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Critical Mass with Eric Selak

Pintastic Pinball & Game Room Expo·video·1h 5m·analyzed·Feb 7, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Eric Selak's five-year restoration of Critical Mass, a lost 1982 Gottlieb prototype designed by Black Hole's creators.

Summary

Eric Selak presents the restoration and completion history of Critical Mass, an unfinished prototype pinball machine from 1982 designed by three college engineers (Jerry, Joe, and Jim) who also created Black Hole for Gottlieb. The game sat abandoned in a barn for nearly 20 years before Selak discovered it, undertaking a five-year restoration project involving playfield reconstruction, code reverse-engineering, and navigating complex licensing approval from both Gottlieb and the original designers.

Key Claims

  • Black Hole was originally conceived by three college guys (Jerry, Joe, Jim) on a napkin at Brothers Brown bar in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in the early 1980s

    high confidence · Direct account from Eric Selak with supporting documentation and email from Joe dated 2005

  • Jerry and Joe received royalties exceeding one million dollars from Black Hole's production

    medium confidence · Eric Selak stated he saw the check personally and Jerry showed it to him; unverified but presented as firsthand observation

  • Critical Mass code is approximately 80% complete and matches Mars God of War code almost exactly

    high confidence · Eric Selak's technical analysis of the EEPROM chip and comparative testing during restoration

  • Critical Mass restoration took five years from discovery to completion

    high confidence · Eric Selak's direct account of the project timeline

  • The game had been sitting in a barn since 1982 before Eric discovered it in 2001

    high confidence · Eric Selak confirmed timeline; the machine was found in severely deteriorated condition with dead mice and damage

  • Gottlieb had leftover James Bond cabinets that were repurposed for Critical Mass housing

    high confidence · Eric Selak's documentation of the original cabinet origin

  • Williams and Bally both rejected Black Hole's design before Gottlieb accepted it

    medium confidence · Eric Selak's account based on historical documents and correspondence; Williams criticized the artwork

  • The original Critical Mass playfield woodwork was completed entirely by hand without a drill press

    high confidence · Eric Selak's description of Rick's craftsmanship over a four-month period

Notable Quotes

  • “this game isn't leaving our plan this is an awesome awesome concept we never heard of anything like this before”

    Gottlieb representative (paraphrased by Eric Selak) @ ~10:00 — Gottlieb's enthusiastic acceptance of Black Hole after Williams and Bally rejected it; key moment in the game's production history

  • “I saw the check with my own eyes Jerry showed me it it was over a million bucks swear to God”

    Eric Selak @ ~15:30 — Eric's claim about Black Hole royalties paid to the original designers; establishes the financial success of their work

  • “he threw this thing away so it doesn't exist this is the only picture I got left of it”

    Eric Selak (describing Dragon's Lair prototype) @ ~22:00 — Dragon's Lair was abandoned after Gottlieb decided to create Haunted House instead, destroying a historical prototype

  • “no way you need permission from Jerry and Joe the original designers to make any changes whatsoever”

    Gottlieb representative (paraphrased by Eric Selak) @ ~50:00 — Gottlieb's insistence on obtaining original designer approval for any modifications to Critical Mass

  • “you try to pull one over on Godly and you're playing with fire I guarantee”

    Eric Selak @ ~42:00 — Illustrates Gottlieb's aggressive protection of their intellectual property and trademarks

  • “it was way out of my league”

    Eric Selak (regarding playfield woodworking) @ ~60:00 — Eric acknowledging the specialized craftsmanship required for playfield reconstruction

  • “my mind was focused on this machine like an obsession terrible terrible way”

    Eric Selak @ ~85:00 — Describes the personal toll and obsessive nature of the five-year restoration project

  • “everything needed approval even the letter G got to have the registered trademark”

    Eric Selak — Illustrates the exhaustive approval process required for even minor design elements due to Gottlieb's intellectual property control

Entities

Eric SelakpersonJerry YinpersonJoepersonJimpersonRickpersonCritical MassgameBlack Holegame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Black Hole's commercial success and royalty payments ($1M+) to independent designers suggests strong market demand and financial viability of innovative pinball concepts in early 1980s; three designers achieved significant financial success on single title

    medium · Eric Selak claims to have witnessed check showing over one million dollars in royalties to Jerry and Joe; game was reissued as New Wave Toys replicade product decades later

  • ?

    community_signal: Eric Selak's presentation at Pintastic Expo includes invitation for attendees to ask detailed technical questions and examine the restored game in person; represents public sharing of expertise and historical documentation with collector community

    high · Eric Selak states 'I'm here to answer everything I possibly can about the game plus is once a lifetime opportunity at this show' and invites visitors to 'take pictures and ask a million questions' while examining the game electronics

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball restoration and historiography driven by small group of dedicated enthusiasts willing to invest thousands of dollars and years of labor to preserve obscure prototypes; Eric Selak spent $800+ on veneer alone plus five years of personal time

    high · Eric Selak paid for all materials out of pocket including $800 for burled maple veneer, specialized tooling, and 5 years of minimum 2-hour daily work despite full-time employment and personal health impacts

