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Episode 335 - Interview with Jeffrey Lawton and Robert Medl 1-29-16

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·54m 9s·analyzed·Feb 9, 2016
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Bally bingo design flaws: timer circuit change caused payouts to fail and machines to burn up.

Summary

Jeffrey Lawton, a bingo pinball historian and expert, discusses critical design flaws in Bally's bingo machine lineup with podcast host and Robert Medl. The conversation focuses on engineering mistakes—particularly the shift from a 40-step to 8-step timer circuit that caused mid-payout failures and component burnout—and explores how rapid innovation without feedback mechanisms led to cascading problems. Lawton also reflects on game complexity, player preferences, and feature design across multiple Bally bingo titles.

Key Claims

  • Carnival Queen was the last game with a 40-step timer circuit; Laguna Beach was the first with an 8-step circuit.

    high confidence · Jeffrey Lawton, direct historical statement about Bally game specifications

  • The 8-step timer circuit caused machines to stop mid-payout on large wins (200-600 games), risking component burnout and fire.

    high confidence · Jeffrey Lawton, detailed technical explanation with personal repair experience

  • Experienced players could hear the timer stepping mid-rack and manage risk; casual players often lost games or caused equipment damage.

    high confidence · Jeffrey Lawton, based on customer calls and field experience

  • Bally likely had no feedback mechanism in the 1960s-70s to surface player problems to engineers.

    medium confidence · Podcast host speculation; Jeffrey Lawton agrees based on observation that the design flaw was never addressed

  • Gaiety (Magic Pockets) was more complex than Variety, and some experienced players preferred Variety because moving numbers across rows was too complicated.

    high confidence · Jeffrey Lawton, customer anecdote from his sales experience

  • Yacht Club required operator maintenance of lit lines on the card; dim lights caused player confusion about winning combinations.

    high confidence · Jeffrey Lawton, technical observation and design critique

  • Showtime was the first game to introduce the 9-1-2-11-15 (top) and 1-19-23-24-8 (vertical) standard number layout, adopted across all later Magic Screen games except Twist.

    high confidence · Jeffrey Lawton, detailed historical claim about Bally game standards

  • Palm Springs allowed players to acquire extra balls before using the hold feature; Surf Club did not allow this, making Palm Springs more powerful.

    high confidence · Jeffrey Lawton and Robert Medl, gameplay mechanics comparison

Notable Quotes

  • “The single biggest issue was when they changed the timer circuit. Carnival Queen was the last game that had what's called a 40-step timer circuit... Laguna Beach... they went to an eight step timer circuit.”

    Jeffrey Lawton @ early — Frames the central technical problem discussed throughout the episode—a critical Bally design failure that cascaded into multiple issues.

  • “In really, really bad cases the machine will actually catch on fire.”

    Jeffrey Lawton @ mid-early — Emphasizes the severity of the 8-step timer flaw, showing safety risk was not theoretical but real.

  • “Now you think back 50 years ago, what was the feedback mechanism from the player to the operator to the distributor to the manufacturer? And apparently, this isn't one thing that got through that chain or else you think they would have addressed it.”

    Podcast host @ mid — Articulates the root cause of Bally's design oversight—lack of structured feedback loops in the analog era.

  • “Jeffrey I just the thing is, I can't figure out how to move those numbers across the top row along with the numbers I've got and make the best combination and it's too complicated for me.”

    Customer (quoted by Jeffrey Lawton) @ mid — Demonstrates why complex features like Magic Pockets in Gaiety failed with casual players—cognitive overload.

  • “You made a winner, but you feel like you were cheated.”

    Jeffrey Lawton @ late-mid — Captures the frustration of hold feature mechanics in games like Palm Springs and Surf Club—design could feel punitive despite working as intended.

  • “The flaw, you get before the fourth ball, okay, shoot three balls, your squares lock up... But you can't score your winners until your squares are locked. Big problem, my opinion.”

    Jeffrey Lawton @ late — Identifies a structural weakness in early corner-square games (Broadway) that Bally had to retool in Nightclub.

  • “Here in Cincinnati, I have two types of players. You have the player who knows the more elaborate games, Magic Screen with OK, Golden Gate with the purple section, or you have the people that are Ohio Dime game players. They want six cards, they want to light the six cards, and they want to light the numbers. They don't want to burden their brain.”

Entities

Jeffrey LawtonpersonRobert MedlpersonBallycompanyCarnival QueengameLaguna BeachgameGaietygameGaytimegameVarietygame

Signals

  • ?

    historical_signal: Detailed timeline of Bally bingo game design progression from 40-step to 8-step timer circuits, number layout standardization (Showtime as inflection point), and feature innovations (corner squares, after-fifth-ball mechanics).

    high · Jeffrey Lawton's systematic walkthrough of games from Carnival Queen through Bounty, with specific technical specifications and design intent.

  • ?

    product_concern: 8-step timer circuit in post-Laguna Beach games caused mid-payout shutdowns and component burnout (search lock coil, step-up coils), with documented cases of machine fires.

    high · Jeffrey Lawton: 'I've had so many customers and friends who have owned bingo games call me and say... the machine is not running... I smell something that doesn't smell good... in really, really bad cases the machine will actually catch on fire.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Bally's shift to 8-step timer attempted to reduce motor stress but created new failure modes; designers did not anticipate mid-payout timer stepping during replay cam indexing.

    high · Jeffrey Lawton explains the engineering intent and the unintended consequence: 'The timer circuit isn't allowed to continue to work except when the replay cams index...'

