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#71 The OG - The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·44m 15s·analyzed·Jan 11, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Classic Pinball Podcast hosts discuss Rush game announcement, restoration work, and display board troubleshooting.

Summary

George and Dave discuss classic pinball machines, the newly announced Stern Rush pinball game, Dave's personal purchase of a Rush Limited Edition machine, restoration stories, and technical troubleshooting of classic Williams-era display boards. The episode blends personal anecdotes (a Gottlieb System 1 restoration, New Year's Eve gameplay) with industry observations about themes, licensing, and the collector vs. operator divide in pinball.

Key Claims

  • The next Stern game is supposedly going to be Rush

    high confidence · George states this as established news; Dave confirms and announces his personal purchase of a Rush LE

  • There are 1,000 Rush Limited Editions and they are all spoken for

    high confidence · George heard this from Tim at Pixels and Pinball/Pinball and Pixels; Tim indicated he had one more LE allocated available before Dave purchased it

  • Dave purchased a Rush Limited Edition machine as his first new-in-box pinball game

    high confidence · Dave directly states his purchase decision after Tim offered him an LE; motivated by Rush fandom and suggestion from his wife Maureen

  • The Godfather is a Jersey Jack game no longer in New Jersey

    high confidence · George references this as known to the audience; references watching it on cable multiple times; darker theme comparable to Sopranos

  • The Sopranos pinball game was from White Star era (back 15-16)

    medium confidence · George estimates the era; Dave had a customer with one in Connecticut he serviced

  • Dave is working on a Firepower pinball game restoration/project

    high confidence · George references Grant from Australia calling it 'SMIC' (smooth and slick); Dave is actively working on it

  • Dave and George recently restored a Roller Disco game just before Christmas for a customer with grandkids

    high confidence · Dave describes the restoration and customer satisfaction story in detail

  • Classic Williams display boards lack labeling and symbols, unlike Bally boards

    medium confidence · Dave observes this contrast based on his restoration experience; contrasts with Bally's helpful labeling

  • Betson's is a distributor in Norwood that sells to commercial accounts and operators

    medium confidence · George confirms from showroom visit; Dave clarifies distribution model

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on my first new inbox pin. I'm an old school classic guy but I like Rush and it's the classic band.”

    George @ ~midway through episode — Establishes George's initial hesitation about buying new games and what swayed his thinking toward Rush

  • “Hell yeah, get the LE. You deserve it. You're working hard. Get it.”

    Maureen (George's wife) @ ~midway through episode — Pivotal moment that convinced George to purchase the LE; shows influence of spouse support

  • “You put it in backwards? Yeah. So did I really do bad?”

    George @ ~late in episode — George admits to reversing a transistor on a classic Williams display board, illustrating restoration mistakes

  • “Bally actually puts a nice little symbol on here on how you should orient your transistor, and you ignored that, George.”

    Dave @ ~late in episode — Highlights design differences between Bally and Williams boards in terms of user-friendliness

  • “I heard that there's going to be 1,000 of them. That's correct. 1,000. Okay. And they're all spoken for.”

    George and Dave (confirming) @ ~midway through episode — Confirms Rush LE supply scarcity and immediate sell-through

  • “You never know who's listening. And he also complimented us, saying, well, it was just two guys I didn't know that were online. I wouldn't care. But you guys are known. People listen to you.”

    George (recounting feedback) @ ~midway through episode — Shows the podcast's reach and influence in the pinball community; impacts accountability

  • “I'm an analog kid in a digital world.”

    Dave @ ~early in episode — Dave's personal philosophy about his relationship to technology and collecting

  • “When you're retired, time to me is infinite. I got all the time in the world.”

    George — Reflects on retirement lifestyle and approach to restoration projects

Entities

GeorgepersonDavepersonMaureenpersonTimpersonSterncompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyBetson'scompanyRushgame

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Stern Rush pinball game officially announced; described as 'the next Stern game'

    high · George: 'the next Stern game is supposedly going to be Rush'; Dave confirms knowledge and his purchase decision

  • ?

    product_launch: Rush Limited Edition machines in production; 1,000 units total with all units allocated to distributors/buyers

    high · George heard '1,000 of them' and 'they're all spoken for'; Tim at Pixels and Pinball had one final LE allocation available

  • ?

    collector_signal: Dave converted from classic-only collector to new-game buyer motivated by Rush fandom and scarcity (final LE available)

    high · Dave: 'my first new inbox pin'; Tim offered 'one more allocated available'; Maureen's encouragement sealed the deal

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Stern secured Rush band license for pinball; Canadian rock band theme for upcoming machine

    high · Explicit announcement of Rush game; George discusses band's history and Canadian radio requirements as context

  • $

    market_signal: Discussion of mafia/dark-themed games (Godfather, Sopranos) vs. rock/pop themes; debate on limited audience appeal for certain themes

    medium · George and Dave discuss whether Bruce Springsteen or Jon Bon Jovi pinballs would work; consensus: no market; contrast with band-based themes