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Uncertainty remains about correct orientation of drop target letter layout; Eric Selak questions whether 'C' in 'CRITICAL MASS' should be positioned at top or bottom, indicating incomplete documentation of original designer intent

    low · Eric Selak states 'there's up for debate on this that I have the letter screwed up was C supposed to be at the top or C at the bottom I don't know' and successfully spelled 'MASS' correctly

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:06
good afternoon everybody we have been selected by Eric zelac who have the first showing outside of Pennsylvania well you'll get the whole history but the game has been sitting in Pennsylvania with a great story behind it a story that not all games made by Major manufacturers are designed inhouse and and this is a great example and it's also an example of a game that got turned down for some reason and I know there's been a lot of interest so Eric let's hear that story that we've been waiting so long to hear thank you Dave so my name is Eric celac I'm from York Pennsylvania and uh used to run the white rose game room show for 16 years it's still still goes on to this day uh but uh the factor of York and where I found the game is actually in Middletown Pennsylvania about an hour north of me and uh the three designers actually didn't start with critical mass it was just three college guys uh trying to come up with some kind of concept and just make a
1:39
game and what they actually came up with was black hole so you want Wonder okay well this is a got Le game you know how did they even start with this so there's a lot of little details to to go over and uh it's going to be a lot of little nitpick information but bear with me I'll try not to go too fast on this you know so yeah it's uh it's unscripted too
2:15
so if you're familiar with New Wave toys at all uh they make replicade video games and they're also doing a a pinball machine as well it's a it's a miniature pinball machine that you can purchase for 2 200 bucks it doesn't play it is gly black hole and as I'm scrolling down through here it shows some information about the black hole pinball machine released in October of 81 and the game designers are Adolf John and Terry okay well were they the designers of the black hole for got Le yes were they the original designers of the black hole
@ ~95:00
Dragon's Lairgame
Gottliebcompany
Mars God of Wargame
Haunted Housegame
Williamscompany
Ballycompany
Brothers Brownorganization
White Rose Game Room Showevent
New Wave Toyscompany
Pinball Resourcecompany
Pintastic Pinball & Game Room Expoevent
Daveperson
Pollockperson
  • ?

    design_philosophy: Critical Mass represents a lost era of designer-led innovation in pinball, where three independent engineers could pitch concepts directly to manufacturers and receive full production support with access to proprietary parts and technical documentation

    high · Gottlieb provided three-ring binder with hundreds of engineering drawings, allowed designers to order any parts needed, and championed the double-level concept as revolutionary

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Gottlieb's aggressive trademark and copyright enforcement extends even to minor design elements; approval required for individual letters, symbols, and cabinet art; company maintains active enforcement 40+ years after game production

    high · Eric Selak required explicit permission from Gottlieb for every design element; company threatened legal action over unauthorized copying of manuals; chip is copyrighted with UV-erasable sticker protection

  • ?

    leak_detection: Critical Mass existence and technical details were unknown to broader pinball community until Eric Selak's public presentation; game documents, code, and prototypes had been kept private for 20+ years

    high · Eric Selak describes finding the game in a barn and states 'most of these pictures nobody's ever seen'; Jerry kept game and related materials hidden; Dave introduces it as 'the first showing outside of Pennsylvania'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Playfield reconstruction required sourcing Gottlieb-licensed parts; aftermarket suppliers (Pinball Resource) hold licenses to distribute vintage Gottlieb components; parts availability is a constraint on restoration projects

    high · Eric Selak purchased drop target assembly 'from the pinball resource because they're the license licenser licensor whatever' for the eight-drop-target bank that had to be Gottlieb-branded

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Joe (Black Hole/Critical Mass co-designer) transitioned from Gottlieb employment to self-employed redemption game work; continued involvement in gaming industry but shifted from pinball to redemption sector

    medium · Eric Selak states Joe 'still works on certain Redemption games to this day' and is 'self-employed'; transition timing unclear but occurred between Black Hole (1981) and presentation date

  • ?

    product_concern: Prototype components stored since 1982 suffered significant deterioration; CPU circuit boards experienced battery acid damage making them unusable; original playfield suffered extensive mouse infestation and decay

    high · Eric Selak documented dead mice in lower playfield, battery acid eating through circuit boards, wiring harness damage, transformer damage from rodent waste, paint flaking

  • ?

    technology_signal: Critical Mass EEPROM code is only 80% complete, requiring reverse-engineering against Mars God of War code to identify closest functional match; missing 20% of programming suggests either incomplete development or partial code degradation

    high · Eric Selak's technical analysis identified Mars God of War as closest code match with 4-letter 'MARS MASS' correspondence and matching bonus light structure; notes designers may have copied partial code and abandoned completion

