need you to do is I need you to plug this

and I need you to think about 30 seconds while I run upstairs for a second.

I want you to, we got a Michigan pinball tournament coming up.

Norm's going to run a little interference here for me.

Well, Michigan pinball and Marvin present the Michigan open pinball tournament.

I think the second two thousand and eight.

You like to play pinball against the world?

The world's best.

Which I like to earn points towards the world pinball player championship.

I feel like that's some fun playing pinball.

Would you like to take home cash prizes?

Well, come on down to Marvin's mechanical museum and they're going to have this tournament.

August 2nd, 2008.

And it's in the sponsors on Marvin's Marvin's mechanical museum.

And Tim Woffinball says that company built that county,

Detroit EM Blue and Bill collectors in Tarker's pinball.

It's either the Detroit EM collectors that love this on here.

Is that the various collectors have their house or?

Yeah, they, these guys and then they come here and we make food for them

and they basically do nothing.

So there's entry fees and there's all kind of those food evisions.

There's an expert, there's an novice.

There's the EM players.

They'll do qualifying, so five o'clock finals will start at six.

I'm going to be running a separate tournament just for EM.

A parker is going to be running a solid state tournament.

He's going to use a newer stirring games.

And I'm going to be doing the EM.

Yeah, and in the EM tournament I'm running, the grand prize is a actual coin operated pinball machine.

So we're going to be playing on a 70s Williams game.

And the winner takes the game home.

Trophies for second and third prize, but first prize is the actual coin operated game.

Pog and play ready to go all shopped out.

We're going to be doing that.

So you get to win a free game in the C division slash EM tournament.

Well, the contact information is Michigan Open Pinball tournament parker Thomas

at MichiganPinball.com.

MichiganPinball.com contact them are 248-361-9349.

That was the world's laosiest commercial.

Yeah, you're really good at the song.

You just saw fire in my face in here.

Take your commercial.

You know, you got to be able to do things, you know?

I'm on the run, you know?

Yeah, great.

Yeah.

I got a meat.

And your dog is salivating and you're trying to get a meat.

Oh, look at that.

He put the meat stick in his mouth and then he put the other end in the dog's mouth.

And like two lovers, they're going, that is not true.

That is wrong with you, Norm.

You're having it the last party.

You're going to love this.

He's going to kill me.

But I was just doing an scientific experiment to see what dogs will eat.

And you know how dogs will eat anything.

Well, I took some lettuce and I threw it.

I was giving a dog meat balls and stuff.

And a dog, of course, is going to eat anything with meat in it, right?

So I took meat balls and we're throwing them from.

And then I figured, well, the next thing he's going to eat,

he's going to swallow.

So I threw a hunk of lettuce and he just inhaled it like a dog and then he just spit it out.

I went, whew.

And like, what is this is pretty weird out?

You know what?

Lettuce is, why does he like lettuce?

These things don't even taste anything.

It's a sheet, it's a sheet.

Whatever.

Who the hell cares?

It's a dog, right?

So then I dipped the lettuce in brown gravy from the meat balls and the dog ate the lettuce.

So there, I proved something.

What the hell is wrong with you?

That's what I want to know.

You know, I mean this is fun to some pinball related thing.

Okay.

All right.

So the dog is sniffing your, yeah, my groin because what I rubbed it with meat.

So, yeah.

I'm focused.

I think it's time we close the show off and we go home.

I think that.

Oh my God.

All right.

Okay, fine.

All right, we're the next session.

We're going to, yeah, mort is back.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

One question.

Can we tell, actually, how many people actually listening to us?

Yeah, we can, but I don't want to even mention that.

Let's do that.

No.

Yeah, I don't know.

Let's do it.

Let's find some.

No.

Right now we've got mort, mort is back.

You remember mort norm?

Oh, yes.

Okay.

He's back in here.

We're going to let more, the mort segment run.

Hello, everyone.

It's mort again.

Thank you for coming back and hearing me on this radio show.

Thank you.

Now, this shaggy guy, he's been interviewing a lot of people and all those people he's been

interviewing.

I ain't getting to interview nobody, so I'm going to interview shaggy.

So, shaggy, tell me about your childhood.

I was born in the wagon of a traveling show.

And then where was that?

Sweet home, home, home.

Right up front.

What is your favorite game?

The Out of Family.

And who is your hero?

He's a big boy, isn't-

I figured that, but who is he?

Uncle Albert.

Huh?

Okay.

You're partnering all of this has been norm.

What did you say to him to convince him to do the videos with you?

I have a brain to give you a little boost.

I'll try to make it make what's important for me.

So, where is norm right now?

Hello, good to know, hello.

He seems to know a lot about the pinball machines.

What do you think his real skill level is?

I heard you a little sick recently.

What did you have?

That's horrible.

What did the symptoms for that?

You go out at night and call to each cat last.

Lincoln's two smokeyries and Subaru.

So, where are you living now?

It's hot in the rocks in the rain.

Is it nice there?

People are strange.

Do you visit many people?

I'm a spammer.

I'm a spammer.

What did I do?

So, what is your wife's name?