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.133

0:00
Oh Hello and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George, and today I'm joined by my consigliere, Dave. Hello, Dave. Consigliere, I like that, George. Happy New Year, George. Well, you'll understand why in a second. Okay. Dave and I broke the rules and we've chatted quite a few times in the last three weeks with the holidays around Dave told me a story about a carpenter from Chelmsford I'd like you to tell the audience that story I forgot about it forget about it well let's see that was a Gottlieb System 1 genie Got a call from this guy, North Shore. And he's had it for like 20 plus years. Got it from, oh, I think somewhere in Boston.
1:42
And he was looking around forever for someone to fix it. It definitely needed a lot of help. Barely worked. His son would, once in a while, would just like bang it up on the side like a Fonzie thing. And it would work for a while longer than fail. when I arrived there was rubber bands on the out lane so they couldn't lose the ball it had no leveling feet on it so it was like flat so the ball was just wandering around and it just needed a lot of help and I said how did you find me anyway he said I'm so glad I found you as I'm working on the game hour number 5 going into hour number 9 on it he says I love what you're doing with this game it looks fantastic, he watched me the whole time I watched Maureen and I work on the game the whole time.
2:27
And he said, yeah, how did you find me? He said, well, someone related to Whitey Bulger knew you. I was like, huh?
2:40
What? What do you mean Whitey Bulger? Well, let's explain because I've had to do this with some people around the world. If you're not familiar, Whitey Bulger was a, I'll use the word, gangster from Boston. He has since left us, but you can Google it, as they say, and look up who Whitey is if you're not familiar with him. Or DuckDuckGo is better. Use that. Yeah, there you go. There you go. So continue. So, hold on. I'm getting a note in my ear.

  • A customer found Dave through someone connected to Whitey Bulger in Boston

    high confidence · Dave recounts this anecdote directly; caller explained referral came through someone who knew Whitey Bulger

    • @ ~end of episode
    The Godfathergame
    The Sopranosgame
    Firepowergame
    Roller Discogame
    Bobby Orr Power Playgame
    Geniegame
    Whitey Bulgerperson
    Grantperson
    Jimperson
    Pixels and Pinballcompany
    The Classic Pinball Podcastorganization
    Electric Bat Arcadevenue
    Playboygame
    Medusagame
    Flash Gordongame
    Williamscompany
    Ballycompany

    restoration_signal: George restored Bobby Orr Power Play display board, reversed transistor orientation (user error); Dave provided guidance on proper approach

    high · George: 'I put it in backwards'; Dave: 'You're supposed to match it up...you did it the other way'; discussion of resistor replacement procedures

  • ?

    product_concern: Classic Williams-era display boards lack labeling and orientation symbols, making repairs difficult for non-experts; contrast with Bally's user-friendly design

    high · Dave: 'Classic Williams does not make it easy for you at all...They don't even label their boards'; contrasts with Bally having 'nice little symbol' for orientation

  • ?

    venue_signal: Electric Bat Arcade (multi-location) hosting unveiling event on January 9th; features lineup of classic games (Medusa, Buck Rogers, Blackout, Flash Gordon)

    medium · George references game developer photos and upcoming unveiling; Electric Bat Arcade website mentioned; George planning to cover event

  • ?

    content_signal: Classic Pinball Podcast has established audience; game developer reached out directly to George after hearing previous episodes; podcast influences industry perception

    high · Developer sent private message acknowledging George's previous comments; George's wife notes: 'you guys are known. People listen to you'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Discussion of whether dark-themed games (Godfather, Sopranos, Walking Dead-style) resonate with pinball audience vs. classic/fun themes

    medium · George: 'It's not really a happy pin...It's like Sopranos'; Dave: 'kind of a dark theme...not really a happy pin'; George wondering if market exists for darker games

  • ?

    business_signal: Tim from Pixels and Pinball (Stern distributor in Massachusetts) initiated outreach to George for mutual business referrals (restoration vs. new game sales)

    high · George recounts Tim's email and reciprocal referral arrangement; establishes informal business relationship between distributor and restoration specialist