  • ?

    community_signal: Bingo machine market splits between casual players who prefer simple mechanics (Ohio dime games: 6 cards, light numbers) and experienced players who engage with complex features (Magic Screen, OK, Golden Gate).

    high · Robert Medl: 'Here in Cincinnati, I have two types of players... Ohio Dime game players... They don't want to burden their brain.'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.162

0:00
What's that sound? It's 4 Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to 4 Amusement Only. We've got Jeffrey Long. Hello. And Robert Mayle. Hello. How are you guys doing tonight? Fine. Well, I'm out visiting with him in Ohio and we're here at Jeffrey's. Jeffrey was kind enough to have us over and we're gonna play some bingos but first when to talk some bingo so Jeffrey where we left off with our last interview we were talking about how Bali had kind of become a victim of their own success they were making changes so rapidly that they were having problems it seems like keeping up with documentation and there were other issues So, what are your thoughts on this? Well, the single biggest issue was when they changed the timer circuit. Carnival Queen was the last game that had what's called a 40-step timer circuit and that means that the timing unit actually had to step 40 times before it would tilt the game. The game. And the Laguna Beach, which followed Carnival Queen further on down the line. I can't speak about Ballerina and Sun Valley because I'm not sure about those two. But Laguna Beach, which was the first okay game, they went to an eight step timer circuit. And the reasoning, I guess, was to try to save the motors because that would shut the motors off after a I don't actually know that that's the reason, that's just an assumption. The problem that caused was that if you were playing a Laguna Beach or any one of the later bingo games beyond that all the way through Bounty and you had the pleasure of winning A large hit. 300 games, in some cases 200 games, but 450 games, 600 games. You were in danger of the machine actually stopping in the middle of the payout. And those who listen to this podcast, there's probably hundreds of you who are saying, Boy, I know that. But what would happen is, your game would be Happily talking off replays and all of a sudden it would just stop. So if I'm a player, Jeffrey, and I'm on location, what's my recourse? You have to hit the R button real fast because that resets the timer. So before it times out I have to hit the R button? Yes, or right after it times out. Now, an obvious conclusion is to say, well, why would they Timers are allowed to continue to work if the timer is going to be allowed to continue to work too. The answer to that is the timer circuit isn't allowed to continue to work. Except when the replay cams index which is what's counting your replays goes from the 12th position through index back to position 1. If you're in positions 1 through 12, the timer cannot step. It's only for that minimal one or two second gap between the 12th step and the first step of the next cycle that the timer can step. Now, people that have bingo in their blood like I do, when you're racking a game up, you can actually hear the timer step in the middle of the rack. A.U.B.H.R.O.A.P.A.R.A.T.Y.Z.E.R.A.T.Y.R.A.R.A.T.Y.R.A.P.A.P.A.R.A.T.Y.R.A.P.A.P.A.R.A.T.Y.R.A.T.Y. The game will play. Now, knowing that, an experienced player will be savvy to the sounds and say, okay, when I'm racking a big hit, I've got to stay with the game. But I've had so many customers and friends who have owned bingo games call me and say, you know, I was racking up a big game. My wife called me. I went upstairs. I came downstairs. The machine is not running. It's making a horrible noise and I smell something that doesn't smell good. And many times it's too late. Because either the search lock coil is burned up or one of the step up coils on either the replay counter or the replay unit itself may very well be burned up. In really, really bad cases the machine will actually catch on fire. Right, and I think I actually read about this on Phil's site. Yes. He talked about the problem and he put a couple solutions up, one of which is here's Jeffrey. And it was from someone else I don't recall. But I'll back up real quick, just because I have a circus queen, carnival queen. So you're saying when we go to fix that one, I have to keep in mind that if the timer does step all the way up, it will tilt and it's not available to play. That's correct. So if I'm playing and I'm thinking for a long time, I want to hit a button. Well, the difference between that and the others is, well, does Carnival Queen have the eight step? No. Yeah, it's got the forty step. Oh, okay, okay. So you got minutes to think about. Oh, okay, okay. Alright. You make a good point. With Carnival Queen and older games, Carnival Queen, Beach Time, Sun Valley, Going Back Down the Line, the game will tilt after the timer reaches forty steps. Now if you're playing your game and you want to go for extra balls, but for some reason you have to leave the game

United Games focused on non-bingo features (e.g., letter names, hole drops) more than Bally, which may have contributed to their business failure.

medium confidence · Jeffrey Lawton, based on research for his book and hearsay

  • Parade was the last game with double/triple/quadruple extra line scoring before Big Show introduced triple deck corner scoring.

    medium confidence · Jeffrey Lawton, historical game progression claim

    • Robert Medl (implied from context) @ late — Reveals the market segmentation in bingo machines—complexity appeals to different player demographics and regions.

  • “I played this game when I was in college. I played this game with my father. I sat and watched my father play this game. I've got to have one. Doesn't matter what the features are.”

    Jeffrey Lawton @ late-mid — Explains the nostalgia-driven segment of the collector market—emotional attachment trumps mechanical features.