Nelson.

Where did you meet her at?

On a little summer road.

You know, Shaggy, I want your biggest stand.

And they really like, they like, hey, who did that?

You been hit by, you been struck by a smooth criminal.

What?

I got cat clasped in a got cat style.

So, what would you change if you had the choice?

I don't want people being in normal.

Okay, is there anything else you'd like to add?

We can talk all night.

But better getting us nowhere.

Okay, well, this is more signing out.

And thank you, Shaggy, for giving me some time to get to know you better and the whole world.

And there's more in about you now.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

What was that special norm?

What'd you think?

Yeah, he put a lot of work into that.

The dog was teaching Shaggy how to lick himself.

That's real nice.

Hey, all he did was the dog rubbed a little sausage and Shaggy and then Shaggy would lick himself.

Perfect, that's funny.

I don't know, I just do it to do that.

Okay, anyways, now the next part of the show is going to be Colin.

I want to give you the number to Colin at.

All you three people listening.

You got a pen, you were writing this down, Norm?

No, two.

Okay, so you're what?

Until that comes up.

Tell somebody calls.

You got a letter here from somebody.

Can we do that or not?

Sure, go ahead.

There's a friend of mine in Australia, Mark Anderson.

He's got a normal Hasn't no friends.

Anyways, he's got an issue with a need some advice.

Okay, so now we're going to move on to the next part of the show.

Okay, so here we go with Quards, Canundra.

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Quards, Canundra.

Those of you who haven't played the game before, it's just a simple guessing game.

Go ahead, fire up your web browser, point it at the Internet, pinball database.

I know you all do it, so I'm just going to give you a second or two to get ready.

All right, hope you're ready.

What trick are we giving away this time, Clay?

We're going to be giving away some vintage flyers.

I've got some flyers from Woodrails for the 1950s.

Oh no, you're not giving those away.

Yes, I am.

Wow, that sounds like something that every pinball person would probably maybe like to have.

Yeah, maybe.

Anyway, so you can call it whenever you have a guess.

Clay, what's the phone number again?

Okay, then we've already got somebody on the line, so far away corn.

All right, it's guessing time.

Data East proceed.

It features basement 2000 sounds.

So that should tell you what generation this is.

Space meets the three flipper game.

It was designed by Joe Kamikaw.

And here is a smorgasbord of audio clips taken directly from the game.

Okay, so we got a caller on the line.

Can you hear us, caller?

Okay, Scott from Detroit, Michigan.

Okay, and Scott, can you get enough of a clue of the game?

You know what the game is?

Yeah, it's a question about 1976.

Scott, we big hit the clear.

Okay, so did you do with corn's conundrum though?

You're doing corn's conundrum.

All right, we'll take your tech call.

All right, we're shopping out of fully working 1976.

We're going to go to the kit.

Yeah, I'm usually from a solid state guy who was fully working.

I wanted to do a full shop, a job for cleaning, including the inside of the cabinet.

When I was putting everything together, it no longer works correctly.

And basically what's happening is, it doesn't have a shoe around.

It basically kicks out from the center of the play field when you are pressed both flip the buttons.

And basically that coil now is locking on.

And no other coils are working.

But being activated because that coil constantly is being locked on.

It constantly is making the kicky motion.

But that particular switch is not locked on.

I think familiar with the 1976, Scott, we big hit.

Right, it's a turret shooter out the center.

Right, correct.

That is being locked on now.

And that's constantly making the kicky motion.

Because on the other coil, that constantly stays on.

Did you check the switch that the ball actually activates in the turret area?

Yeah, and that's not locked on.

You know, it's not closed.

It's not closed.

Correct.

The switch is not closed.

It is open.

It keeps trying to shoot the ball out the turret.

Is that what you're saying?

Correct.

Exactly.

There's a ball in there.

There's a relay that does that.

Did you check the relay that closes that actually?

Yeah, it's what the 12 masks are about.

So it would be inside the actual machine I want to relay.

Right, relay?

No, yeah, no.

Well, that's where I would start.

I would start with that relay.

And I would get the schematic out and see what pulls that relay in.

And I would just follow down that chain.

You do have the schematic.

It basically can those realies basically get stuck closed?

That's that relay, bank closed?

And that's what could cause that problem?

Well, sure.

Yeah, there's a whole chain of events that can lock that relay on.

And I think what you got to do is look at the schematic.

I don't have a schematic that I can't handy.

But you need to check that.

You know, look at that.

What activates that relay and work backwards from that and check every sequence of event.

All the switches that activate that relay and keep it pulled in.

You know, it's got like 15 realies right on the bottom of the can.

I'm not familiar with EM games.

But in real, I didn't know if that is a common problem or not.

Well, for my thing, I've been hacked.

Sometimes you go into a game and then you start bumping things and pushing things around.

You'll try to clean things.

What you should try to do is go back and undo what you may have done in the first place.

Or if you've displaced anything by moving a bumping things.

Okay, well, that's what I would give you a shot.

I would go in and look at the relay that's locked on and back off through the schematics and doing that.

Okay, take care.