    • 3:13
    What? Oh, yes, right. Right. Thank you, Maureen. And the guy who knows Whitey Boll just said, And, oh, you've got to call Dr. Dave. Here's his number. Not even the website. He has my number. It's like, okay. I don't even know this guy. So you're not even familiar with the person that he got the number from? I have no idea who it is.
    3:33
    I'm thinking maybe I was on so many Boston TV shows, like Chronicle and NBC Boston, that maybe they saw him. Someone saw me in Boston. Okay. Pitching some of our older episodes. That's good. Okay. Yeah. No. Could be. Could be anything. Who knows?
    3:52
    We live in the digital world. We do. So I'm going to get my jersey on for a minute, unless you have a little bit more to add to this.
    3:59
    Well, George, I'd say I'm an analog kid in a digital world. You didn't even use the stupid joke you said the other day. Hold on, I've got to figure it out. What joke was that? Want to whisper to me? No.
    4:10
    No. It had to do with Karen Carpenter, but we'll leave it at that. Oh, yeah, leave it alone. No, no, no. Can I go back? You, no, no, rewind. Oh, I flubbed that one. So I'm going to get my jersey on. Are you familiar with the rumor of the latest Jersey Jack game, which is no longer in New Jersey?
    4:31
    No, I'm not. Okay, so probably our audience already knows The Godfather. I think people are starting to see a recurring theme here. Now, you might think that's a little insane. Yeah, I think it's a little insane. But I watched pieces of it yet again because it was on cable for the upteen billionth time. I get sucked in, and I started watching pieces of it. So my question to you is, you made a face, and it wasn't one with a big smile. It was more like, what the hell? Yeah. Or what you're talking about, Willis. Anyway, so your thoughts. I don't know, kind of a dark theme. I'm thinking like Walking Dead kind of theme. It's not really a happy pin. It's like Sopranos.
    5:21
    You looking at my notes over here? No, I'm not. So let's segue to the Sopranos. You'll get this in a second. So we know Sopranos is out. I remember playing that in the showroom at Betson's down in Norwood when I was picking up some glass. They had one in there. So whenever that game was released, for those of you who don't know, Betson's is, I want to say they're a distributor.
    5:49
    They are. Right? Aren't they like, they sell it to the people who you and I would buy a game from? Yeah, they sell to a lot of like Ryan Amusements, Arcades. Right, so you've got to be more of a commercial account. Commercial, yeah. Although my buddy Jack bought that Playboy from them and the, whatchamacallit, the uh help me with the target three targets in front of the ramp the sci-fi theme bally yeah no i'm brain dead we'll come back yeah we'll get that one it's a maya game greg maya game i can't remember i gotta look later god we're stupid we're starting off real well anyway so let me continue so i played sopranos i haven't played much of it since have you ever played it I had played it. I had a customer in Connecticut who had one, so I worked on it there. Of course you did. So what do you think? Okay? It's okay. Right. Nothing I need to know. Okay, right. Okay. Well, remember, it's back 15, 16, whatever. White Star. So it got me to thinking.
    6:52
    Guess what our number five episode is right now. This is going to make you... There's a recurring theme here now, so carefully choose. We didn't do any Godfather stuff, I remember. Okay. I'm going to interject. Okay. The Jersey Shore. So it got me to thinking. Oh, that was your episode. You're right. Okay. Number five. Wow, pretty good, George. Yeah.
    7:16
    Dumbfounded, to be honest with you. So anyway, thanks, folks. So that was number five. It got me to thinking. Do you think they would make a pinball about the Jersey Shore? No.
    7:28
    No. Okay. But then again, with Jersey Jack, yeah, they would. Jersey Shore. I'm going to keep going on the jersey. But it's limited audience. Remember I kept saying I'm going to put my jersey on. Okay, yes. So here we go. Okay. So we're going to come to it in a little bit, so don't spoil it. Okay. Rock and roll pins. Okay. Now, do you think there would ever be a market for a Bruce Springsteen? Hell no. Or a Jon Bon Jovi pin? No, no, doubly no. No, no, and no.
    8:01
    Okay. God no. So now I'm going to rewind. So we were talking about pins that had a, what I would call a gangster theme. Some might say the mafia. Now there was a game from Capcom in 1996 called Bright. Yeah. Ever played that? I did. It was actually a fun game. Okay. I'm not familiar. That's rare. Okay. And the other one was, and this is probably going to get a few hair stands, is the 2018 highway pinball game called Mafia. I never played it. I don't even know how many they made. Saw it, didn't look that good. How many could they have made? Ten. Yeah, and how many people did they take to the cleaners? No pun intended. Yeah, exactly. With cement shoes. So, now we'll come back to rock and roll. Okay.
    8:52
    We probably all are aware, if you're not, newsflash, the next Stern game is supposedly going to be Rush. Now, I told Dave the story the other day when I heard about this, that I listened to that band quite a bit because of the rock and roll station I listened to out of Montreal. Going to school in Burlington, Vermont, it's only like 60 miles by the, maybe a little bit more as the crow flies, but we used to listen to Showm FM. and Dave was not familiar with this but there is a Canadian content requirement so for those of you who live in Canada you can shut the radio you can shut the podcast off for a second anyway for our international and North American audience you need to play 35 Canadian artists between 6 a.m and 6 p.m Monday through Friday who makes these rules just wait I'm not done you also need to have at least 35 percent of your content every week with canadian artists so if you're a rock and roll station trust me and i don't know the bands so everybody you know hold tight i heard a lot of rush and that's where we're going with this i probably heard them more than any band but was never really into them because i heard them on the radio all the time but they used to play French artists, Anne Murray, all kinds of stuff just to fill the gap in