Episode 437 - Multi-Races Programming, Robo-Frenzy Units, 1950 Williams Dreamy

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·40m 48s·analyzed·Dec 20, 2018

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Multi-Races Turf King development deep-dive and Williams Dreamy playfield analysis.

Summary

Nick Baldridge discusses his progress on Multi-Races, a homebrew multi-game pinball project, detailing the complex programming and mechanical design of the first game, 1950s Turf King (a one-ball horse race game). He covers porting methodology, disc documentation challenges, and innovative relay/wiper configurations. The episode concludes with an in-depth playfield breakdown of 1950s Williams Dreamy, an impulse flipper game featuring a points-based scoring system and innovative tilt-reset mechanics.

Key Claims

Turf King (1950) is one of the most complicated one-ball games ever produced
high confidence · Nick Baldridge, speaking directly about his research and examination of the actual Turf King machine
Turf King's feature pocket does not run through the Reflex, only through spotting discs and mixers
high confidence · Nick Baldridge documenting actual wiring discovered while examining Turf King machine
Pick-a-Play buttons on Turf King can bypass up to 60% of the porting logic
high confidence · Nick Baldridge explaining porting analysis from Turf King documentation and wiring inspection
Don Hooker designed guaranteed advancing odds for Turf King and later brought this design to bingo games
high confidence · Nick Baldridge referencing known pinball design history
Williams Dreamy (1950) resets tilt when any ball leaves the playfield, allowing continued play after tilting out
high confidence · Nick Baldridge describing Dreamy's documented mechanical features
Dreamy's five-number sequence represents popular songs from 1949, including 'Some Enchanted Evening'
high confidence · Nick Baldridge analyzing Dreamy's back glass artwork and theme
Sunshine Park is the last and most complex one-ball horse race game, produced after Turf King
medium confidence · Nick Baldridge's research and knowledge of one-ball game production timeline
Diodes were used in 1950s bingo games despite being expensive components at that time
high confidence · Nick Baldridge referencing his personal experience working on bingo machines from the 1950s

Notable Quotes

“Turf King is one of the most complicated one-ball games, being one of the last few that were produced”
Nick Baldridge @ early in episode — Establishes why Turf King was selected as the first Multi-Races game to program
“I can just turn my body 180 degrees and all of a sudden I'm playing Turf King, the real deal”
Nick Baldridge @ early segment — Shows how physical proximity to original machine aids development accuracy
“The Pick a Play buttons will you'll actually bypass huge sections of the porting. It's really quite astounding actually”
Nick Baldridge @ porting discussion — Highlights surprising design efficiency in Turf King's porting architecture
“I find the design of this very attractive, mostly coupled with the plastic”
Nick Baldridge @ Dreamy artwork discussion — Expresses appreciation for Williams Dreamy's aesthetic design choices
“You have to make sure that you get something good. But it can have a disadvantage as well as several advantages”
Nick Baldridge @ Turf King feature discussion — Captures the risk/reward tension in Turf King's feature selection mechanics
“It's a one in a million shot”
Nick Baldridge @ Turf King feature pocket discussion — Emphasizes the extreme difficulty of hitting Turf King's feature pocket
“Measure 65 times, cut once”
Nick Baldridge @ wiper disc drilling discussion — Shows caution required when modifying match unit wiper discs

Entities

Nick BaldridgepersonMulti-RacesproductTurf KinggameMulti-BingoproductWilliams DreamygameSunshine Parkgame Don HookerpersonKevin M. GreggpersonFor Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcastorganization

Signals

?
design_innovation: Nick Baldridge's approach to recreating complex Turf King porting using modern components (diodes) and match unit wipers; demonstrates innovative adaptations of vintage electromechanical design principles for homebrew construction
high · Detailed explanation of trip bank configuration, wiper disc adaptation, and relay logic bypassing to handle octopus movement and lamp lighting on Multi-Races
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design_philosophy: Analysis of how Don Hooker and Bally designers intentionally created porting logic that could be bypassed or tightened to control player psychology and machine profitability; feature accessibility tied to game phase and player input
high · Nick Baldridge's observation: 'It's crazy. But with that said it is certainly still very difficult to earn whatever features or odds advances as a player... I would think the Reflex would always be in there. But I guess there are certain gimmicks that Don Hooker wanted to provide'
?
restoration_signal: Challenge of documenting undocumented wiper disc positions, mixer configurations, and animation sequences from vintage one-ball games; requires physical access to original machines for reverse-engineering
high · Nick Baldridge explaining Turf King documentation gaps: 'Spotting disk one is completely undocumented. Spotting disk two has rivet numbers, but they're not blueprint numbers... it might say number two, for example, but that could be three, six, nine, 15, 23'
?
product_launch: Multi-Races project reaching near-completion of first game (Turf King) logic programming; graphics development still pending; preparation for public debut at pinball shows
high · Nick Baldridge: 'I almost have a finished game... I'm pretty excited... finished in quotes because I haven't done any of the graphics yet. But the logic portion... is one of the most complicated ones'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.122