That wasn't exactly what we were looking for, Norm.

We were actually looking for an answer to Corn's Conundrum.

You answered it, Norm, though.

You have your two callers in one, obviously.

Oh, here we go. We've got somebody else.

Hello, welcome to Topcast.

Do you got an answer for us for Corn's Conundrum?

Hey, this is Cliffy. What's happening, Cliffy?

Hey, how are you, Cliffy?

Pretty good, but...

I really wasn't calling in for that, but I'm thinking that Jurassic Park sounds like that.

Well, I think you're right.

I'm going to show it Corn's inside.

Yes, that's right.

The game I was thinking of is Jurassic Park by Data East.

Not Jurassic Park.

Good job.

I could tell by the go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go-go.

Yeah, that was a pretty good game, actually.

Hey, do you want some of the flyers?

I highly suggest these fine-finished flyers.

You can have them all.

That way, no.

I would like them, please.

And that way, Norm can't have them.

I know they were the norm ones.

I think my address on the file, if you want to send them, I'd be happy to send them.

Oh, bastard.

Yeah, yeah, we got Williams Pinch hitter.

We got Penet Fever.

We've got William Strike Zone.

We've got Williams Gold Mine.

We've got Williams Hercules, which is a gun game.

Man, we've got all these great flyers.

And this way, you get them in Norm doesn't.

I appreciate it.

I needed something to start my next barbecue with.

Yeah, so what else you got for us today, Cliff?

Well, I kind of wanted to...

I wonder if he was on there, but obviously he's either lobe-n-up a game or...

He's the hot dog right now.

Well, Norm.

Sorry, I missed him, but you do see him tell him to give me that dog gone.

Dixie Land Back class, I've seen on the picture on one of his websites.

Well, you know, we're going to go norm is going around in him up.

I gotta deliver, give it up.

I'm hurting for that Dixie Land Back class.

You know what?

I mean, I've hardly played the game at all.

And it probably sucks a mighty win, but I don't care.

I want to get this game together.

Brian, just walked into the room.

You got something here I'm going to hand the mic over to him.

Hold on a second.

I'm here. What can I do for you?

Hey, Brian. Cliffy.

Hey, how you doing?

Good, pretty good, bud.

So I hear till you got Dixie Land Back class hanging on the wall if it's not in a head at least.

Brian, I need your Dixie Land Back class.

You do. Which one? The bad one or the good one?

No, I only want the good one.

I got plenty of bad ones.

Well, I'm trying to work on something in your behalf.

There's a guy about five miles from me that's got a really nice Dixie Land game.

And he says he's moving to Florida pretty soon.

So we'll see what happens.

We'll see.

I just thought I'd say how do you give a shout out to the team of the M guys and the Chief F3GP bastards?

I wish everybody a happy, uh,

Inbal party there at Clay's.

I'm just about headed over right now to Steve Charlton's here in the Bay Area.

I would love to get out to California to one of your shows sometime.

And if you're going to sell me a certain ball of game out there,

I'll come out in person and get it.

Absolutely. Welcome. We've got plenty of people out here that can put you up too.

Okay. That sounds good.

All right.

Take a quick.

Take care, man.

If you think.

Hello. How are you? Are you on, uh,

giving a call in on top cast? How can I help you?

Hi. I was playing this guy's, uh, safe cracker.

And he ran out of tokens.

And I'm wondering where to get more tokens from.

Eric? Is that you?

Yep.

Wait, are you like caught?

You're in like the next.

Wait, there's no response.

He hung up on us.

What do you believe? Did you put him off to that door?

No.

Smart.

Did it have a zone?

Great. Great. Okay.

That's great. Okay.

So, you know, norm, you know,

that's just a little bit crazy from him.

It's a basic health issue that you can help him if you'd like.

All right. What is it? What is it?

He lives in Australia and he's, uh,

he's like a machine apart and he's got a score real.

I think it's a godly,

but he's either a pioneer or a godly football, pro football.

So, his score real was sticking out.

Oh, I got a guess.

I don't know. I'll give him the answer for both.

He didn't write the game on this email.

As I recall, it's either a pioneer or a pro football.

I don't think that's too hard for you.

You're the sage of all this.

Not a last-camp.

He'd probably tell me when I was sooner than you would.

Oh, Balli. I got Dr. Balli here.

Oh, it could only be a Dr. Balli question.

Dr. Balli. All right. Let's get the question.

Any advice on this one? I took a part of the score real as was sticking.

Put it back together nicely and it works well.

The only problem is when the machine resets a score real,

the 100s doesn't reset and it stays always now.

It works in a machine.

So help this guy out.

What did he do wrong?

You know, norm, you know,

that's like the most inane thing.

You know, I mean, I would have to ask him some more questions.

One of my advice for the email and to all we've been waiting for.

Wait a minute. He's sleeping right now.

It's he's living in the future.

It's three o'clock in the morning tomorrow.

Okay, that's, yeah.

You can email him that, all right?

Great. Thanks, Norm. That was real helpful.

Let me guess he needs to adjust the switch.

One contact is out of order.

Am I right?

Yeah.