every hour. Well, they were probably very triumphant because they were fighting the good fight every morning, fighting the good fight every day, George, the triumph. I mean, it was a great radio station. It was just kind of weird if you didn't speak French, you know, hearing a couple of French tunes every hour. It was like, okay, but might I digress? So now we're at Rush. Hold on. You missed my joke. What was your joke? I was looking at my notes. The Canadians got it, but George doesn't know this one. There's a group called Triumph out of Canada. Oh, okay, yeah. And the song... Another band I was... Their big song is Fight the Good Fight. Are they They from Canada Yeah Do they have albums out before 1980 Yeah they were right in competition with Rush but they were definitely not as good as Rush Probably heard them on the radio Yeah they were played at the same time Rush was played I just remember Rush because this is, we're getting there, so I might as well talk about it. By 1980, I graduated in 1980, there were already seven Rush albums out. Now, you're a little bit younger than I am, So I found it pretty wild that you really liked the band. When did you start listening to them? And did you listen to all this early stuff? I did. Oh, yeah. So I basically, well, I started listening to Rush. And was it on disc? Albums. CD? Albums. So you had vinyl. Oh, vinyl. Oh, yeah. So we had not entered the CD world yet. No. I was basically into Rush in early and late 70s. Yeah, late 70s. Maybe sophomore high school, junior. No, sophomore, freshman-ish. Okay. And I basically started with moving pictures.
    12:03
    And then I started going back in time. It's like, let's try Permanent Waves. That was a great album. I went back in time some more. And I missed, I got into Rush late, so I didn't get to go to the moving pictures tour. But my first concert ever was the subdivisions tour. I think it was 82, 83. Where? Boston Garden. The old garden. The old, old garden. And that was fantastic. Really? Yeah, and I didn't really, you know, young kid, don't use hearing protection. I remember coming out of there, ears ringing.
    12:31
    What? Huh? What? I still remember walking in the halls there, just like Rush says. But with ringing ears and everybody else was talking, and it's almost like some shotguns went off in your ear. But I recovered. So, folks, here we go. Here's the newsflash. Newsflash. We are going to jump the shark today. All right. Dave, obviously the audience already is probably clued in that you're a big Rush fan. Yes, I'm a big Rush fan. Tell me what you told me on the phone the other day. This might be the first... Well, George... This might be... Well, George, you know what?
    13:14
    I'm thinking, uh... I'm thinking, George... And it's time for my first new inbox pin. So, that's what I'm doing, George. And it gets even better than that. Please, don't shut off. Stay with us a little bit longer. A little bit longer. A little bit. So, don't faint, folks. I just... Well, here's the thing. It's all... You know, sometimes it's coincidence. Things come together. I'll tell you a little story here. I got an email from the only Stern Distributed in Massachusetts two days before the Rush release. Two days before actually the announcement or whatever. I'm not going to ask you to say it. Do I know who this is?
    14:06
    He's out at Pixels and Pins. Pins, he's going to kill me. Pin and Pixels out of Acton. I think that's what it's called. Pinball and Pixels. I don't know who it is. I'll find the exact same thing. Okay, so he's hating you right now. Yeah, I've got to get him. Hold on. what is this exact thing yeah pixels and pinball.com there his name is tim out of acton uh only stern distributor i know out of out of mass maybe betson's still doing but i don't know but he's like a small time guy and uh no one else was doing it so he did it so basically he emailed me and said hey i get a lot of people looking for you know restoration and fixing their old pin machines and i want something to refer to when i was thinking you and i up for that it's like sure him up for that yeah definitely you can get my name out and my website here you know and we should hook up and and i should go to your showroom and talk to you we could definitely you know talk about stuff and and i said by the way i get a lot of uh besides people want wanting games from me i get other people saying hey i want a new game and i don't really offer that at this point but i'll steer them to you it's a little reciprocity that's right hey that's that's how uh that's how it should be and then i said by the way you know i'm thinking i'm really thinking hard i really love the band Rush and I'm really thinking of pulling the trigger on my first new inbox pin. I'm an old school classic guy but I like Rush and it's the classic band. I'm thinking of doing it. I'm thinking of getting the premium. And then he wrote back, well would you like an LE? I have one more allocated available. Did you buy it?
    15:36
    So then what I did, and then I said hmm, I said, hey honey should I get, I don't know, should I buy the LE? And what did you say, Maureen? You said hell yeah. She said, hell yeah, get the LE. You deserve it. You're working hard. Get it. It's like, you're not helping. So she was helping, actually.
    15:54
    I'm not surprised, and good move. And I said, yes. Because you can, even if you don't like it, that's probably not a probability right now. But even if you don't like it, you know. I'll get money back on it. You're going to get your, it's a rental. Right. It's an investment. Well, it can be. And, again, people don't tune into this. This has all been rehashed by everybody else already. But I heard that there's going to be 1,000 of them. That's correct. 1,000. Okay. And they're all spoken for. And I didn't know they were all spoken for. And when he said he has one left, I said, you know what? There's a reason why he reached out to me, this and that. It's all seemed very – it's meant to be. Let's do the following. So I said, yes, I'll take the other one. Because I can control it then. Yeah. When you get your game, we can do a show on it. I'll put all the warnings on it. Hey, all you classic guys, if you don't want to hear this. But classic guys most likely like Rush, so it might be a time. Well, you're, again, feeding into it. We could talk about it. I don't want to dominate the show with Rush, but I wanted to give you your time. Yes. Okay.
