Robot Girlfriend 1.0

Pretty much since the beginning of pinball time, women have been depicted on pinball machines to allure the typical patrons.  However, none were so popular as Bally Xenon from 1980. This machine was not only futuristic looking, but employed cutting edge technology that still surprises tech-heads today with what the Bally engineers could accomplish.

Xenon was based off the Bally’s recently designed microprocessor based pinball machines, but stepped it up with the following additions:

• Auxiliary processor controlled lamp driver board to accomplish a dramatic light show in the cabinet back-box.   This back-box also housed 2 custom back glasses that gave the game a 3D look and feel.  The animation inside the glass would change style and tempo during the game to give a sense of excitement and urgency.
• Actual sampled audio along with synthesized voice and music.  This machine was known for it’s sexy call-outs during the game and in attract mode.   This was leagues ahead of it’s time.
• 2-ball multi-ball via the acrylic clear tube suspended above the playfield.  This tube was also lit with chase-lights.

Restoration

We purchased this game at least 3 years ago and have been collecting parts for this particular restoration.  This has been a back-burner plan for a while, but finally got around to doing the job as originally intended.

Cabinet and backbox

• sanded down, repaired and sealed
• 4 stage automotive paint (base, 2 colors and clear coat) inside and out
• New stainless / chrome hardware including (coin door, side rails, legs, bolts)
• New speakers, flipper buttons.

Circuitry

• All boards pulled, reflowed and repaired.
• Plasma displays replaced with new LED displays for long life and less heat
• New MPU board for error free play and no battery issues – ever

Playfield Restoration

• Game completely stripped.  Play field sanded down and repaired.  Multiple stage repaint and re-graphics applied (sandwiched between layers of automotive clear)
• All new plastic parts (except original graphic pieces that were in excellent condition)
• Full LED transformation in play field and back box
• New acrylic multi-ball tube
• Blue LED multi-ball tube chase light conversion
• Williams WPC flipper conversion (to make this game play fast and reliable).   Way better design than the old Bally flipper mechanisms.
• New pop bumpers assemblies and caps
• Original glass!!! PERFECT condition.  This was a nice surprise.

Pictures BEFORE and AFTER

Pinball machines used to made from a complicated set of relays, motors, wheels and contacts which allowed the games to have basic sets of rules.  Around 1977, solid state machines were being designed which incorporated the latest technology of micro processors, memory and various integrated circuits.  This cutting edge technology wasn’t even available to consumers until IBM and Compaq introduced them years later in the form of large desktop computers – but at ridiculous prices.

The pinball industry was one of the leaders in this new technology in the early 1980’s.  The Bally Company continued to design high tech machines for the gaming industry and soon released one of their most complicated and resulting best selling machines of the decade: Eight Ball Deluxe.

Eight Ball Deluxe was designed to continue the success of the popular Eight Ball pinball machine (with Fonzi on the back glass).  This time, Bally added many more rules, complicated shot combinations, and speech synthesis.   The result was a masterpiece and is still revered today as one of the best pinball machines ever designed.

Our Machine

We picked up a donor Eight Ball Machine about a 18 months ago and started collecting parts for the machine.  It was in reasonable original condition, but did not operate.  As well, much of the plastic parts were brittle and broken.   The playfield was worn a bit and the cabinet was pretty dinged up.  However, it was sound and all the components still existed, so it was an excellent candidate for restoration.  We just had no idea how long it really was going to take…

We started by gutting the entire machine and putting all the parts in various boxes.   We attacked the cabinet first and stripped it down to the wood.  The cabinet was repaired, and went through stenciling and a 4-stage paint process including automotive clear.

The playfield was also stripped, sanded down to the wood, repaired and received new reproduction graphics.  The playfield was also clear coated 4 times and cured over 2 months.   In the meanwhile, we bought all of the remaining Eight Ball Deluxe plastic pieces we could find in order to come up with a single complete set of new parts.

The circuit boards were repaired, including the unique combination sound and speech synth board.   A new MPU and auxiliary lamp driver board were sourced in order to drive all the LED lighting that replaced the old incandescent bulbs.

A new coin door, legs and hardware rounded out the package.