  • “So it's almost like extra balls on demand.”

    Robert Medl @ late-mid — Captures why Palm Springs' hold feature design was valued—it gave players perceived agency and retries.

  • “I would take and it took me and three small boys to carry the coin box into the office to run the nickels on the counter”

    Jeffrey Lawton @ mid — Anecdote about 'Pinball George' illustrates high-volume player wear on machines and operator recovery procedures in real locations.

    • Yacht Club
    game
    Miami Beachgame
    Showtimegame
    Nightclubgame
    Broadwaygame
    Paradegame
    Key Westgame
    Palm Springsgame
    Surf Clubgame
    Magic Screengame
    Sun Valleygame
    Cypress Gardensgame
    Golden Gategame
    United Gamescompany
    Beach Timegame
    Touchdowngame
    For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcastorganization
    Pinball Georgeperson

    design_innovation: Palm Springs hold feature allowed extra ball acquisition before hold use, creating perceived player agency ('extra balls on demand'); Surf Club design did not permit this, making it mechanically weaker.

    high · Jeffrey Lawton and Robert Medl comparative gameplay analysis; Medl: 'that's a wonderful feature because you feel like... you can shoot three bad ones and you'll get another shot at it.'

  • ?

    business_signal: United Games competitor allegedly failed due to cost of non-bingo features and player confusion; focused on mechanics foreign to bingo players (letter names, hole drops).

    medium · Jeffrey Lawton: 'United was more interested in giving features that didn't always relate to bingo... maybe that's why they kind of went out of business.'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Collector motivation rooted in nostalgia and personal memory (played in college, with father) trumps mechanical features; podcast host came from flipper world and is drawn to feature quality and art instead.

    high · Jeffrey Lawton: 'I played this game when I was in college... Doesn't matter what the features are. They've got to have that game.'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Bally lacked structured feedback loop from players → operators → distributors → manufacturer in analog era; modern manufacturers (Facebook, Twitter) have direct customer feedback channels absent 50 years ago.

    high · Podcast host: 'Now you think back 50 years ago, what was the feedback mechanism... apparently, this isn't one thing that got through that chain...'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Complex games like Magic Pockets (Gaiety) and Miami Beach alienated casual players due to unintuitive mechanics; simpler games (Variety, Beach Club) had broader appeal despite fewer features.

    high · Customer chose Variety over Gaiety: 'I can't figure out how to move those numbers across the top row... it's too complicated for me.'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Experienced bingo players develop somatic awareness of timer stepping sounds; can manage mid-rack risk by hitting reset button. Casual/absent players prone to catastrophic failures (motor burnout, fire).

    high · Jeffrey Lawton: 'when you're racking a big hit... an experienced player will be savvy to the sounds... an experienced player will be savvy to the sounds and say, okay, when I'm racking a big hit, I've got to stay with the game.'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Operator response to timer failures: call repairman, reimburse player with 'equivalent game' (strumming coin switch to recreate lost game state). High-volume locations experienced frequent failures.

    high · Jeffrey Lawton recounts Pinball George anecdote: repairman sits down and strums the coin switch until player gets equivalent game he claims he lost.