    17:04
    Mailbag. I got a private message about a comment I made about a game. You're a bad boy, George. We're both bad boys. I was. Who was the guy's name? Stinky on Abbott and Costello? Yeah. I'm a bad boy.
    17:26
    Anyway, it got me to thinking. Quick explanation. if I hadn't gotten a phone message from Bruce our friend in Arizona I probably wouldn't even have included the the story we didn't we gave a kind of short shift I did anyway but understand why a Dave had been bugging me forever to play that song and that's why I made the comment the second was that that show came out when I was in college didn't pay a lot of mind I know it's part of the lexicon today, familiar with all the characters. How could you not? But I got some pictures from this person. And had I seen these pictures before I made the comments, we probably wouldn't be discussing this again. And what I'm going to say to the person who had contacted me, one of the people that developed the games.
    18:29
    Check out these pictures, Dave. And now I think you might have a little bit different opinion. And I'll take back my one comment.
    18:37
    Daisy is on the side of the head. Oh, okay. It's a lot better looking game than I thought. There's a lot of hard work. Look, no hard feelings. But also, I gave him the opportunity to come on and say, hey, you can take me to the woodshed. I'm okay with it. And he said, no, no, no, that's not my style. But if you'd have me on at some point in time, real busy guy, I guess. I said, yeah. So I'm not going to say who it is. I'm hoping that he posts these pictures out on Pinside because people should see it. And again, this is the unveiling that's going to happen on the 9th of January at the Electric Bat Arcade. I know there's two locations. Go out to their website and take a look. But a lot of hard work there. And again, I'm a Paragon fan as Dave is. I never like to see a game hacked up, but then again, I have to do the mea culpa because I've done it numerous times. So he saved one kind of, but a lot of hard work there. It looks like there might be a show. It looks like I'm looking at his lineup in the background. Oh, I'm glad you brought that up. So yeah, that qualifies him right away. He's got a Buck Rogers, a Blackout, a Medusa, and a Flash Gordon sitting right there. And it made me, here's where we're going to segue, it made me think about the Medusa that I no longer have. Do you own one? I own one. We have to do a show. I got a nice one to make. But we have to do a show on that game at some point because I owned it so I'm familiar with it. And I think, again, it's sort of after game and I'm starting to see prices for that game go through the roof as well. So enough of that. I'm coming to the last item. Well, one more thing. You said this to me about that private message. You never know who's listening. And he also complimented us, saying, well, it was just two guys I didn't know that were online. I wouldn't care. But you guys are known. People listen to you. So he felt bad, and I didn't mean to be mean before Christmas. So he made me think, and I think that's a good thing. That's not going to soften me up. I'm still going to make fun of things. But we get it. Right, when it's personalized, it's home. So let's go to our friend Grant in Australia. He used a word about the firepower game that you are working on. He called it SMIC. Yeah. Do you know what that means? No. I had to look it up. Let me guess. Smick must mean the bee's knees.
    21:16
    It's a combo word. Okay. Smooth and slick. Okay. Smick. So I'm adding that to mine. All right. Because nobody will know what you're talking about. But if you read the Irish version of that, that's a whole different thing, and I'm not going to address it. You go out to the internet machine and look it up for yourself. Should I go to Doyle's Pub and just shout that out? No, you don't ever want to do that. Never do that? No.
    21:47
    No. Because I'm looking for trouble. No. Don't. All right. No. I'll make a note of that. It is not a complimentary thing. You just don't walk in like you're going into Cheers and you're like, hey! No. Not going to end up too well No Well you end up but not well Well one time I went into a bar and they asked me for my ID It was an Irish bar in Boston And I said my name is you know I Patty And they said, well, Patty who? I said, I'm Patio Furniture.
    22:24
    You're making me choke. I don't like coffee. Stop it. Oh, what is wrong with you? I'm Patio Furniture. Okay, okay. I'm done with the sheet. I've exhausted all my points. Oh, no, I didn't. Do you want to do show and tell now, or do you want to tell a story? Because it's going to take me a minute to get my show and tell together.
    22:45
    What, which one? Roller games. Roller games? Oh, no, that's called Roller Disco. Yes, Roller Disco. We talked about that game.
    22:52
    That's a show and tell. That's a customer. A customer experience thing? Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Take the floor. All right. All right. So, take the floor here. so right before Christmas and all through the house the creature was stirring and certainly not this roller disco stop it certainly not this roller disco that was dead as a doornail so well that fits the theme of the show it does?
    23:22
    you're not a Godfather fan never mind move forward moving on So I said, well, I'm really busy up to Christmas. I got 17 grandkids coming over. It's like, all right, well, you're going to tug on my heartstring with the grandkids. I've got to make it happen. So I fit them in and went over there. Maureen and I did our thing with it. Actually, this is a game that we restored several years ago and sold to him, but it had some kind of short or some kind of major problem that happened with it. They played the crap out of it. So we did our thing with it, fixed a couple things with it, Give it a nice little clean up. And the kids were watching us the whole time. Came upstairs. They loved playing it. They were play testing it after we were done. So that was a happy Christmas for them. They were really appreciative of us doing that right in time for Christmas. There was much rejoicing. So that was that System 1. I definitely like working on System 1s these days. Now that you can actually get the Pascal board in there and make your life a lot easier.