0:00

What's that sound? It's 4 Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to 4 Amusement Only. This is Nick Baldrige. Today, I've been working on multi-races. I am, in fact, just about finished with the first game in multi-races and that And that is 1950s Turf King. I picked Turf King for a few different reasons. The first being that it's a relatively complicated game. It's in fact one of the most complicated one balls, being one of the last few that were produced. And the second reason I picked that, well, I guess to elaborate on that. So, it's complicated, okay, but it's very similar to some of the early bingos as far as the complexity Video and audio by Kevin M. Gregg. The end. Uh...however, uh...the second reason is because I have an actual copy of Turf King, and, uh, Multiraces is right across the aisle from it, so I can, uh, just turn my body 180 degrees and all of a sudden I'm playing Turf King, uh, the real deal. So I can make sure that my portioning and so forth is correct. I'm also able to document the various discs inside for use in developing the coin flash animations as well as some of the portioning which is not exactly clear in all cases. So let's talk about portioning because I find this fascinating and hopefully you do too. If not, let me know because there will probably be a lot of this kind of talk until I finish developing all the games. There are many, many fewer one ball horse race games than there are bingos. So I don't anticipate that there will be a whole lot of this talk going forward because most of them frankly are not quite this complex. Most of them only Film Thanks for watching! realized dollar guaranteed to getatsn had displayed on the back glass verify solis always eager part if you put on a secondレ whether or not you were actually going to come out ahead Now you might have other advantages that help you out but unfortunately you know you could lose some feature or odds that you had already earned. This is not the case with Turf King thankfully. It uses the guaranteed advancing odds which of course Don Hooker brought over to the bingos when he started developing those. Single ball game, it's one ball just as it sounds like it should be and that one ball The pinball is crucial. So the most vital thing that you do is you build up the game with coins and then you just have the one shot to get it. So you have to make sure that it counts. When you plunge that ball, your plunge of course is absolutely critical, but also steering the ball, which is quite a bit harder in the one ball horse race games than it is on the bingos because it's much more The Pinball Podcast is a production of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders, Let's talk about portioning here. I have finished all of the portioning for the game and now I'm going through and adding simple features, scoring things like the carryover features and labeling the various relays and so forth. Relatively simple stuff, but the portioning I did first. Now on the one balls, this is before Bally started documenting things very well, basically I'm typically giving you the wiring diagram for each of the discs which have rotational logic, things like the spotting disc or the search disc. There is no search disc in any of the one balls that I've seen because there's nothing to search for. You only have one ball. You're not trying to make three or more. You're trying to make a single switch win. So it's a lot more straightforward there. However, there can be one or more spotting discs and then couple that with in turf king for mixers in the reflex and you wind up with quite a complicated set of portioning turf King also has what is essentially pick a play so if you're familiar with kind of the bingos from the middle of their production period you had multiple buttons that would control achieving various things now the red button always I'll keep that up to date. Crapman. Man препhabitude at First Education and Har kommun Academy in flux information Spot Start-up Wyn goshde Yehid His Questo Dr A Is one Which functions just like the red button on the bingos. It plays for all advantages at the same time. You have a star button, which plays for advances and odds only. You have a clover button, which plays for doubled awards in certain sections of the playfield. You have a horseshoe button, which changes your selection. So these are how you know which number you have to make with that one ball. And it's critical that you get something good. But it can have a disadvantage as well as several advantages. So we'll go over that here in just a second. And the final button is a flag and that's used to play for the feature. The feature is a special pocket down at the bottom center of the playfield. It's essentially in the spot where the ball return is on the bingos. It's a scoring pocket. And the feature pocket will award you either 160 replays or 300 replays. And it's adjustable by the operator. Frankly, it is a one in a million shot. And the portioning is very tough on it. It's not as tough as I thought it was after reading through the documentation, but it's still very tough. I had thought that there was a secondary reflex that controlled the portioning for just that feature. That's not the case. And in fact, the feature portioning doesn't even go through the Reflex at all. It's the only feature on the game which does not portion through the Reflex except for the jockey cap feature, which we'll talk about in a moment. Um, so I was a little surprised at this and this is coming from somebody who has worked on one of these before. Actually, my daughter did. She fixed up the game, but it's, it's still surprising to me how much I have to learn about the portioning of these games because that's not something that I typically mess with unless something is just absolutely not working. How the portioning functions on the feature was quite illuminating. But beyond that, most everything runs through the reflex, but the Pickle Play buttons have a much more direct effect on how you are awarded whatever benefit you're trying to play for than they do on the Bingos. So the bingos typically will connect an extra finger on the spotting disc and allow you to potentially get a better outcome. Doesn't quite work that way but it's pretty close to what I'm describing there. And on the horse race games, the way that it works is these pick and play buttons will You'll actually bypass huge sections of the portioning. It's really quite astounding actually. For example, if you're playing for selections, you jump past about, I would say 60% of the portioning. Playing for odds, if you're using the star button, again, you're jumping past this huge, huge chunk of portioning. It crazy But with that said it is certainly still very difficult to earn whatever features or odds advances as a player you know from a player perspective Because each nickel which in 1950 which is when this game came out you know nickel was big money So it it kind of interesting to see the thought behind how you would get these awards And the pick a play has a much more comes next, tip take about this podcast A

