Pre Flipper Pinball?

[sandmountainslim]

I have saw some early pinball games described as "Pre-Flipper" How did you play these games, just pull the plunger and watch the ball roll down? That doesn't sound like alot of fun

[sku_u]

Some really early pre-flipper pinballs had no tilt mechanism so you could shake the machine to rack up points. Originally, pinballs were created with gambling in mind so people would wager on how much they could score simply by plunging the ball. This is why pinballs were not allowed in certain cities including NYC until recently. The flipper pinball changed all that and what we see now with pinballs is a far cry from their origin as Saloon gambling machines.

[sandmountainslim]

I can imagine that when the flipper version came out the earlier machines didn't get many coins!

[sku_u]

The move from pre-flipper machines to flipper machines was a gradual change that actually didn't catch on at first. It wasn't until the modern orientation of the flipper that the flipper proved its worth.

 

Here's a great article on the evolution of thr flipper if you're interested:

 

http://hometown.aol.com/rusjensen/flipper.htm

 

Russ Jensen is an expert on pinballs and a well published author on the subject. Check out his article archives when you get the chance.

[sandmountainslim]

The move from pre-flipper machines to flipper machines was a gradual change that actually didn't catch on at first. It wasn't until the modern orientation of the flipper that the flipper proved its worth.

 

Here's a great article on the evolution of thr flipper if you're interested:

 

http://hometown.aol.com/rusjensen/flipper.htm

 

Russ Jensen is an expert on pinballs and a well published author on the subject. Check out his article archives when you get the chance.

Thanks John

Very interesting link.

[NE146]

Well, haven't you ever seen those gambling pins.. where you wait for the ball to fall in one of the numbered slots, then there's no flippers but just buttons you press afterwards to try and make the tiles match

 

Those used to be super popular in the bowling allies back at home not all that long ago.. Although I haven't seen them much as of late. I could never figure them out anyway

Edited March 25, 2006 by NE146

[NovaXpress]

Pinball machines were never supposed to be fun. It was a gambling device. But when the machines became banned in many districts, manufacturers added the flipper as a legal loophole. It was still a gambling device, but people actually had fun playing the game now. They played even without a wager. Whoda thunk it? It's no coincidence that Bally made so may pinball as well as slot machines.

 

Slot machines are going the same way. With all the extra gimmicks on the new machines, people are having fun and will trained to accept lower payouts as time goes on.

[sku_u]

Well, haven't you ever seen those gambling pins.. where you wait for the ball to fall in one of the numbered slots, then there's no flippers but just buttons you press afterwards to try and make the tiles match

 

Those used to be super popular in the bowling allies back at home not all that long ago.. Although I haven't seen them much as of late. I could never figure them out anyway

 

Those are called Bingo machines and are their own classification of game. They're cousins of both Pachinko and Pinball.

[NE146]

Those are called Bingo machines and are their own classification of game. They're cousins of both Pachinko and Pinball.

 

Thanks! Man I was going nuts trying to figure out what the heck they were called That alone enabled me to find more pics.. this pretty much looks like the rows I used to see

 

[supercat]

I have saw some early pinball games described as "Pre-Flipper" How did you play these games, just pull the plunger and watch the ball roll down? That doesn't sound like alot of fun

 

Many earlier pre-flipper pinball machines resembled the toy pinball machines found in dime stores or, sometimes in in years past, cereal boxes, except that they were much larger; some were designed for bartop use, while others were floor-standing. Reset all the balls so that they feed one at a time into the plunger lane, then pull the plunger for each ball and watch as it caroms around some pegs until it lands in a hole, chute, or other such contrivance. The coin-operated machines were generally designed so that balls would fall into areas where they could be observed but would be trapped until a coin was inserted to force them into the shooting queue. A few areas, however, would allow the balls to be re-fed into the shooting queue by pulling a lever or pushing a button. On those early games, scoring was all done manually. One would count up how many balls were in "25 point" spaces, how many were in "50 point" spaces, etc. Most counting could be done at the end of a game, though if a ball landed in a "shoot again" space one would have to count it during gameplay.

 

The linked article was interesting, but there are a couple of things it misses:

 

-1- On the pre-flipper pinball machines, the goal was to score as many points as possible, but it was generally a given that a ball wouldn't stay in play very long. Unless one could consistently hit the "shoot again" space, a game would be pretty short even if one started with nine balls.

 

-2- Pinball flipper solenoids have, for many years, had two sets of windings. The first set of windings is only used until the flipper is 90% of the way drawn, and the second set then holds it in place. If the first winding is left engaged for more than a few seconds, it will burn out. The article mentions that early games generally had anemic flippers, but some didn't allow the flippers to be held continuously. So I would expect that the dual-coil flipper was a later innovation.

 

Incidentally, pinball machines generally had a contact to indicate when the flippers were fully drawn; this contact directly operated the flipper. Because catch diodes would make flippers sluggish, arcing was significant, leading to contact wear. Data East for awhile replaced this arrangement with a solid-state controlled timer (hit the flipper briefly at full power, then cut back). Unfortunately, sometimes the flippers would "wimp out" if there was too much force on them to react within the specified time (e.g. in multi-ball play, if two balls hit the flipper near the tip nearly simultaneously). The Simpsons pinball machine was somewhat notorious for that. Later pinball machines use solid-state control in combination with flipper-mounted contacts to achieve the best of both worlds: since the flippers have contacts, they receive full power when necessary, but solid-state actuation minimizes contact wear (since the contacts merely control inputs to the electronics). Further, if the contacts fail, the solid-state electronics can fall back to the fixed-length pulse operation rather than either having wimpy flippers (if the contacts fail open) or smoked solenoids (if they fail closed).

[hanglyman]

I remember going over to a friends house when I was a kid, all excited to play their pinball machine he had told me about, only to be extremely disappointed that it was one of the pre flipper games. Very boring, it kept our attention for maybe 5 minutes at the most.

 

they're not much fun