    24:19
    So that's that one there, George. Ready for some show and tell? Sure. New Year's Eve, had my friend Jim from the Cape up for the night, and he wanted to play some old school. So we played, for the first game, Bobby Orr Power Play. I know, folks, not one that everybody likes. It's demonstrated by the low ratings on that particular show. But I only play the game normally by myself. It was the first time somebody has been over other than you. and the digit, which digit on the second player, the thousands, the second one in, number five, wasn't working. Ten thousands. Right, so you couldn't really tell. If you scored 100,000, you couldn't tell that you were in the 100,000. So it was kind of weird. It was weird anyway. No, not 100,000, hundreds. Whatever it was, it was bugging me. So I'm like, okay, let's play something else. Because he goes, yeah, I know you. I know that's going to bug you. So I took it out.
    25:27
    And I said to myself, well, let me repair it. So I went to my Clay Harold book that I have in the binder with all the information from 20 years ago when I printed it out. 100K ohm resistors. Well, I started with. Do them all. Well, I did. I did the whole inline for it. All six, yeah. So I fixed that one. Oh, you did the transistors. I fixed that one. Yeah. and then I fixed that one. Right? And after all that, I've got the first digit and every other one is out now. Well, that's good, George.
    26:04
    No, wait. So, after I was defeated yesterday afternoon, Why are we not to hire you, George? Wait, wait, wait. Wait a second.
    26:14
    There's a reason I'm telling this story. Because it's a contrast. remember me and remember you so we we have two different types of people here i'm just a hobbyist i try i'll give it the college try and i pulled the traces i was i really take a look i didn't yeah i so i guess i guess what i'm saying is what how can we help our audience this is not an easy thing to do those traces are so close together and if you put too much heat on them they pull it's it's not the first time i've done it but i didn't really care i'm like oh you know what george did you use a pair of pliers and a blowtorch on this what's going on no is it really that bad did i really do okay it's okay george You need a solder sucker. I have one. Do you got a solder put? No, no, I don't have a solder put. I have one of those bulb ones from a radio show. Oh, okay, old school. And, yeah, you kind of, your solder is kind of bald. I butchered it. Did you go from 10 feet and drop the solder onto the... No, I didn't. Stop. I don't do this every day, okay? I'm only coming to you because it's like, okay, so what would you have done? You have a board that doesn't work. What would you have replaced first? Day one, when you have the classic symptom of no... Right, because the glass is good in this one. But can I fix this? Yeah, sure. You're missing one digit. The first thing you do... No, I'm missing five digits. Well, let's go back before you added problems. Right, and pulled the traces and did nothing else. Yes, let's go back to step one. Step one, you're missing a digit.
    28:00
    Nine times out of ten, it is the odd numbers R1 through R11. six of them. Those resistors are under... So which one is that? These three and these three. Yeah, and I pulled that one because that's the one that said it was. Right, and then you might have... Yeah. Oh, I know you did. Oh, boy, George. I put it in backwards? You put it in backwards. Yeah. So did I really do bad? I don't know. It might be recoverable. We'll see. Did you smell any smoke? why did you say that because that's that was on my mind yesterday i'm putting it back in the game not this one one of the other ones and i said well i do have the fire extinguisher nearby because if you have an electrical fire if you have games and you don't have a fire extinguisher i don't care about the mess we just don't want to burn we just turn it off right away i understand but you know there's wood and there's other things in there it's low but it crossed my mind but George, here's the thing. Now, Bally does something very nice that I'm going to get into Classic Williams later, but I'm going to tease on that. Classic Williams does not make it easy for you at all. They don't even label their boards at all. They don't put any symbols. They don't put any numbers. You're on your own, and look at a picture of a schematic and figure it out.
    29:21
    Bally actually puts a nice little symbol on here on how you should orient your transistor, and you ignored that, George. See the little symbol there, the little half circle going that way? No. You're supposed to match it up. See the white circle? Yeah. You're supposed to match it up just like these, see? You did it the other way. So I'm done. So I don't do this. So I'm not done with my story. Okay. But you can continue. So maybe by, I think we should replace that transistor, put it in the right way, and then do all six of those resistors, and we might have some luck. Oh, this is the burned out one. So I'm not going to pull it out, but I have another display. I have four of them with me. But the one, remember I asked you the question about the VR? This thing right here, that? Oh, yeah, yeah. I asked you what that was? Yeah. It's got a Motorola symbol on it, so I'm wondering. You said it was a variable resistor? No, no, VR means voltage regulator. Is that what you think that is?
    30:21
    Is it anything that you ever pulled off? No, never had a doubt about that. That's what I'm wondering. Why on this other board I have did they pull it off? It's absent. And it worked? Oh, no, no. I didn't put it in the game. I noticed. I'm like, I'm looking at, you know, I always look real close. How did you get this? Come on. How many games did I buy? So you bought this, you bought it on a game somewhere. How many games did I buy that were never working? Okay, so this is one of these. So it was Rob. They needed that for a different board. I know what, I'll tell you exactly what happened, George. They have this display. It has measles.
    30:55