Before And After Pictures

New Games

• New multicade machines are back in stock.  Pacman, Ms. Pacman, Galaga and more all in one machine.
• Demolition Man Pinball – this wide body pinball has some of the best gadgets in the game.  Ramps galore. 6 ball multiball and more.
• WWF Royal Rumble – another wide body pinball with a mini play field.  Restored and ready to go.  Will not last long
• Rapid Fire – This unique machine is what happens when you combine pinball, a chain gun and space invaders.   This is a very rare opportunity to add a game like this to your collection or bar.
• Alley Cats Shuffle Bowler – Nearly 9′ of awesome.  Shuffle bowling has been around since the 50’s, but this late 1980’s model is what happens when you take the very best, add solid state electronics and full LED conversion.   We usually don’t do machine like this, but it was a rare opportunity to pick up a great arcade game.
• Williams Cyclone – the 2nd of the roller coaster series, but arguably the best of the bunch.  You know, the one with Ron and Nancy Reagan in the front seats!    Fully restored, new playfield and more.  High End pin for half the price.  Est this fall

Contact Issues

OOPS – Our email was full.   We had no idea that we went over the quota and all incoming email has been blocked.  Perhaps for a couple weeks.    The problem has been fixed.  Sorry !!!

Bally actually came out with two versions of the Mata Hari pinball in 1977 and was right in the middle of changing technology from electro-mechanical (relays, contacts and basic operation) to solid state (circuit board with programmable memory and deeper rules).   This of course was their first iteration of solid state pinball, but they basically retained the design through most of the decade, so their initial iteration was a success.  Future machines were enhanced with digital sound and more advanced lighting – as seen on machines such as Xenon.

What makes this game very unique is the fact that it uses chime boxes to generate sound (same as the electro-mechanical versions) – which makes this a bell-ringer solid-state pinball machine !

Bally was at the pinnacle of pinball at this time and made some beautiful machines with thought provoking themes.  The colors and artwork on the Mata Hari is robust and seductive and makes for a wonderful piece of functional art.

Restoration

This machine came to us by way of trade in.  It wasn’t really worth that much as it was worn to the wood all over and had many broken parts.  Because of the theme, it was bumped up to the top of the list for restorations as I just wanted to see how nice we can make it (within reason).

The results are much nicer than I had planned.  Not only is it stunning to look at, but it plays fantastic.  I had no idea these machines could play so fast…

This machine went through:

• Cabinet stripping, sanding, repair and 5 step automotive paint process with clear coat protection
• Playfield stripped and sanded.  All new artwork, custom paint under the plastics and multiple coats of automotive clear coat.
• New plastic posts and rubber
• New plastic artwork
• New drop targets
• New flippers and linkages
• New Pop bumper assemblies and caps
• All metal polished
• Wood rails sanded and painted gloss cherry
• Full LED installation
• New PCB
• Repaired driver, transformer  and lamp boards
• New coin door
• New legs and hardware
• Near mint backglass with the unique dagger inscription

Pictures

Before

After Cabinet

After Playfield

Video

We were given a little bit of a challenge – restore a completely non-working Kiss pinball machine and keep it under market value.  Well, why not!

This machine was brought to us literally in pieces.   Since this is a Kiss pinball machine, everyone seems to have a place in their hearts for it.

Restoration

• Cabinet repainted (3 colors)
• Back box rebuilts, repaired and hand painted.
• Displays repaired
• Backbox wiring repaired
• New MPU board
• Driver board, transformer board, sound board, lamp board and AUX lamp board completely rebuilt.  Not one of these darned things worked right.
• Playfield stripped, sanded down, repainted, cleared and new graphics installed.
• All new playfield parts (except plastic artwork – which was flattened and reused)
• New legs and hardware
• New coin door
• LED conversion
• All metal polished

Inquire

We’re currently working on this level of affordable high-end restorations on the following machines:

Xenon

Eight Ball Deluxe

Pictures

The before and after pictures tell the real story here.

BEFORE and AFTER

This just in:

• Kiss Pinball: full restoration blog.  Check back this week for lots of pictures and a great story
• Bally Xenon : If you liked the full restoration of the Kiss Pinball… then you’ll love this machine.  We’re going over the top on this one and it’s going to be a beauty.   Currently still available for a new home.
• Williams Blackout : a classic 80’s pinball with classic Williams sound and play.  This will be restored to keep this pinball inexpensive but still super reliable.
• NBA Fastbreak : We have this unique beauty ready to go.  Check out the pinball inventory
• NFL Blitz / NBA Showtime arcade : in original cabinet and graphics.  RARE!  We’ve had to turn down people all summer because we could not get this machine back in stock.  We have ONE.  Check the arcade inventory for more information.  Will not last long.