    • 3:10
    no black hole started off on a napkin at a Browns bar and pub in Harrisburg Pennsylvania where three college guys Jerry Jim and Joe you'll hear these names repeated throughout the the seminar here got this wild idea to uh come up with a black hole pinball machine so what you're looking at and most of these pictures nobody's ever seen uh is there pencil sketch of how to come up with a black hole Playfield how to put in a lower play field and what they're designed they actually had it suspended from the upper play by the way some very very crude artwork uh if you notice that the some of the stuff in the production Run game like the the the swirl up in the upper left hand corner actually had drop targets that you would actually hit but they didn't have enough room to put this stuff in uh and here's their full pencil sketch you can see the drop Target's a little bit
    4:34
    yeah no wonder they didn't have enough room to put all that stuff
    4:42
    in so they they wound up taking they wound up making a an actual game and uh why do I have this slide up here oh so they stopped at uh Brothers Brown the moment of black hole's conception did indeed happen in the early afternoon at Brothers Brown a bar in local night spot with a good selection of pinball machines anyway this was a an email that I got from Joe back in 2005 I was working on an article for a pinball magazine at the time and was in contact with him uh and I've already thought of one thing that I'll have di menion uh so this was this was Jerry Joe and Jim's prototype black hole no head no scoring uh I think they had some power to the flippers and maybe the bumpers and kickers but that was about it uh this shot this shot's pretty interesting but you can barely see it in the background but they built this game in Jerry's mother's kitchen
    6:05
    and so anyway they took this game to uh to Williams Williams said ah we're doing a double level Playfield game like Black Knight or jungle Lord and uh actually went to Bal and Val's like your artwork sucks you know we aren't interested in that neat concept then they went to got Le and got Le said this game isn't leaving our plan this is an awesome awesome concept we never heard of anything like this before so that's how it turned into to a production run
    6:44
    machine this was the original uh inter office correspondence for the black hole this was like the uh the test the testing compared to like at the bottom it says Williams jungle Lord and Val's ambrion you know they took this the black hole before they actually ran it in production and put it in the field again you'll have to get bear with me I know we're not the critical mass yet but we have to go go with the flow on this so Williams Pharaoh Stern Split Second you know received the lowest ratings well that's up to the godly people that are writing this enter office correspondence he can read between the lines on
    7:37
    that and uh here's uh some players that were interviewed in different cities and
    7:47
    towns and some of the people down at the bottom their names from got
    7:55
    Le and G Pollock yock that name is going to come up again near the very end uh so you you'll see why uh here's the earnings reports for the black hole I'll zoom in a little bit yeah nobody nobody's seen this stuff before but Jerry Joe and Jim did you know because it was really their machine that they they had the concept for so let me elaborate a little bit on Jerry Jerry is what I consider the talking head of the group actually he's more of the spokesperson but his job was to sell the concept I say he's the talking head he's he's to to sell the concept Joe is an engineer a designer through and through he still works on certain Redemption games uh to this day you know he's self-employed and uh unfortunately Jim he wound up uh just sort of not really getting into it anymore you know once a critical mass started you know he was like I got other stuff to do I'm out of college now I'm got to get with the program and start my life so he sort of disappeared well when you go to got Le with a concept machine and you decide that uh yeah you're going to make another game well how about uh how about we use your parts and we need the drawings so gotle actually gave them this was just one picture that Jerry left me take this is a three- ring binder full of hundreds of different prints and drawings this one says copyright 1953 on it this is just a kicker assembly and how to lay out the holes you know above and below the Playfield to actually make make a kicker circuit boards targets spot targets anything they wanted anything they wanted they just picked up the phone and called up gotle and said hey I need this all these parts it's ridiculous right you know you just it's hard to imagine so
    10:33
    I I probably do in a pile of paperwork that I've accumulated but for the presentation I didn't I didn't no no no you're you're fine hey oh yeah that that yeah they they they they they did uh yeah I can elaborate a little bit of what I've read uh so they would say something like the upper right drop Target Bank on black hole was the least favorite feature of the machine but the upper left eject hole people really like that for some reason I don't know that's that shot doesn't really do anything for me but uh yeah I guess when you know back in the 81 when the game came out you know they that was something that was that different interesting yeah yeah it was ridiculous yeah it's uh but that's a good question uh the second game they decided to make was this one and this is in the barn uh this was a it was was called Dragon's Lair and it was a three-level game this is the only picture that I asked Jerry if he still had this I need another like I need another hole in the head or another game to work on uh no he threw this thing away so it doesn't exist this is the only picture I got left of it's still sitting in the barn and uh oh yeah so one thing I forgot to mention so uh my email address at the time when I was running the show was black hole pinball at
    12:27
    AOL and when I was running the show I had my email address on the web page and my phone number and Jerry called me up one day and said hey can you work on a black hole pinball machine I said no yeah I've done two or three in my time well I got one it hasn't worked in 20 years okay so he brought the game down to me from Middletown down to York and I worked on it for six months this was a basket case it was completely dead and I got it working but I noticed the serial number was extremely high I've never seen a serial number so high in my life on on these games I didn't know it went up that high didn't know anything about it Jerry never L on to any of this stuff until I delivered the game back to him and he says hey come down to the barn I got something to show you and I saw this game and I was like what the heck's this and of course got Le said well we're already developing a three-level game so this Dragon layer machine you know yeah so they abandoned Dragon layer and godly came out with haunted