    So they don't want to say... Right, I know this one. So this one I can pilfer parts from and I can take that part out. Right, but probably the one they took the part out probably has measles too, maybe. The one with the... No, no, it's clean. It's clean. Yeah. I'm surprised. Okay. So, yeah, I pilfer that part. I mean, it looks like a 4001. That's what it looks like, but I'm not sure. But I don't think it is. Anyway. You have to go by the part number. Anyway, you know what, mister? Yeah. You made fun of me? Yeah. When we go downstairs, I'm going to ask you to pull that part out for me, because I don't want to butcher it. All right. I want the part to come out in one piece so I can use it on the one, and I'll solder it in. Yeah, I can do that, but... No, George. No, no, no. So here comes the white knight, and we'll end this, because everybody's probably bored to tears.
    31:42
    I ordered, what is it called, a bear trap? No, a wolf pack. Do you know what that... Bear trap. What's that one? What's that called? A wolf pack. Yes. that's a hell of a deal you're going to make your own I'm going to make it oh boy they're not going to like what I have to say so I'm hoping but I think I already know the answer I went out and tried to find a video of somebody putting this thing together I went to their website and was hoping and praying that you give an instruction and you put a picture of what you just put in I've heard you know Tommy Skinner I think put these in his game I think he's the one I learned of this from and I'm saying to myself I'll take the flyer for 34 bucks delivered I'll try to build it they say if it doesn't work ship it back as long as you do the shipping back and forth oh I think I can make it but stay tuned folks that's gonna be it's gonna take some time George It's going to take some time. I spent more than enough time doing that. And I'm just going to say this. I got my, you know, puffed my chest out because the other day I fixed the champion toilet in the master bathroom. Now for those of you who aren familiar with this toilet it the one that used to be online and on TV where they put the dozen golf balls in the bowl and then flushed it Yeah most people remember that Well it never worked I surprised It had a bad flapper So finally I saw online I was doing an Amazon thing and I saw, oh, you can buy the new flapper thing. I'm like, gold. And I couldn't get the water supply off. I mean, that was a whole chore on to myself. I did one of those too recently. So when you're retired, the moral of the story, folks, is I'm not going to bore you with everything I did to the toilet. More toilet talk. It doesn't really matter. But when you're tired, you're trying to find things to do, and time really doesn't matter, which is a whole different game. And this is a good lead-in for Dave.
    33:47
    Time to me is infinite. I got all the time in the world. Sometimes it takes longer than it should, and I'm always willing to give it a try. Now, Dave has a finite amount of time. And from what I understand, and this is his lead-in, he's been pulling what hair he has left on his head out because of two games. So if you want to talk a little bit about that, you can. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if you have any other stories, but we've been going pretty good here. Yeah, so classic Williams games. I mean, you know, the build quality, lackluster compared to the Valley stuff of the day. Well, qualify. We're talking what board set, or are we just making a blanket statement? Blanket set. So System 3 through System 7, let's call, yeah, before System 11. You know, pre-83 and 77-83, right in there.
    34:47
    Again, they didn't really label their boards at all. They substandard parts. Just compared to the Bally and the Gollings of the day, they had more robustness to them. same thing with the early sterns they're light sockets you change a light bulb out wiggle them back a couple times metal fatigues off your hand and it comes off the board you know but I worked through firepower lots of time on this firepower and I basically rebuilt it and made it as robust as I can to like a bally, put all new William WPC mechs into it and put Weebly Andrew. He makes red LED displays and some other colors too. So I put red in there and they look fantastic. I also took some smoke gray tint and put that over the window so you can't even see the display so they come on. Did you have to make them or did he have them already made? He had them already made. He had them already but... No, because a lot of his stuff now is you've got to make it if you can even buy it and I'm not dissing on them. I mean, we're not going to use the word again because everybody knows about it. I mean, just stuff's in short supply. Yeah, it's short supply. So, you know, I did all that, but come to the part that I had problems with is like, now, speaking of the good kind of, you know, Daisy Duke shorts are fantastic. William's shorts in their playfield suck.
    36:17
    Alright, so let's just say that. That fits today. Okay. So, yeah, these aren't the kind of shorts you want. So I had some kind of weird short. Both games had the same problem, which is weird. You lift the play field up, like on the Flash game. Lift the play field up. Oh, so you're teasing that too now. Yeah, we'll tease both. I'm working on both these systems, System 4 and System 6. The same stuff. So on the Flash, when the play field is down in position, about seven out of eight switches in a column. These are switch matrix, so they kind of work in this weird way. It's not like value was one switch at a time. This is matrix in Williams' world. So if you lose one switch, you usually lose eight of them. They're all in a row. So this one only had one switch in the row. But if you lift the play field up, hey, the switches start to come back a little bit. So it's like up and down the play field at a 30-degree angle they work, or they don't work. So you're moving a wire. There's a break in it probably. Maybe. And when you move the wire, it connects. Yeah, maybe. I open up the coin door with a light. What do I see in there? Any kind of weird thing? No, it's all cool. Flip the plate over, look at it. Can't see anything. I say, okay, I'll put that back. Then I go over to the firepower. Same thing. Lift it up. This light works perfectly. Flashing on and off. Put it down. The light stays on solid. It's like, why? So I talked to my good friend, John Day, electrical engineer, and I said, hey, what do you think? He's like, oh, you've got a short. There's a short somewhere. That's what it is. That's a Daisy Duke short. It's like, ugh. Yeah. Sorry, John. Tell me something I don't know.