10:46

up mooi So let's talk about some of the specific features and some of the interesting portioning things there too. One of the features is called the jockey cap feature and this is an alternating feature meaning once the feature is awarded for each coin that's input after it has been awarded, it will alternate between left and right side and directly above and to the left and right of the feature hole that I talked about, there are these jockey cap holes. One is yellow The pinball is a combination of two types of pinball, one is yellow and one is red. Very similar to the rollovers on the bingos if you think about it. One is yellow, one is red, one is on one side, one is on the other. They're typically only enabled one at a time. And on some of the games, for example Miss America 1957, they're alternating just like on this. But the jockey caps have a very cool function. 30 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 49 The uh... some of the uh... pastor just not available when that really is tripped so particularly for odds you have to be very cautious uh... if you're pumping in money trying to bump up your odds it can still happen uh... just not very easily so uh... that feature is kinda neat and it also For whatever reason, doesn't run through the reflex. It does run through one of two spotting discs and one of the Mixers, but it's odd to me that the Reflex isn't in the circuit at all. Just knowing what I know about how the features are awarded typically in bingos, I would think the Reflex would always be in there. But I guess there are certain gimmies that Don Hooker wanted to Provide the player where you would be not guaranteed something because again there is portioning involved but it's much easier if it bypasses this thing that is auto portioning the entire game. I just find the design fascinating. It's really interesting to me to think about how much Don Hooker and the other folks at Bally really thought about what they were doing. You know, as far as how the player would react and how much money, of course, these games would take in. So, very cool. So, the wild stepper I mentioned shows the four different sections of the playfield and there's a step for each letter in each of the sections. So, it's purse, show, place, and when. Lots Scriptải 아닜удん lookingliż Фальные inc., Mieczkiewicz Moz swords, The they would put in money once they saw that stepper starting to move and the reason being It would arrest the stepper, you know, stop it from moving Because they knew that the portioning would tighten up once the stepper hit certain phases, so for example once it finishes stepping through purse and hits the e a portion of the portioning disappears for features clo deeper ut authenticated If you're getting more episodes of those risen here, and be part of those things as well, it's only gonna help to bring some into this community because parts of thescreen suscribes at some point. Gun-Way. I guess we're heading and weren't here for hot day at any lunchtime, and noon previous game has even been here. Hai lai IRSinen, no problem with that, utilize master noob כאח parental time subhai 아� המoubtedlyяти. On Turf King, they had put the mixer positions on most of the portioning and the spotting disk positions as well, but not all of them. So there are two different spotting disks and spotting disk one is completely undocumented. Spotting disk two has rivet numbers, but they're not, they're blueprint numbers. They're not rivet numbers. So you're supposed to match that with the blueprint and then you'll be able to know What positions do what? Unfortunately, it's not direct. So it might say number two, for example, but that could be three, six, nine, 15, 23. And it would be hard to know. Then is there more than one wiper that is hitting that? And if so, are they offset 25? Are they offset 15? Are they offset 12? You know, where exactly are the wipers mounted? So this is all stuff that I'm going to have to document. Right now I've got some dummy code in place which approximates what it should be. And thankfully I have this game. But for many of the other games I won't have access to the game. So I'm going to have to make some approximations and be willing to tweak it after the fact. That's what I've had to do on the multi bingo as well. Warning, And that goes for animations as well. So the animations are completely, completely, completely undocumented. So on TurfKing again, I can actually document them. You know, I'm looking forward to getting that done, but I won't be able to do that on almost any other game. I also have a victory CJ's Pinball из I've spoken to a couple of one-ball collectors and I'm hoping that they'll be able to help me a little bit with some of the things that I need as far as documentation, or at least videos of the games being played so that I can map the coin flash specifically. So that's Multi Races. It's coming along. I'm pretty excited that I almost have a finished It's a little bit more complex than the first game. Now finished in quotes because I haven't done any of the graphics yet. But the logic portion. And the logic portion for this, as I mentioned, is one of the most complicated ones. In fact, Sunshine Park is the last game that they made and it's two after Turf King. And that one is more complex in different ways. But Turf King is very complex on its own. Brusnar To perquè at Chunj 고쳙, Ur wed aplic Sym الش, Subwhoகள 이�ierz, 你些can diyusy тіш verder sout Wirklich Jahilation des liberation by ZDWG ĸ towers Kingdom of the pair niчасz shaftRabia Koeck. I don want to have to create my own wiper discs or things of that nature Not that it impossible to do because it certainly possible to do They after all just a bunch of brass rivets on a disc and there has to be some kind of wiping action that happens over them but mainly because the discs that were mass produced are very rugged and nothing that I make would be as rugged So for the player unit which handles the position of the player there are eight different distinct positions The hill and coming back and for each of those positions