    14:00
    house so this was uh so they decided to build a critical mass pinball machine and this was one of the first paperwork items that Jerry had to deal with it's all legal tender you know this was their correspondence between Jerry's last name is Yin by the way that's why it says scly and Yin this was in April of 81 that they were going to hold on to the critical mass pinball machine and uh see if they were interested in what they had they were just doing Concepts you know little toys little features on the on the Playfield you know just to just to mess around sort of the wind was out of their sale when they when they abandoned Dragon's Lair you know they were just trying for something they you they made they made some good money on on the black hole they got royalties out of it and uh I saw the check I mean I saw the check with my own eyes Jerry showed it to me it was over a million bucks swear to God it was like are you serious yeah yeah it was it that anyway that was a
    15:26
    flashback I do I actually darkened it up and and put it down to it looks like January 13th of '
    15:35
    82 I had to get Jerry's permission to make photoc copies of this stuff you know because when you're dealing with the got Le name everything has to be just right you know you try to hose over got Le in any way shape or form like you can't copy a manual and put it on eBay you know they'll come after you this this entity is still there registered trademark copyrights and all that stuff you you try to pull one over on Godly and you're playing with fire I guarantee so this was what critical mass looked like you can see the cupboards in the background that's still Jerry's mom's
    16:19
    kitchen must be nice to build a game in in Mom's Kitchen so I'll try to zoom in a little bit here for you this is way this is what it was when they now they had the programming they had the computer software to to make the code and they had one soundboard in it and it just had a little beep of sound and one speech line which the game I still have the game that's over here in the Showcase room now still has that plus a couple other speech lines and uh so this is the way I found it in
    17:11
    barn it's sat since 82 I found this in 2001 yeah yeah right this is this is a Rat's Nest in the lower Playfield there's dead mice in there yeah yeah this that's that's mice pee all over the
    17:48
    it oh it's terrible it's terrible now who in their right mind would actually look at this and say I can rebuild that
    18:03
    I wish I had somebody standing next to me saying what are you thinking were you smoking something before you came up here you know now the reason I found this was Jerry still never L on to him even working on the black hole or his group or anything being involved with Godly he just had to sitting there since
    18:33
    oh yeah I got some more juicy pictures for you see what the mites did to the Transformer I guess wax paper tastes good they got poo all over the place too what a wreck the original cabinet was a James Bond cabinet I don't think James Bond sold too well back in the day because it didn't use like a a ball feature was based on time and well anyway got Le had tons of these leftover James Bond cabinets and that's what they they put it
    19:14
    in and here's some homemade wiring under the Playfield as uh there it is a little cleaned up still has the mice nest in the in the bottom lower
    19:43
    Playfield so I'll I think most of these pictures are just uh random shots of it's still in the barn you can see the wood rafter next to
    20:07
    yeah so those two displays in the sitting on my workbench reminds me so when Jerry told me that uh he was involved with the black hole and the critical mass and got Le in general he said that him and Joe got the last two black hole pinball machines off the production and that explained why the serial numbers were so high and I don't I tried to find the picture I took a picture of this and I couldn't find it searched in vain those two displays have serial numbers on them and they're consecutive so somebody stole a display out of Jerry stole out of Joe's game a display or vice versa I yeah anyway so they were the last two two games in in the each go of the black hole oh that's the display board that's what that looked like that's a mess so now I'm getting I know not everybody's into the electronics or no electronics here so you know if you want to talk more about electronics and everything hey I'm more than happy to answer your questions on that we can go over to the next room and open up the game and you can take pictures and ask a million questions that's fine I'm I'm here I'm here to answer everything I possibly can about the game plus is once a lifetime opportunity at this show so uh so code code for a game is in an eom just it's just a chip it has the code for the game and then the bottom of critical mass I found one chip and one soundboard with sound effect and a speech line on and the code wasn't complete it's about it was about 80% complete so you know so now the the fun begins you got to keep everything got because these these chips these eoms are copyrighted material you know and the sticker that would normally be over this window which is how you erase the code as you blast UV light into the chip and it erases the code the programming it's not like a USB thumb drive like we have today I think this chip holds 16k of memory not Meg not gig not even close to terabyte if you would have said the word terabyte to an engineer back in those days their head would explode this is 16k and it's copyrighted the tape actually blocks the light from erasing the chip so what I had to do is figure out according to gotle if I wanted their name on the game I had to be within a couple years of when their game was actually made so I got a pinside website is a great place to go to to find chronological order of games so okay you can see where black hole and critical mass are you know off to the left there and the years actually go from the bottom up so 81 to 82 on the top on the house so knowing that so the the one picture of the lower Playfield has all the bonus lights to it so there's my job to figure out what game is going to be the closest match only having 80% of the code what game's going to be the best fit that's going to be a goly copyrighted registered trademark code for game that's going to be so close to critical mass I just couldn't plug a chip in no manual the wiring harness was all chewed up anyway so let's start at the top taunted house well that doesn't even have bonus lights it has a display for the bonus on the lower Playfield you know it's called Monster bonus so right away that's that's out of the question uh let's try another one let's try black hole well we're in the same spot that's not going to work uh you know they had eight drop Targets in the middle of of critical mass and uh four drop targets at the top uh and haunted house didn't have really much of anything except on the upper play field and this game black hole has nine drop targets all together five and four and some on the lower Playfield well let's try another one how about volcano o we're getting closer okay well only got five drop targets at the top and five on the right uh and bonus lights that's that's sort of close uh but but I don't know what to do with the critical mass don't have a ski ball Lane at the