    37:58
    But he said, he basically gave good advice. He said, the switching question you think that's working, the other ones aren't,
    38:05
    take the connectors, separate it from the head, take an ohmmeter, and measure that switch to ground and see what you get. And it's like, you know what? I have a partial short. I have a 330-ohm partial short. the other switches in that row open like they're supposed to be. I say, okay. So there's something in that switch that's shorting kind of. So that actually, I actually fixed that one. The firepower still has a short, that light, it's a minor thing. I'm still going to work on it, but it's just driving me. I spent like, I don't know, 10 hours the other night on that. So I'm feeling pretty good about myself right now where I only chewed up maybe an hour and a half or two hours yesterday because I wasn't very efficient in my desoldering. And don't worry, George, I've had problems with doing board work, too. Case in point, with the Flash.
    38:55
    Everything's working great, but it's like, you know, the guys who had it before me, you know, they did an okay job restoring it, but, I don't know, it's sort of Cheech and Chong-ish a little bit, you know? Right. Look, every one of my games has original displays in it. I've never purchased a remake. So Curiosity got the best of me. And for $34, I mean, you go to buy one already made, they're like, if you can find them, you know, again, we won't go there. But they're like $80.
    39:25
    Wow. No, that's a big, I mean, that's, grateful that they're out there, but I get it. It's like, okay. Some of these LED displays, you get the right ones. I think the Wolfpack is good. The Pinatech is good. And so are Andrews. They look stock. Especially if you put some smoke gray filter there, they look really nice. So I'm becoming more of a fan of them in the right circumstances. I figure I'm just going to put it in how many games and how many balls and see how it looks there. If I don't like it, I'll dump it into position four. But I'm hoping that you're going to help me resurrect one of these so I can put it back in my game. Well, I think you have to do a whole set. Don't you have to do the whole thing with these? Don't you have to do a whole set? No. You don't? That's not my... They sell them singularly, so my guess is no.
    40:12
    I'll make the inquiry, but... I make the inquiry because I don't think you can throw high voltage that's coming into that board at that. They don't use the high voltage. I think that's part of it. Okay. Somehow they're using lower voltage to do that, and I don't know what they're pulling it from. But however they're doing it. Well, I will say. I think you can interchange. I'm almost hot. Well, here's the thing. Stay tuned. I'll let you know. Like I said, this was all bought on price and just impulse. I'd be very careful, George, because I know I've read other things have said there's lots of warnings. There's warnings saying if you're using our displays, don't mix them with old plasma displays. Use them all or none. A lot of these places say that. We're going to find out. So unless for some reason on their board, any pin coming in with high voltage, they have it disconnected and not going, then maybe it's okay. But I know the other boards, they don't want any high voltage near those things. I'll let you know. Okay. I'm not going to cry. Display might go boom. It's more of a, okay, here's my Heath kit. Let me put this thing together and see if I can do it.
    41:18
    I mean, I'll take all the displays out and just put one in, if that's the case, just to see how it works. Well, what I would have done as well with that, you probably could have actually saved yourself some headache. Well, easily said after the fact. Well, you didn't ask me. I'm wrong. You just went right in. Well, you know. You got to ask your friends first. That's the brain trust. Well, I had four of them. I figured, you know, I'll give it a shot. I wasn't planning on pulling the traces, those freaking little traces around. But she gives you the right heat. If you use too much heat, it's going to pull. Well, I know that. You've got to dial it in. It's just, look.
    41:54
    Do you have a dial-in thing? I'm not very. Or just one big iron? I have one still in the box, never used. Oh, wow. I always use the stick. Maybe it's time. Yeah, I think.
    42:02
    Well. But here's what you could have done, George. Forget the board repair. You could have taken that faulty display that's missing a digit, throw that in your credit display thing, take the good credit display, No, I couldn't because it was in the wrong spot.
    42:15
    I couldn't do that. You couldn't do it. It wouldn't work. I'm screwing up which one it was. It doesn't matter. That didn't work. That was the first thought. And then I was like, well, that doesn't work. Okay, that concludes today's podcast.
    42:28
    Sorry for going a little long, but stay tuned for the next show. Dave and I I'm going to pull the curtain back for a little bit Dave and I are going down in the basement to record another show. What's the game? Firepower. So stay tuned Dave say goodbye Goodbye Farewell and see you on the other side
    42:59
    You want to tell me what this is all about? As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I take a look at my life and realize there's nothing left Cause I've been blastin' and laughin' so long that Even my mama thinks that my mind is gone But I ain't never crossed a man that didn't deserve it Me be treated like a punk, you know that's unheard of You better watch how you're talkin' and where you're walkin' Or you and your homies might be lyin' to chalk I really hate the trip, but I gotta low. As they croak, I see myself in the pistol smoke. Boom, I'm the kind of cheater little homies wanna be. Like on my knees in the night, saying prayers in the street light. We've been standing most our lives, living in the gangster's paradise. Outro Music