    • 6:36
    There's a possibility that when you come down the game may be tilted, right? so It's important to know that
    6:45
    That's probably the reason why they went away from that so that the game wouldn't actually tilt and yeah You can come back to it and then operators wouldn't have to deal with irate customers. Yeah, right. I want my game I went to buy a bag of nickels and I came back and it was nothing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, but that said, in fixing one problem, they caused another problem. So that's the most, I guess that's the most significant glaring error. And I don't think that the engineers even gave a thought to the fact that there was a possibility that while that replay Kahn's index is moving from position 12 back to zero I'm here to tell you it is possible and it does happen and I've had to repair an awful lot of games that had burn up units and burn up coils and burn up lots of things because of this issue. I've talked previously about my experience with that actually burning up Steve's game, which was pretty great. I thought that went over real well. Well, we were talking in the car yesterday about feedback. This is a neat example where in today's age of manufacturers putting out products, they can get feedback directly from customers on Facebook or on Twitter or whatnot. Now you think back 50 years ago, what was the feedback mechanism from the player to the operator to the distributor to the manufacturer? And apparently, this isn't one thing that got through that chain or else you think they would have addressed it. I have to assume that no feedback path existed. I mean I have to assume that. I can tell you from personal experience, when I was in the field working at my father's restaurant, When we had a player who had a problem with the game where it took a premature tilt, the player screamed and hollered and we would call the repairman and the repairman would come out and he would say what seems to be the problem and explain it and the repairman would do his best to give the player some sort of a free game to make up for whatever they lost. Now, a second example, which was innovative technology again, on games like, I'm going to say Showtime, but there were older games at Showtime. They had a feature with the coins where if the coin went on the coin switch, but didn't come off the coin switch, the game was hung. The start relay was energized, but the game was hung. It would not do anything. And the player would drop more nickels in and they would clog up in the coin shoot and eventually the repayment would have to be called. But nothing ever burned up. Later on, in games like, again, Laguna Beach, that was, again, the first one I can think of, and I'm not saying that Sun Valley and the Ballerina didn't have this, but Laguna Beach definitely did. They changed that circuit to where if the coin switch was down and the timer cam started to move, and for those of you who understand bingos, when the game starts, the shutter will reset, then the timer cam starts to move. As the timer cam starts to move, it cycles through and gives you your odds, features, whatever you're going to get, and takes your free play off or steps your reflex or whatever it's going to do in preparation for the next coin. The game's on the beach on out, how they switch on cam four of the timer cams index, where when it started to move, it would move about, I'm going to say 15% into the full 90 degrees or 180 degree cycle, right? That switch on cam four would close that coin switches still down when that cam on switch for closes the game tilts. Yeah. Now, How is해�!asmine Speasting Pay hep t Here's the load treble Sch проход ground to a price on a messageippy Nickel plate holds about eighty to ninety dollars worth of nickels before it fills up. Now the newer machines like I'm talking about have what's called I call it a ski slope. The coin comes down goes over the ski slope hits the switch and goes off shoots out into the box box until the box gets so full that there's no place for the coins to go. Okay, so now, again, You're in a high volume location. Man's dropping nickels in, all of a sudden he drops a nickel in, the game tilts. He says, what's wrong? I'm not doing anything wrong. The game tilted. You gotta call the repairman, the repairman comes over, he opens the door, the nickels fall all over the floor, and he says, oh, I see what happened. Do you remember what you had on the game? And the repairman will sit down and he will strum the coin switch until the player gets a game that he says... An equivalent game. An equivalent game, exactly. Well, I know my odds at 600, obviously. Oh, yeah, obviously. It reminds me of Pong, right? The first time Pong was put on location. It's broken. And they came out, they opened it up, there were so many damn quarters in it, that's why it was broken. Exactly.
    12:40
    Now, in my experience, I don't think I wrote about this in my book, but I had written two stories about a man named Pinball George that came into Hamburger Haven. Well, there was a time when Pinball George came in and he's playing his bikini and he's a high volume player well my father would call the repairman as soon as george showed up oh my gosh and the repairman would come in my father would feed the repairman and they would sit and talk and they waited patiently until the string of obscenities yelled from where george was playing the machine and i would go down, what's wrong, what's wrong, black blank game, black blank blank tilted called franchi down Sorry sir He says Jeffrey take the quick cash box and count these nickels out So I would take and it took me and three small boys to carry the coin box into the office to run the Nichols on the counter And he would be saying to George now George tell me when you got the game that was what you lost And George would sit there very happily watching Frankie strum the switch until he built up a huge game
    13:49
    I can tell you from practical experience that actually happened. Okay. And I say I don't think I wrote about that in my book. Maybe I did. If I did you guys who have the book can go back and look and say, aha, we've got that. We did hear that. But now they've heard it straight from your mouth. So, I'm kind of curious about a couple things that Bally did with features or design decisions, and I was just hoping you could speculate with me, both of you, on why you think that might be. The first feature that's kind of interesting and I don't really know why they had it in the first place was instead of the ski jump they had the coin kicker. Okay. And the coin kicker of course would clear the path for the next coin to come down but why... As long as it kicked the coin out. Correct. The fundamental flaw with that design is that if it doesn't kick then you're in trouble. And exactly what I was describing, the coin is sitting there, it should have kicked out but it didn't. Next coin comes in, holds the coin switch down and nothing happens. Yeah, just gets stuck. Now, there's a high tech fix for that. You ready for this? Yeah. You bang on the door and knock the coin out of the thing and the coin falls through and the game cycles. As