    25:39
    top so we finally get to Mars God of War M A RS the first thing that popped out at me m SS oh okay four letters Mars Mass all right let's uh let's try something here okay so hey we have the bonus bonus times and the bonus count they're they're a match so and it's a six-digit game too okay so that's the game I chose to actually get the closest to critical mass so I figured and when I actually hooked up the eom and tried started experimenting with like a fake play of critical mass and what I wanted it to do that 80% was almost exactly 100% of what Mars God of War was so I could tell okay they probably ripped an eom chip out of a Mars God of War somewhere and plugged it in their programming device and said okay well we got most of this done pH okay we don't have to worry about too much code do we you know well I guess I only got still got to 80% and that was about it so these next pictures start at the top left Playfield work their way to the right and then we go down to the left and to the right again so you can see how I'm trying to incorporate Mars God of War lighting and other items into critical mass like the four uh green lights there for the W it's going to become Mass Target which they actually had penciled over underneath the underneath those green uh lamp inserts has the word mass on and uh I'm trying to lay out some aluminum track and try to figure out how to turn this thing into a playable game and uh so I took pictures of this and I sent it to got Le and goly was like no way you need permission from Jerry and Joe the original designers to make any changes
    28:13
    whatsoever emails phone calls you know trying to get Jerry's and Joe's permission which they were like yeah that's fine whatever you want to do is fine with us we could care less okay thank you you know but you could see you know and trying to get the approval from gotle and Jerry and Joe or you know it was just so so difficult this is what I want to do well I don't know what your what's your plans for the lower Playfield what are you doing so anyway these pictures show me like filling in the original Playfield with wood putty and laying out some kind of design that they were happy with that I could get sort of get away with in a way but they were they could give me approval for uh yeah just just a total total mess but I'm using the original Playfield so so here's another question I get a lot of this so it's not original it's not the original Playfield no would you want the mice piece Playfield with the paint flaking off of it to bring to a show and you know have somebody play
    29:41
    no oh that was just the top side I forgot I had bottom side pictures too I had to rip out their wiring harness and figure out how to lay stuff
    29:54
    out that drop Target bank is an eight drop Target bank that's a gly part has to be all gly Parts circuit boards Parts everything has to be gotle if you're if I'm going to put their get permission to get the gotle name on that drop Target Bank came out of a hot shots and I had to buy the parts from the pinball resource because they're the license lensey licensor whatever whole bunch of legal
    30:28
    stuff so where do you start you buy two sheets of 4ot by 8ot burled Maple veneer plywood they cost 800 bucks for two sheets and you have to get picky because some of them have knots in them well you don't want to have knots on the Playfield yeah so and you experiment how to drill holes for the lamp inserts now my buddy Rick that I've known from high school he did all the woodwork he did all the Playfield stuff that's not me I'm I'm nowhere close to doing woodworking Electronics I'm okay with but I left him mess with the blank playfields uh he lived in Philadelphia at the time and we started laying this Playfield out by measuring from the top down on the original Playfield he would measure the the top down and I'd throw a number out for like say the 1,000 bonus light on the lower play field 24 and 1116 of an inch and he'd measure that on the flank play field mik a mark I'd come from the left side and I'd say six and 58 he'd make a mark and he'd write on the Playfield in pencil that's 1,000 bonus left and we stayed up all night till 300 in the morning and transferred the Playfield
    32:09
    over and he started doing his uh wood cutting skills he did this all by
    32:18
    hand he had everything laid out exactly where where we wanted and the lamp inserts you just can't you just can't go out to your local Home Depot or Lowe's and buy a wood Bing spade bit and expect a lamp insert to fit in there exactly right if it's one inch I guarantee it's not one
    32:53
    inch so what you need to do is buy an adjustable spade bit that's why I put this in here because this is the kind of tooling Rick needed I I paid for everything out of my own pocket including the tooling and the time for him to do this but I it was way out of my league so you actually have to dial this thing in to the exact you know size and we we would take the lamp insert and take a crab Mallet and tap it in and if it was snug we knew we had it well he knew he had it I didn't know what he was doing he he had this Playfield for for four months you know and I'm just trying to work out the electronics at this
    33:47
    time this is more of Rick's handiwork so this is this is the Playfield as it's sort of coming to
    34:03
    rails for me and all the Angles and everything he did this all by hand he has no drill press he he this the round the round the window that you see the lower Playfield sort of peeking up that on the right hand side he did this by hand with his with a router I mean this guy's good yeah just just just yeah I'm swear to God yeah yeah he once I gave him the dimensions I let him do all the work yeah with the thickness of the window and everything like that
    34:43