Not many people have heard of this game, probably due to it’s low production numbers.  However, most people have seen and played it’s older siblings:  Bally Eight Ball and Bally Eight Ball Deluxe (1981).   The Eight Ball Deluxe is considered one of the best designed pins of the era and also has a universally loved billiards theme.

The Stern Sharkey’s Shootout is a re-release of the Eight Ball Deluxe pinball with modern technology:

• Better graphics on clear coated playfield
• DMD display and animations
• Better lighting
• Better rules and depth
• Way more reliable hardware
• Added ramps and playfield toys.
• Multi-ball

This machine also has some unique features:

• Magic Eight Ball – where it captures the ball and awards various prizes
• User controlled outlane pop-up save posts and center save post.   Use the extra flipper buttons individually (or pressed together) to pop up save posts.  This is a very unique and fun feature to pinball.

Drop Targets:

• The drop targets in this game are very well used.  Each target is associated with a ball number.  Play Eight Ball or Nine Ball as the game modes progress.
• In Trick shot mode, the game will set up and light certain targets (and drop the rest).

The truth behind this game:  originally this game wasn’t very special to me… because it played horribly.  The reason was that half of the game didn’t work correctly.  Once the machine was reconstructed with new parts, the game rules really showed.  By far, this is way better than the original game from which it was modeled.

Restoration

This machine, which upon initial view appeared that it only needed some cleaning and TLC.  Well, after finding out that much of it did not work made me understand why it came to me in the first place.

• Full teardown, cleaning and waxing of playfield.
• Full LED replacement
• Backbox color changing LED bar – we pulled out the ugly flourescent light and went with a color changing LEDs.  This was such an improvement!
• New DMD display
• All new drop targets and stickers
• New slingshots
• New EightBall motor assembly.  This is often ignored!
• Retextured legs and new hardware including cabinet protectors
• Refinished cabinet
• New molding
• New rubbers and balls
• All new pop bumpers and fixed and mylar in this area (this area gets a lot of use)
• Cliffy protector kit on hole.

The result is night and day… and from the pictures, you can tell this is a beautiful and  modern machine!

Pictures

Bally (Midway / Williams) thankfully had the foresight (or dumb luck) in allowing the designers to bid on their next pinball machine.  Rather than go the simple route of making a product tie-in to some current fad or movie release, the Bally/Midway/Williams company realized that not all great ideas came from top down.

The result is an uncommonly excellent pinball machine – based off a very strange and low budget British mystery-science TV show – Dr. Who.  I wasn’t at all a fan of the show… in fact could only watch it for a couple of minutes before flipping to one of the other 3 available channels at the time.  But, I remember enough of the show and legacy to know about this machine.  Initially, I wasn’t at all interested in even giving this pin a first chance.  Thankfully, I had the option to purchase and restore one.  Being a Bally DMD, it was a simple choice.

Before I started the restoration,  I read the bio on the designer and the background leading up to the production of this machine.  The story is quite fantastic and really helped in understanding the depth of passion that went into it’s design and software programming.  Finally, after turning on the machine for the first time (which I didn’t even do until after the restoration), I was very surprised in it’s game rules, flow and depth.   Actually, had the machine not already sold to a customer, I would easily have kept this machine for myself… and to this day, really wished I had.

Unique Features

Usually, I don’t bother with stating features of a pinaball machine, as it can be easily found in the various wiki sites.  However, as I have played and restored enough machines, I wanted to point out items that stood out for me:

• Custom GI lighting sequences.  Usually the general illumination lighting is On/Off and sometimes level of DIM.  However, this machine (while having the basic features),  also has multiple GI controlled circuits, which allowed the software to apply lighting patterns for different times in the game.  Very noticeable and cool effect (especially with LED lighting).  The backbox also has multiple separate GI circuits for animation.
• Use of pop bumpers.  I enjoyed the around the back path to the top of the pop bumpers – which are used to increase the multiplier bonus.  It becomes one of the many focal features of this machine.
• Different ramp paths.  This machine has a left/right ramp orbit (like many machines), but the left ramp shot has a neat cellar door feature that interrupts the flow.
• Time expander – mini playfield.  Yes of course, the main toy in the game.  Very cool moving platform with 3 levels and integrated perfectly into the game.  Not overdone, not oversized and not the entire purpose of the game.
• Moving Dalek topper.  What a cool feature… makes you want to look up while he is barking at you.