long as you don't bang on it so hard that it tilts. Yeah, I was gonna say, there's tilt switches on there too. Yeah, but you have to reach that happy medium. It's finesse, right? ரחיăng muchas Mommy bekannt nie播gomeryא transient ר וрал ولStop I hope you got an idea. Something like MagicPockets, we've talked before and you mentioned that it was complicated for players. Do you feel like that might be the reason that they stopped making those? In my experience, I would have to say that was the issue. For the strong player, no, it wasn't an issue. For the average Joe, occasional player who knows bingos, who knows about features and whatnot, I had a customer who bought a number of games from me and he's here, he says, I want to buy one more game. And he's choosing between a Gaiety, which is Magic Pockets, a Variety, which is the first game that had three moving lines, and a Beach Club, which is feature-wise very easy to buy. I hope you understand you've got selectable numbers and that's pretty much it and right that two little mini cards and I was sure because I thought this man was an experienced player that he was going to go for the gaiety because the gaiety offered you feature wise more bang for the buck. Right, right. He bought the variety and I said why would you buy the variety it's got everything that the gaiety's got right without the magic pockets. He said Jeffrey I just The thing is, I can't figure out how to move those numbers across the top row along with the numbers I've got and make the best combination and it's too complicated for me. So it's exactly what you said Nick, it's just too complicated. Too complicated for players? And this man was an experienced player. Yeah. Huh, okay. There were two that were made. Right. Gayety and Gaytime, that magic box. And which was first? Gayety. Okay. So we both have a Gaytime right? Yes. Knapp Arcade is a game that is a fun game. I really like it. Yacht Club, that's another one where they only made one of these. But it's kind of like the precursor in my mind to say a magic screen or something where you're moving the card. Yacht Club was a precursor to Magic Screen, also a precursor to Miami Beach, and in some respects a precursor to Twist which you've already talked about. The problem with Yacht Club is operator had to keep the game well maintained because the card that you were playing was delineated by lights. Right. Okay. And if the lights weren't lighted, you as a player had no clue where you were. Oh gosh. Okay. And a man would be sitting there, there are no lines on a Yacht Club card. So man sits there and he says, well, all right, I've been, I'm in card number two. Okay. And I've got a four number diagonal. Well, I got a winner. Now you don't have a winner because you have to read the scorecard that says on the yacht club, diagonals only pay in five number lines from corner to corner. There's no line on the card to show you that. So as a player, you're thinking, well, I got a winner and you haven't got a winner. And now you're mad. The big problem with Miami Beach, the numbers were so different compared to what the average player was used to. And you start with Miami Beach, Miami Beach had a neat feature, put your first nickel in, has a green panel. Green panel says three in line, green scores, five in line. When you look at the card, you have to look at it real closely. There's yellow lines, there's red lines, and there's white lines which are nondescript. And there's two green lines from the far left, excuse me, the far right going from the number one, two numbers up diagonally, and two numbers down diagonally. Tutorial for Moneygames 2022
    20:12
    Tutorial forMoneygames2020 Subtitles by the Amara.org community Weekend profit die, Weekend win, Weekend loss. Weekend 2 There was a red line and a yellow line. The Miami Beach would spot 19, 20, 21, 22 if you got the dial lit. And if you had two curtains, 19 appeared twice in the same line. 22 appeared twice in the same line. If you had three curtains lit, 19 and 20 appeared twice in the same line. 21 and 22 appeared twice in the same line. You could conceivably make five in a row on Miami beach with two numbers. That's impressive. With the right break. Well, I say two numbers, two numbers outside the selection, and then you have to hit one of the selectable numbers, but when you hit it, you get the 21, you get two spots in the 21. I can't remember the numbers that are around the Miami. The combination, right. But I can tell you as a youngster, and I wrote about this in the book, we had a group of fellows that played, I call them fellows, we were all kids, and i was pretty good at making the eight nineteen we had another couple of players were really good at making the seventeen twenty-one we had another player who was really good at making the fourteen and the nineteen so depending on what we needed that's the man who went up in the machine you know six times out of nine he made his number and we got our five in a row Now what machine, you were saying this machine had an atypical layout of the numbers. At what machine did they kind of establish the traditional, here's your 25 numbers, they're in this order and they're not, so like my Palm Springs has a different layout of the main card than all my other games. That's true. So at what point did they kind of, you know, 16 in the middle kind of thing, you know? To my knowledge, and I could be wrong about this, it may go back as early as variety. I don't know if like variety, big time, gayity and gay time have the same number of sequels. I don't know that. That would be easy enough to research, but I don't know that. But I do know that Broadway, nightclub, parade, Key West all have the same 25 number base. I know that Showtime, Starburst Gardens, Beach Time, Sun Valley, Carnival Queen, Laguna Beach and every Magic screen all the way through Bounty all have the same 25 number lay-on. Yeah, certainly all the Magic screen games have the same 25, yeah. Showtime was the first one that went to that 9-1-2-11-15 on the top and 1-19-23-24-8 on the vertical going down. The end of the line. Dally said, okay, this is what you want, this is what you got. And twist was the only one that deviated from that. Even after Pocowin touchdown used that same pattern. I didn't notice that. So that brings us, we played some of Robert's Great Bingo's last night and lots of games that I hadn't played before and touchdown is probably one of the hardest games. Well but it's funny because I was saying going into it that we had to put a hack in place to make it operate properly because there was a problem with it, you know, not, it would just spin and spin and spin and spin and spin, it would never award you a feature or a score jump or anything, it would just spin and spin and spin. So we put a hack in place to make sure that it always got power to that coil and then it would always give you something and it had been my experience that it made it very generous. I mean very very liberal almost to the point where you couldn't lose. Right. Now we found a way though. We found a way. That's right. So we were you know we were playing it you know you can only put in eight credits and that's it. No extra balls and we weren't able to get anything on it. L- liaison Freunde n kindness of all 3 family over time, Colin Dimitrouliou, the manager of Openっと kitchen in Tee flourish olynvirj,zoom of't Tiny屋 Gina,beign fonts today's So, you know, it's like eight guys in yellow so there should've been a flag called for too many men on the field on that back glass. Also, it's like the most popular football game that's ever existed. The stadium's completely filled. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, the number combinations are interesting on that and there's so much green, so many green lines. It's really quite hard. It's a great game and I really like it quite a The people on the we played every day at one of them made the circuit that's right so robert which is your favorite and all your games well i think that i had to keep one it would be that the circus i do have a golden gate but it just seems like that additional complexity is just a little too much but the purple and I not a fan of the pinball section the gate and all that stuff I rather have those the possibility for the those features to come out to be allocated instead to just the super sections and the okay game and the ABCD and all that stuff So if I had to keep one I would keep that one And then as I was saying in the car if I had to keep only one of my Magic Square games I have I have Key West Showtime Sun Valley Cypress Gardens and I had Beach Time
    27:29
    I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the game. I always liked Sun Valley. Sun Valley is one of the first games I ever encountered as a youngster playing bingo games. And I was very happy to get one in my collection. I like Showtime. glareblick Fast cruston & Boom's The New Jersey resident for a long time in the Trenton area Clinton bus was a very well known location down by Pennsylvania station and it was a greasy spoon type diner at a Cypress gardens of the wall and you would go in there after a hard night of drinking or working or whatever you're I'm not sure what you're doing. And you would go into Clinton Bus for breakfast and you'd play Cypress Gardens. And that's a very fond memory. And so I now have a Cypress Gardens in my collection and I'm very pleased to have it. So it's more the nostalgia and the memories tied to the game. Yes. Gotcha. For both of you. Yeah. That's pretty interesting. Okay. You will find as you get to know more collectors. I have customers that come to me and the verbiage is different but the message is the same. I played this game when I was in college. I played this game with my father. I sat and watched my father play this game. I've got to have one. Doesn't matter what the features are. They've got to have that game. And that's understandable. Sure. It's just interesting because I've kind of backed into this world from Flippers, The So I certainly had that kind of yearning early on when I was collecting pinballs just to get the ones that I played
    30:17
    But then I discovered this whole world and it's amazing and you know can't back away from it. So Now I'm drawing the ones with the best features and You know in interesting artwork and and all that kind of stuff. So It's just kind of different, you know, never having had that experience Here in Cincinnati, I found you have two types of players. You have the player who knows the more elaborate games, Magic Scream with OK, Golden Gate with the purple section, or you have the people that are Ohio Dime game players. They want six cards, they want to light the six cards, and they want to light the numbers. They don't want to burden their We need to be able reflect over that. Yes, that's what we are trying to get to here with New York Dialogues, not just suicide Paid out, it's all about pricing and..., having a few 죄 Kollege here in the bystanders that I'm a major as well so we need to think deeper about capitalizing, losing. So we'll have to keep the systems as simple as possible so that we can get the other parts into what we're actually going to call profit areas or, up there as an example of production with third party studio products. So there's this last one from my group, from Tim Institute This is what it's all about. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I'm going to say it's too much. It's too much. Even though a game like Nashville, you've got all the diagonals pay. You've got all kinds of, I mean it's a really super neat game. United made some really interesting titles, I think. And I've heard from other folks that they just paid too much and maybe that's why they kind of went out of business, but as far as bingos go. What are your thoughts about that? I don't know a whole lot about United Games from actual experience, more so from what people have told me. But in doing my research for the book, it It appeared that United was more interested in giving features that didn't always relate to bingo, such as lead name. You roll through and you get enough balls through and as soon as you get the last letter of the name, you're going to get five in a row. Period. Doesn't matter what else you make on your game, you're going to get five in a row. The Okay, that's bingo, but that's more like what a flipper guy would be interested in in Attaining a feature or building a feature up, right?
    33:10
    Another example of that is where you Drop in a certain hole so many times and all eight balls next game, right? Same same same idea
    33:23
    We were playing Palm Springs yesterday at Robert's house Palm Springs had an interesting feature. Palm Springs has what's called a hold feature. Those of you who know ballet games know that the hold feature allows you to either hold your odd number balls or your even number balls at the end of the game. But Palm Springs allowed you the right to go and acquire extra balls before you used the hold feature. I don't think that Ice Frolicks or Surfchamp or surf club allowed you to, well I know surf club because I have a surf club. I don't know about Ice Frolicks, but I don't know that those two allowed that. On surf club, you can't play for extra balls until you've exhausted the hold feature. So that's an interesting thought. Whereas Palm Springs, you could get one extra ball, two extra balls, and then exercise your hold feature and have the ability to arrange up to The game is a game where you can shoot seven balls over again if necessary, if you choose to. Yeah, that's a super powerful feature. I think so. Yeah. Robert, what do you think of that feature? Do you like it? Oh, I love it. I mean, that's a wonderful feature because you feel like even though you've got five balls up there, you know, you can shoot three bad ones and you'll get another shot at it. So it's almost like extra balls on demand. Yeah. It's so funny, the game like Palm Springs or Ice Capades or Surf Club, you play and you get a winner and you've got the whole feature there, but your winner has one odd number and two even numbers or two odd numbers and one even number, so you lose your whole feature if you want to keep your winner and you somehow feel like you were cheated. You made a winner, but you feel like you were cheated. It's funny. Have you played many United