    yeah I'm not I'm not lying he he did all this by hand you see the nod in the in the portion of the upper left hand side that's why we had to buy two sheets one did not have a knot this one did but we picked a spot where the lower Playfield wouldn't show not you know fuss butts trying to get it right there's the uh that was the original one that I sanded down just to get an idea of what it would look like and it's slowly coming to
    35:18
    life and there it is in the in the game by this time I had most of the electronics done but didn't start any wiring yet in fact I didn't even undercoat or spray paint the bottom primer yet so this is how you spray paint the bottom primer you get some Cork and you get some gray spray paint and I did this in my backyard and I just spray painted the underneath of the playfields and started putting the parts on one at a time each lamp socket new screws you know I'm a fuss ass can't help myself it's all stainless you know go For Broke you're going to spend money Spend It For the Love of the
    36:09
    hobby so there's the underside of the Playfield sitting in the game so one thing I didn't mention is the whole time it took me to from beginning to end was five years right now we're about year two and a half maybe three and uh slowly methodically trying to figure out out how to wire the thing and and make it somewhat playable to the public it was that point in time I turned into the biggest
    36:44
    making mistakes at work bad eating habits bad sleeping habits you know order out for Domino's Pizza have them deliver it to the back door my mind was focused on this machine like an obsession terrible terrible way to you know I I did it I did snap myself out of most of it but I still at least worked on it every day for a minimum of like two hours because I couldn't couldn't help myself you know it really sucks when you you realize it's 8 o'clock at night and you haven't eaten any dinner and you get one last pizza showed up by Domino's and it's like huh now it's 1: in the morning morning I got to get three hours sleep and go to
    37:36
    work no you don't you don't it's yeah you you got this thought process and you might have like three or four things going on at the same time I got this I I'll remember where I'm at and doing this wiring but I really need to get these lamp sockets in the head where I wanted to create this atom spinning symbol or whatever and then you work on this and then you you go to work and you come home and it's like where the hell am I I didn't write anything down I don't even anyway so the lettering on the cabinet I had to pay for this font style and I printed out these letters and the symbols on 8 and 1 12 by 11 sheets of paper and I cut out anything in black with a razor blade this took me a long long time this was just a cabinet design I asked Joe if it would work oh yeah anything science related you know stick and ball atoms and all that good stuff yeah that that's fine yeah like okay good everything needed
    38:53
    approval even the letter G got to have the registered trademark so this is all of the 8 and 1 half by 11 sheets of paper taped together with painters tape and I would spray paint the
    39:13
    cabinet uh let's see the main cabinet is blue so blue goes on first and then I did the black and then I did the white critical mass I had to lay all this stuff out all held together with paint tape and held all the 8 and half by 11 sheets of paper together and that's where he come up with the cabinet art so there's the cabinet art
    39:44
    yay and we're still working on the wiring harness still being the world's biggest
    39:54
    but I felt like I got one thing done anyway I got the cabinet done woohoo and now it's time to lay the stuff out on the upper Playfield so here's some marks now I'm finally transferring all these are new parts by the way everything's brand new parts I forgot to mention that so let me back up a little bit so when I picked up critical mass I asked Jerry about more of his story with the black hole and if he had any paperwork to go along with it that's where Gil hollock paper from 82 I got the copy of that and then he said well I got Parts you know because we ordered parts from got Le all this time you know to build more games for them and I said oh where are they at well in my mom's garage they've been sitting in there since 82 too so I said okay he says well show up in a couple weeks so I showed up with the company van and went into the garage and had all new plastic posts all new metal guide rails all that stuff was in perfect shape still in the bag and everything but here's something that'll make you cry so we get to the circuit boards and I'm like oh cool brand new CPU boards still in the got Le hologram you know bubble pack and all that stuff and open it up for the first time and it's got battery acid damage eating holes through it and everything it's like this is junk couldn't use it it's it's a crying shame you Unfortunately they really just dropped you know the ball so to speak on working on the game and everything's set and Jerry told me said gotle never asked for any of this stuff back not even the three- ring binder with all the the drawings and everything it so it's still here if you want to tackle the project go ahead oh sure yeah sure I'll tackle the project and beat my brains out so anyway we're getting closer to building things I had to get steel cut and uh all new parts put in so now you can see where I'm starting to lay things out a little bit better than the woodfill original Playfield that I had I'm just sort of going down the
    42:42
    list laying everything out me back up one so if you notice the red lamp inserts don't have any letters on them yet I'm about ready to make a major screw up here
    43:01