26:30

Tr жест deeply, Her teaspoons-He Cola, it was a fantastic suggestion. First up, it was a great idea. All of my friends would go to see Erad Of Man, Mon Jax Seedap Toys. It wasn't exactly ação de chocolate de primitive, but the way it was introduced was I got a brand new real necessarily And trip number two goes down and one of the switches on it will disable the output from trip number one and then enable its own output. I thought this was pretty clever and it certainly saved me a heck of a lot of time with wiring. So I've got diodes all over the place in there and honestly I don't feel too bad about that. Now he made a joke like, you know, there There wouldn't be diodes available for games that would have been made in this time period. But I've worked on bingoes from the 50s that have diodes. It was not unheard of. It's just, it was a very expensive component back then. But we're talking the 1970s, you know. That's essentially where some of the relay parts are from. So, and the cab design is certainly The so it seems to me that it fits right in uh... and I feel that way because it has to so that's RoboFrenzy uh... I need to go over to my friend Joe's again here with uh... the player units because the wipers are not twenty-five rivets apart there are twenty rivets apart or ten rivets apart because it's a match unit The over to the next number so uh... i need to drill a hole in the wiper disc and i need to move over one of the wipers or two of the wipers actually uh... this is going to be very challenging because you essentially only get one maybe two shots at this thing and then uh... you're out of luck you know if you didn't get it so I'm gonna see what I can do. Of course, measure 65 times, cut once. That's the old saying, I think. So, let's move on to today's featured game. It's 1950s Williams Dreamy. And Dreamy is a impulse flipper game. There's two flippers. Both are controlled with either button. So when you hit the button, the flippers will flap up and Then flat back down. The playfield layout is really quite interesting. This is something that I've never had the opportunity to play but I would love to looking at the layout. Up at the top center there's a kick out hole that's worth fifty thousand points or five hundred thousand points if it's lit. There's also a Passive bumper which is worth a hundred thousand points when it's lit and I assume ten thousand points when it's not lit. There are three lanes at the top left each worth fifty thousand points until you knock out all three of them at which point they become worth five hundred thousand points pretty sweet deal. Underneath these lanes on the left and right side you have two bumpers uh... pop bumpers Which can fling the ball back and forth and there is a single point rollover. Now points are different from score. Uh, if you're a long-term listener, um, you're aware of this with various Scott Leib games that I've talked about, but Williams experimented with this as well. Uh points are uh essentially a major sequence within the game So there a minor sequence and a major sequence within the game There a minor sequence and a Major sequence in points games It is completely separate from score and you can have multiple points so in this game up to 40 Pippen정신박굼 signs 경들 피스�可愛Smแก팅uler잉甘�י샌 드래곤 andservice 헬 WanГня decorations 완볼앱️린결 gorgeous으툼이�ände 비 нашем하숏갈 Depending앰 다시군요 intox Alas, kill your thoughts. FI Pad NO HELP The very middle of the playfield, there's another kick out hole that's worth $50,000 or $500,000 and continuing down in the center there is a one point rollover. Now the beauty of this rollover and I have played a different game that used this particular setup, you'd be The ball back and forth uh... between the rubbers on the left and right side and uh... the flippers and keep nailing that one point rollover and once you hit a certain threshold and that's going to be operator adjustable you're going to win one or more replays uh... so it's in your best interest to rack that up as much as possible down between the flippers There is also a kick out and that is worth $50,000 or $500,000. There are slings down at the bottom left and right which are below the triangular plastics that flank that one point rollover. So they're in kind of a unusual spot geometrically because you have to be at a certain point on them in order to get past the flipper so that you can get back up and and hit that one point. So it's in your best interest to do some pretty serious nudging to get the ball to go where it needs to go. But once it hits that sling, it can rocket back up and hit that one point and you're in good shape. If it hits that bottom kick out though, it can kick right down into the trough. So this is an interesting game. It's one of Williams' games and Williams had some pretty interesting features. The Features 1. Any ball leaving the playfield would reset the tilt. So if you managed to tilt out on ball 1, for example, your game wasn't over. You could plunge ball 2 and it would continue to score as long as ball 1 had left the playfield. Any ball that stuck in the kick out hole, of course, when you tilt out, the score motor Timer continues to run it doesn't score but it'll kick the ball out and shoot it back down the playfield so you're never in a situation where a ball is stuck and you're unable to continue play or you shouldn't be rather so I I think that feature is really cool and certainly ahead of its time games typically didn't do that into the 1960s or so and we're talking So very impressive. Let's talk about the sequence of this game. So I mentioned one through five and it's a fairly simple sequence only five numbers. But what's kind of cool about it is dreamy is actually a music theme and