games? No. Have you had the opportunity? No. I played United Hawaii as a young man. I don't remember anything about it. The one thing that I remember about Hawaii was that the playfield holes were beveled differently than the valley holes were beveled. On the Hawaii, you had a deeper circular arc Coming into the holeramer Well, that how this worksYO realmente complicado pagal ADE DE ANTIopsboxヨ mo y la parte antipondacam with united ones 2kid de chateau palaka nato y ac feeding cλinical Glen That takes in Classical English allegro했 garage audio I mean voc mês 그는 with Lausanne turese in ture stationlee la luna that is you. So good for you. So. and all of the other things that we talked about. Control unit, mixer, even playfield layout and ball size. Because before that they were using 1 and 1 16ths. That's right, I forgot about that. They used the smaller balls. Yeah, and so that would be quite the challenge, I think. Because you have the lighter weight balls to try and nudge in. So returning to our earlier conversation about some kind of theories about games To find out about the games and the features that they had and maybe why they had been removed, a game like Parade with the extra lines. I think that's an incredibly powerful feature just from the reading about it. I've never played one, of course, but what are your thoughts? I mean, why do you think they might have stopped doing that after one? Well, Parade was the last game where they used the single double, or excuse me, double, triple, quadruple feature. The next game after Parade was Big Show, which was corner squares, but that introduced triple deck scoring. Ah, okay. Where you had red, yellow, and green. Mm-hmm. On Parade, you had red, yellow, and green, I think, I don't know about green, but I know you had red and yellow. And you had red double, triple, quadruple, yellow double, triple, quadruple. They probably didn't have a green. Irregardless, the problem I found with the extra lines, I don't believe that when you got the extra line lit, that the numbers that were in the five positions above the A and the B square or below the C and the D squares, that those numbers shared identity with the other numbers that were in C or D. The intended to make the extra lines somewhat values although it wasn't if you were if you were playing where you had two numbers in the a square and you needed a single number now all of a sudden if the actual eyes it now you get to shoot for two numbers system yeah so there's a big benefit uh... that was really the only benefit of the actual lines that i saw Alright, that's fair enough. I'm not really experienced on playing. I do have a customer here in Cincinnati who owns a parade. I've played it a couple times with him but never to the point where I really got serious about identifying what is it that makes this game really good or really bad. Okay. So do you think player response was similar where they just couldn't make a winner? I think what happened with those games, and I'll go all the way back to Broadway. Broadway was a total innovation. Corner squares, single, double, triple. Fantastic innovation. The flaw, you get before the fourth ball, okay, shoot three balls, your squares lock up. You get before the fifth ball, okay, you shoot four balls, your squares lock up. But you can't score your winners until your squares are locked. Big problem, my opinion. I wrote about this quite a bit in the book when I talked about Sun Valley. Now, Nightclub came along. Nightclub was the first corner square game that had after the fifth ball. Which you could get in play. You could actually earn after the fifth ball in play. Now here's Bally saying, well, we're stuck now because we can't tell the player you can't not collect your replays. So they had to give the player the option of collecting their games while the squares were still on. The players love that. Players who could tell if they or think they perceive that after the fifth was lit would feed that game a lot more to make sure they get the squares lit Because that after fifth was so valuable not so much that you could move the squares but you could score double hits
    40:46
    So here's a case you're playing nightclub a perfect example you make the you make the One two You make the one nine eighteen. That's a white line hit. That's a single deck hit
    41:01
    «I was in a spin-out not impressed by your short Short hairpins, ironed, bowed bangs, Big, big come on for the player. Key West offered after the fifth ball. The trick with Key West is you can't get after the fifth ball in play. In other words, you can't feed it because there's no feature in the mixture that allows after the fifth to come up as a buyable feature. So you have to get the rollover. Now here's a cute thing with Key West. The rollover on both sides is the same, right? The rollover on both sides is the same, but only one is lit. Right, right, right. That's right. It toggles left, right, left, right, right. So what would happen is a player's shooting, they say, well darn, I've got the red rollover, but I really wish I had the yellow rollover. So if you don't know about it toggling, you'll play the game with the red rollover lit, wishing you had the yellow. The player who knows, he'll just push off another game, or put another coin in the game. Hey pink, are you over дорог, Ball Media Commentaiton Quiet participant Miele, honey could call me Lou or Car ego Monica pozipskunigari, Writer Brian and Magic Sudio. Definitely h do it Old Chat, また h s re a I can't remember. I believe so. I can't remember. Carnival Queen has rollovers, but both rollovers are lit on Carnival Queen. Miss America. Miss America, that's right. Yes, that is right. Miss America has an alternating rollover feature. And Miss America, I believe, only allows you to get before the fifth ball, not after. Correct. Which is the same problem with Carnival Queen. Carnival Queen only allowed you before the fifth ball. Although there was a reason for Carnival Queen. The operators and the distributors were afraid with the magic screen being able to move the magic screen. If you could make five in a row vertical with the magic screen after the fifth, you got five in a row in all three colors. They found as time went on, worrying about that for most players was a non-worry. Nick. I've been playing bingo games for a lot of years. I've never made a vertical five in a row without the fifth ball in it. I've made vertical five in a row but never without the fifth ball in it. I made a vertical four. I was pretty proud of that. But yeah, not a five. Something to shoot for. Yes. Keep dreaming. You've got to dream big. That's right. So, we were talking earlier about hi-fi. Yes. And you wanted to set the record straight. Yes. I listened to your podcast about hi-fi and I had a hi-fi in here that I restored from Ian. I had two of my friends play it plus I played it. The trick with hi-fi, you have got to have the coil I'm going to show you how to make sure that both 110 volt coils are firing. Just because the coil is there doesn't necessarily mean it's firing. You've got to be sure that it's firing. If both those 110 volt coils are firing, when you hit those green buttons, that