    so I'm getting the Playfield laid out putting things in place and I could actually play the game at this point there it is being sort of being played or at least it's in a track mode so to speak and it does work I had to do the apron so I found an apron uh in my former job that I was at when I was working working on critical mass I was a field service technician for a bunch of different places that did heat treating for turbines and uh medical equipment uh calibration process control is what I was into so I I got a chance to go to a bunch of different businesses such as Harley-Davidson uh uh let's see voice hydro which makes hydroelectric generator turbines anyway the cool thing was I was able to after my job was done to get access to certain things like a glass bead machine so you find a an apron that looks like crap and you glass bead it and then you get the paint and then you get the decals because there was no way I was going to paint the apron and get the decals and lay on one color at a time and try to do these Jagged edges with the black without screwing this up was just I got lucky I got lucky oh yeah well here's a the the card that would normally tell you what your replays is actually has the chronological list of all the people involved from 82 to 2006 it's on the game you can take a picture of so now I get to realize H I don't have any extra ball don't have special I don't have shoot again I don't even have the words critical mass on so okay this is what I want I had some labels made up the drop targets I got those they're they're like a mask and on the right hand side is is more more or less labels itself well labels never made it on but the other the other mask stuff did so I had to tear every off of the Playfield why didn't I do this the first time I don't know maybe because I wasn't thinking and I there's up for debate on this that I have the letter screwed up was C supposed to be at the top or C at the bottom I don't know and I got Mass right at least it didn't spell it backwards so here we go again anything that needs to be spray painted black get out the eight and a half 11 by 11 sheets of paper and pretty much coat 99% of the Playfield except what you want to spray paint black okay so while I was spray painting black I started working on the head of the game and the electronics which I'll I'll skip over I can explain this stuff if you see me stop me whatever we'll we'll get into this it had to be original gly cir boards and code if it wasn't the original stuff or as close to original as possible got Le would have never let me put the name on it and even Jerry asked me why would you want even got Le's name on it well you don't know until you ask you know it was a goly you got the paperwork to prove it you did the same thing with black hole you I'm just trying to finish up what you guys sort of stop working on you know if I can do it great if not it'll turn into a home brew or home brew hybrid or whatever you want to
    47:15
    call yeah the wiring I I bought two junk pinball machines just for the wiring harness alone uh a force two and forget what the other one was it too long
    47:40
    glass uh I think the Playfield was out getting clear coded at this point I'm not sure but anyway I had to come up with a design for the backl I asked Jerry did you have an original design he says we did I saidwell when I come up to pick up the parts uh yeah I would really like to have that he searched in vain couldn't find it couldn't find it at all he couldn't even remember what it was that was more of Joe's thing you know Joe was the designer Jerry was just the spokesperson so you know he but Jerry kept all the paperwork anything legal tender that's what Jerry held on to that was his job so I'm trying to match up the features of the back box like the scores score displays and the cutouts and everything game over shoot again and the name of the game so this is just a piece of paper that I was using uh to line up everything and if the cutouts were too high I had an art shop come up with come up with this you know still had the the same logo and the got Le logo and and the window cutouts but I had to cut all those windows out of a sheet of paper and put it in the the push it against the glass and actually put the back glass in so to speak it's just a piece of paper and make sure things got lined up I'm sort of jumping around here but uh since I didn't have all the code necessary to make it work 100% I had to buy a PLC that's what that tan brick is is on the left so PLC stands for programmable logic controller use a computer to hook it up and you write what they call ladder logic it's just a form of timers and normally open contacts and relay outputs like you can see the relays uh to the right of that and I had put labels on them so I didn't know anything about PLC programming but I bought one and Christmas Eve I got on this website called Mr plc.com typed in the micr logixs 1000 for an Allen Bradley and taught myself how to
    50:18
    program at this point the Playfield is clear coded that's seven layers of Automotive clear coat that a buddy of mine from mechanicburg uh Bill Heatherly he actually did the clear coat for that and I was running on a deadline it was coming up to the 10th anniversary of the white rose game room show and I had invited Jerry Joe and Jim to show up
    50:54
    and um bill that did the clear coat says hey I got it done you got I got it done two months before your show but don't put anything on it for two months what do you mean well what what what Bill I'm totally oblivious to what he's about ready to tell me he's like it's not set up yet it has to cure it's going to take six to eight weeks you start playing this it's going to start dimpling all over the place it's going to turn into a golf ball you tighten it down it's GNA like ooze out the clear coat's going to ooze out from underneath the post that you're going to tighten down so that was the hardest part was just waiting and I had about two weeks to throw everything together and make sure it
    51:48
    played yeah I do I do have a funky memory of I had a 94 Honda Civic and I had both playfields in the back seat and the fumes were coming off of this thing it was 30 degrees out in the middle you know for whatever reason I'm driving down the highway getting high as a
    52:18
    Kut so glad to get the Playfield out of the car oh no no it was it was bad I think I got sick for a few days too but funny store anyway uh so once I got the game completed yes I build a manual for the game with all the rubber ring sizes and the lamp lamp assignments for the lower
    52:47
    Playfield I'm G to skim over this I got the manual over in the other room too open it up take a look at it I I shouldn't say I don't care I don't mind you know this game's here for you guys to enjoy too you know and ask questions you know and there's some other really nice games over in the Showcase room as well you got to check them out so anyway I made a manual for it blah blah blah switch
    53:18
    Matrix and the manual looks just like a Godly manual it has the same font stop we go through yeah I literally I I did copy part of a manual but every letter I needed to make you know to I don't have that on this picture I don't think no well like the switch Matrix like like the word critical C critical wherever it is uh a andl drop targets I Inc drop targets that's an interesting thing so when you hit I only had four lamps to work with for uh Mars God of War for the four drop targets well they had eight lamps for the word critical so all I did was just wire the two Targets in series so both lights light up at the same time so yeah it's it is what it is yeah yeah because it looks weird because if you hit four targets nothing lights up until you hit the other Target then they both light but I was you know I couldn't I had no way of changing the programming or the code or anything like that but every little letter I did this in Microsoft Paint I would copy and paste every letter and line it up yeah I know I'm nuts nuts in the head but it was all for the love of the hobby so anyway here's a couple pictures of the finished clear coded