This game is as fun to watch as it is to play.

Restoration

This machine was probably on route for a couple years at best before it was shopped and sold to a home.  There it was played very mildly for the next 15+ years before coming to me.  It was very well preserved, with the obvious impacted dirt and various broken down elements that you would expect on a 20+ year old machine.   The cabinet and backbox were literally blemish free.  The playfield and plastics were without damage.  This machine was a great start, but still needed to be taken down to the wood and rebuilt.

• Flame polished ramps.
• Removed and rebuilt time-expander playfield.  Broken optics and VUKs
• Polished and waxed playfield and plastics
• New pop bumpers.  Originals were in pieces.
• New slingshot assembly
• New flippers and linkages
• Full custom LEDs.
• Under cabinet LED flash light effect.  See the video below!
• New balls, legs, cabinet protectors
• rebuilt sound board and DMD driver
• Moving Dalek topper.  Thankfully, this machine had the original fixed Dalek topper.  It was removed and modified to move and flash along with the game’s original software programming.

What happened to April?

Machines of interest top of the month:

• Williams Terminator 2 Pinball – full restoration, LEDs, and mods.
• Williams Demolition Man Pinball (Superpin widebody) – full restoration.  Just a great game
• Stern Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Pinball (RBION) – nice home unit, being prepped for tear down, cleaning and polishing and LEDs.  Also plan on putting cabinet lighting and backbox LED retrofit.
• 1967 Williams Apollo Electro Mechanical Pinball – a GREAT classic, custom restoration.  Look soon for detailed article on this beauty.
• Bally The Shadow Pinball – We’ve decided to sell our coveted deep restoration machine.  This machine literally took a month straight to get all of the parts and items fixed.  She’s now back to new condition and ready to be played and appreciated.   This is one of the very next high-dollar Williams pinball machines, get yours now before the prices sky rocket.
• Sega South Park – Restoration planned
• Williams F-14 Pinball – full restoration, cabinet update, LED conversion, under cabinet LEDs and flasher circuit update (to properly accept LEDs).  Look soon for a detailed writeup on this classic.

Description

This legendary electro-mechanical pinball is the higher end commercial 4-player model. Built in 1976, this is the last production year before all pinball machines went to solid state electronics (first generation of the microprocessor). Only 16,155 were ever made, and not too many exist today in this condition.

Captain Fantastic was a “Tommy” inspired game picturing Elton John as pinball champ Captain Fantastic. David Christensen did the artwork for this Bally game, using a lot of bright reds and blues. Piano keyboards appeared throughout the game, which was one of the first featuring custom-designed bumper caps with drawings of Elton John’s face. The back glass pictured a crowd scene based on the movie Tommy. This game also features mirror lines worked into the back glass art for a dazzling reflective effect. The background crowd features some of the artists friends as well as other historical figures. Greg Kmiec created the playfield design, which has a pleasing, uncluttered arrangement of targets and bumpers, plus four flippers.

This machine also comes with a special bonus: matching framed album cover – Elton John and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (which incidentally also won album of the year in 1976).

Restoration

This machine started with a very low 30,000 plays in it’s lifetime – which shows in it’s all original and untouched playfield.  Hairline cracks exist in the paint (as would any play field of this age), but no wear marks.

• Top side playfield was entirely dismantled, cleaned, polished and waxed.
• All posts were replaced
• All rubbers replaced
• All bulbs replaced.
• Plastics cleaned and are crystal clear (no yellowing).
• Pop bumpers were replaced with custom Elton John tops.
• Drop targets were replaces with custom Elton John units.
• Every single wiper contact was cleaned, filed and re-aligned.  This took a long time but necessary for long term reliability.
• New fuse holders.
• New bridge rectifier for bumpers and thumpers
• New flippers (4)
• New flipper mechanisms (4), linkage, wipers etc
• New bell coil (the other 2 worked fine).
• Works exactly like it is supposed to.  All lights, modes, alternating circuits, score wheels, over-the-top buzzer, lockouts etc work perfect.
• coin door and trim polished.  Slight dent in coin door.
• Replaced legs with chrome models
• cabinet just touched up, but no damage and fade.
• Backbox touched up, slight wear on top that was touched up.
• New locks
• Coin mechs and lockout work