34:50

each of the numbers represents a song or an album that was popular in 1949. So looking at the titles we have Some Enchanted Evening is number one, I know I know I know, at number five. I find that very cool. Of course, pop culture references not new to pinball, but what is interesting about it is that it used the actual titles of these famous songs, so obviously trying to cash I think that's pretty unique and cool. What's also interesting, very colorful back glass, multiple colors and arrayed in just this cool circular rainbow type situation radiating out from the central character who is dreaming, I suppose of all these different songs while pianos float in the upper left and bottom right. But the score is entirely backlit. The points are illuminated on the playfield, kind of like a bonus counter, but the score is all backlit animation on the back glass. That's a bit unusual. Most games are very kind of loud and proud about the numbers that are shown. You want to have bragging rights I suppose so why not show that 100,000 being lit or that million points. You fought for it, you earned it. But that's not so with this game. So let's talk about the playfield artwork. It is primarily blue and red. The plastics are yellow and the red is arrayed in a triangular shape around the one point rollovers and in the center there is that one kick out. The point counter is shaped in a triangle shape. I find the design of this very attractive, mostly coupled with the plastic. So the artwork is not extremely exciting in and of itself, although I do like the design that they have for that triangular section in the middle from an artwork perspective, from a gameplay perspective even more, but that's a different subject. But the plastics are very cool. There's a different woman's head on each plastic and she's essentially telling you or watching the game play and saying, you know, this is worth 500,000 points or it's worth 50,000 points, that kind of thing. Now, around the bumpers, the pop bumpers, there is a sunburst, you know, coming out and uh... very appealing looking very cool and as with many the williams games that had this tilt reset when the ball leaves the playfield there's essentially a one-way gate down at the bottom and a big card that says tilt reset uh... to let you know what it does uh... i thought that was very clever as well uh... i've always liked that feature and uh... i hope to play more games with that feature in the future The cabinet artwork is interesting. It's one of those ones where you know this must not have had any particular theme from the cabinet maker but uh... it's primarily green, the green base coat with yellow arrows that are pointing either up through the head or towards the front of the machine and they pass through What looks like a circle in the center. There's a couple of stripes, one yellow, one red, and one black. And that's it for the artwork. I think it's just as muted as it needs to be. It doesn't necessarily need to stand out, but it's kind of interesting that it's almost non-musical. You could make the argument That uh... there's a bit of a record theme by looking at that but you have to make a pretty big jump there at any rate uh... that's William Streamey and I look forward to playing it one day well uh... that's it for tonight thank you very much for listening and also to my listeners who celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas to you and uh... Happy New Year to everybody and I will be talking with you again In two weeks. So thanks 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-BINGOS1, 724-246-4671. You can listen to me on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, Google Play Music, on Stitcher, Spotify. You can follow me on Twitter at bingopodcast or on Instagram also at bingopodcast. You can follow me on my Facebook page Which is for amusement only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Or on my website which is for amusement only dot libsyn dot com. Thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time.