    54:59
    Playfield and uh there's the back glass uh I got uh so a couple things in this in this back glass is that's a h that's a h truck and uh the on the right hand side are playing blocks that kids use uh Bob did all the artwork for this and uh on the right are are the White Tanks they're just a paper plate with the edge ribs uh sort of Photoshopped in there quick we couldn't use you know actual products we had to come up with something original you know again you know so anyway there was there's finished game uh I'm G to get to something else here oh yeah so I've been trying to donate this game to the Pinball Hall of Fame and haven't heard anything so if you don't have a will get one because you can get an executive to your will and they have to execute whatever you have and no this sounds like I'm being a lawyer but uh I'm gonna say that if if Bob fesan the guy that owns the got Le copyrights or the Pinball Hall of Fame doesn't want the game will blow it up on YouTube with explosives as a live
    56:25
    broadcast if I can't have it you can't have it yeah and and it's that's in my will that's actually out of my will I'm not lying so you haven't seen the video that TNT did Todd Tucky and I and Jerry we actually did uh a video at the York show about seven years ago uh it's a number 1197 check it out uh Rick Mason he did all the Playfield work uh hopefully later on today I will start posting something to Rick that we had the little seminar I'll put something on there if you want to jump in and add your comments that's that would be great I think you'd freak
    57:11
    out also the same with Joe uh Joe like I said he was the engineer of the group uh he still does photography product designer and everything but take a look at this he has High friends in high places Steve Richie George Gomez Roger sharp those are the friends that come up on his Facebook page I'll do the same thing for him too you know I'll tell him that I had the seminar if you want to add your comments do the same thing uh this is also about him uh game design is one of his uh things and Bill Heatherly I'll do the same thing he did the clear coat uh let's see here I don't want to mess this up so back to this screen we saw pinside had critical mass blah blah blah and if you clip click on pinside and you click on critical mass you actually see the design team was Jerry Jim and Joe so it's official let's see here's a funny one I don't know what the hell this comes from Bob Bob fesan in 2005 I me mentioned Gil name's going to come up again well I still didn't have his approval I still didn't have Bob's approval from got Le to even do anything with this machine yet he had just a next day after he got my emails of the pictures of the Playfield and the game and the cabinet he says oh I'm going to take these to my meeting with Gil he was having lunch with him the next day since his name was on the original paperwork from 82 that tied him into having approval as well so just when you think you're all over and done with this you know the good folks that got Le still get in the
    59:19
    way and this is this is my licensing paper I'm not going to dwell too much on this I know I'm running I'm running real short on time uh this is just me it it's all lawyer lawyer talk I'm not going to bore you to death with any of this stuff but it's two pages worth of lency this license sorder that uh and and the uh the official signatures had to be notorized all that good stuff so it finally became like an official Prototype game at that point the date was June 14th a day after my birthday
    60:00
    okay uh so here's here's one of Joe's paperwork emails it's not not an email this before email this was 81 this was Joe he had his own place called ad Factory in Harrisburg this was from Valley has B letterhead on it this was from the vice president of marketing saying hey I heard about your black hole experience uh boy I'd really like to know if you'd like to come to work for us I'd be more than happy to sit down with you and we talk about future developments on on games well sort of lost out on that so anyway before I get to the next slide I do have some things to hand
    60:59
    so the first person to raise their hand with the correct answer if you were paying attention what day is my
    61:13
    birthday I think I saw your hand go up first yeah uh no no I'll let you uh I'll let let you open it up if you want to well I I guess I can tell you the paper cutout that I used to line up the back glass this is it and this is licensed by gotle I just got these two weeks ago yeah it's the the uh the the things still continue with the licensing on this mess it says not for sale and it has got Le development copyright blah blah blah on the back it has this Show's name and date and the year on the back of it too and they're all numbered most I have five other ones that I'll hand out on Sunday uh I think around noon time or so next question so I mentioned Middletown Pennsylvania what famous event happened in Middletown
    62:20
    Pennsylvania and Jim you're not you're you're you're you're hit yeah you got it which is why I didn't bring up this slide because this is this is this is Joe's email that said it's interesting to note that critical mass was practically built within sight of three my is
    63:02
    one thing I didn't mention and this is going to be this going to be number two number two of 10 is uh so a lot of the photographs that I took were actual photos on film with my Pentax camera or Polaroids back in the day even up to 06 you know because uh you know digital cameras and cell phones were around by then what year was the first iPhone
    63:48
    yeah this is more fun than I thought if you want those autograft I can do that too but not necessary it's not necessary okay so this one doesn't have anything to do with the game or anything but it has to deal with the location so I mentioned Middletown and I mentioned uh Harrisburg so this is a Mechanicsburg is a town about five minutes across from Middletown across the Susana River what famous singer comes from Mechanicsburg
    64:26
    Pennsylvania I will accept accept either the name of the band or his
    64:41
    yeah no no it is poison he got it way way in the back air he got poison poison of Brett Michaels Brett Michaels anyway that that's all I have folks if you got any questions please ask me I'm here all weekend