playfield The ball will move probably at least two inches from where it is to where it's going before it returns back. Wow. You can get, if you can time it right, you can get a shot off those pins where you can go from the pin above, let's say, 21, 20, 22, all the way back up over 7. If your timing is right and you have the good fortune to aim it so that the ball doesn't bang around the other pegs. This is a trick, right? So we're used to playing bingo and we have it come down from the top. Yeah. So if you switch it up and you have it going back up the playfield, that would be pretty tricky, I think. It's especially exciting. You know, can you imagine making the seven from the 21-22 peg? No. No. And yet you can do that on a regular game, but the game's going to display tilt real fast. Yeah, when you lift the front legs. Pretty much. Whereas with that bump feature, the playfield moves, the game does not move. The playfield moves. Right. And it's really, it's really an amazing feature, but it's awfully, awfully difficult to get that timing down. And I have to say, in defense of those who don't like the feature, even if you've got the timing down, you tend to make more bad shots than good. But boy, when you make that good shot, That's a moment. Feel like an expert, huh? Oh yeah, I feel like an expert. And it's just like a good pool player. Somebody who plays pool who can make a really good masse shot where it goes over top of the other ball. That's a brilliant shot. Could I do it? Not today. Two experienced players, the owner of the game and my friend Dave, they both said, I'm not interested in this bump feature and I like to jock the machine and I like to play it. Now the flaw to that is the playfield is spring loaded. Right. It's floating. So yeah, you jock the machine, but the playfield doesn't respond like the way that it normally would. Like a solid one does. So you win but you lose and you lose but you win. So do you think that's why they didn't repeat that feature? I think because players were not able to get a feeling of control that The pinball joker has. Right. Especially people that are flipper pinball players. They pride themselves on being able to time their flips, being able to provide themselves with how hard they push the machine to change the roll of the ball to bring it down. Bingo players are the same way. You got, you need to make a shot, if you're shooting for a bingo, you need to make a shot. If you hit the ball, we did it last night, if you hit the ball too hard, it's going up for the ten hole, Franchi】 Hide enrollments The Feathering the bump feature So he goes flying it goes flying. Yeah. Yep. Okay
    48:25
    Now Robert does that sound like something that you'd like to try I might try it but again, it's I Think part of what I like about bingo is that it doesn't have that element to it, right? It's the only way to maneuver the ball is through your physical control, right?
    48:44
    you know if I want to If I want balls to start flying at the playfield, I'll play a flipper game. You know, with flippers. Now, last night, Jeffrey was the only one who made a five in a line. That's true, but I also will point out that I had a higher scoring win than his five in a line. But anyway, that being said... No, no dispute. That being said... Not to take away from the achievement. So, that was on Key West, right? No, that was on Variety. Knapp Arcade is literally who has been who recently, and we shed need a wore of P-seānye and yeww Me улиqa, I well speeches of amendi storytelling were made available by the ain't to argument- it Virgin fallen for the Vでき繼續 Yet again and you a copycat and some ofource Where he got nothing because he didn't have supercard one because I didn't go for it. You're right. So he forgave a hundred credits Or 200 credits because on the variety Supercards that are lit corners always pay 200. Yep, and I didn't go for it. Nope
    50:00
    But you got a hundred replays. Well, I was having you six So So, the last thing that I wanted to talk about was kind of our approach last night because I thought that was unique and really interesting from the way that I typically play bingos. So, Robert, can you describe? Well, typically with two people, you know, like when Jeffrey and I play, we'll pick out a machine and we'll get a bucket of money and, you know, we'll play from the same pile and, but you'll stay on that machine until you get bored with it. Crapman, Crapman Pinball PLAY SMITH PLAY CARD and we decided that as a team we have a hundred credits and you can only play a hundred credits and as a good team member you don't blow forty on the game unless you think it's worth it so you know you you say I'm gonna play for eight or twelve and we would coach each other too about oh you know put another nickel in or you probably want to play that so we had a fixed limit of a hundred credits on each game and we recorded on paper how many we won and then uh... you know we played We've had, what, ten games at a hundred each, so we put in a thousand credits across the different games and I think we wound up at eight hundred or something on the thousand, but yeah, it was a fun way to get you to be able to play all the games. Yeah. And it was a fun way for all of us to play together, but also to have some kind of additional goals. It's like, you only get a hundred. Yeah. And so the interesting part is kind of at the end. So once you get within fifteen coins of a hundred, do you decide to blow them on the Knapp Arcade is a game that you currently have or do you leave them for the next guy? And so that came up, you know, every time and yeah, I thought it was a fun way to play the games. I loved it. Yeah, it worked out really well. And the added kind of stress of trying to figure out, you know, should I go for extra ball or not, you know, checking with teammates and seeing. I thought that worked very well. It's also a good way to exercise your bingos if you happen to have many machines and, you know, you might say to yourself, Mmm it is pretty important to take care of itsbench bones weekly valtry,manual channel ver Pron dramas, on theisteveno with out PalmeCityYouTube.com. In just a creature to NormalNews oftabal uses your tags in theicam. In addition to the opportunity to bring a few guests on the show and for allowing me to come out and play their beautiful collections, I had such a great time out there and I can't wait to talk more about it. There's so much to talk about, these games that I was previously speculating about, I was right about a lot of things, but I have more to say about some others, so I look forward to hearing some of that here in the not too distant future. That's all. Thank you very much for listening. My name again is Nick Baldridge. You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com or you can call me on the bingos line. That's 724-BINGOS-1, 724-246-4671. You can listen to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Casts via RSS, on Facebook, on Twitter at bingopodcast. You can follow me on Instagram also at bingopodcast or you can listen to us on our website which is 4amusementonlypodcast.com. Thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time.