Jolt Country

Pinball prices seem to be ... down, here in Colorado. There's a Black Knight listed for $1300. There's a Pin*Bot listed for $1000. Here are the things I want to try to sell to finance this operation and get a pinball machine:

- Donkey Kong Cocktail ($300?)
- Gyruss ($300?)
- Warlords circuit board ($300)
- RoadBlasters circuit board and steering wheel ($???)
- My Tempest, if I can't fix it ($400)

I throw in a little cash of my own and I could own a pin. However! However, rather than do any of that, I ordered "Pinball Arcade" for the 360 and played "Black Hole" all night. My brother knows what I am talking about yeaaaaaaah.

But I think it is time to have FEWER arcade games and one pinball machine. This thread will talk about my adventures trying to do so.

Chances you can talk about it on a fake radio show from 8-9 PM your time tomorrow? 30%?

It ain't looking good! The guy that I left a voicemail for didn't return my call. I don't think I should panic-buy a pin for the show. But I am going to try to arrange a live call-in when I DO get one.

I am also willing to do a live call-in when I put circuit boards in boxes. If that works. If that's good radio?

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:It ain't looking good! The guy that I left a voicemail for didn't return my call. I don't think I should panic-buy a pin for the show. But I am going to try to arrange a live call-in when I DO get one.

I am also willing to do a live call-in when I put circuit boards in boxes. If that works. If that's good radio?

You can still TALK about "a pin" without having actually acquired it, though, yes?

I am happy to talk about a pin, yes. What time is all this going on? I gotta get to the gym at one point. I could also call in while my self-esteem is at its lowest from that venture.

The show is 7-8 Pacific, tonight. Which is 8-9 Robb Time.

Do you find that pinball machines have more or less replay value than arcade games? The problem with both is that, once you get good at one, it takes forever to try and beat your own score.

That has never happened for me in pinball, by the way. I have had games where the two digit match score at the end was higher than my total score.

Well, right now they've got the promise of more replay value because I am terrible at them AND I don't know the rules on almost any of them. Black Hole I maybe know the rules. I could score 65% on a quiz. But in arcades I just don't have the opportunity to play long enough *and* read a ruleset to have a real plan on most of them.

So the first one is going to be a real experiment -- will playing it get old? Because I can say that the thought of spending a half hour playing Pac-Man to maybe get to my previous high score did become a drag, and I keep that machine because the monitor is bright, it's in good shape and it's fun when others come over. I wouldn't want a pinball game to get the same way.

I find it's one of those you-gotta-be-in-the-mood things. Most of the time it sits in the corner and collects random junk, as the large glass surface is a perfect spot to 'temporarily' place stuff.
Then one gets the pinball fever and cleans everything and plays for a couple hours. Like any other game, once you discover the difficult parts, every other part is boring. I suppose that's why people have more than one table.
I just gave my pinball machine back to my brother last week. Forgot how heavy those mothers are! It's more like moving a loaded coffin than a machine. But I needed the room, plus I'm at the limit of restoration. (This means I don't feel like putting any more money or effort into troubleshooting the small glitches)

I really really like the smell the best. The old electro-mechanical tables have that Loinel train smell to them when you open them up. That's really the best part.

AArdvark wrote:I find it's one of those you-gotta-be-in-the-mood things. Most of the time it sits in the corner and collects random junk, as the large glass surface is a perfect spot to 'temporarily' place stuff.

That was one reason why I got rid of my air hockey table. Of course you can't play air hockey by yourself, which is good, because it usually took two people to lift all the things I had stacked on top of it and clear off the top.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I throw in a little cash of my own and I could own a pin.

As someone once pointed out, you should not buy things unless you need or want them around. This is why I have three grab sticks. They're 3 feet long, have a handle at one end and a pincer at the other, and because they're solid aluminum, I can pick up 5 pounds with them. They cost $20 each, and having one near the bed, one in the middle of my room, and one in the bathroom is well worth the extra expense for the convenience it gives me to reach things I can't otherwise get to because of my disability.

So this explains why I'd have three of something that most people might use one. But it also begs the question as to why you want a pinball machine? Just for the ambiance? Or do you really think you're going to play it that much?

I have three cameras because on rare occasions I want to film two things at once, like two different angles or such. I might do this once every two or three months but when I need that capacity I need it.

It's been said that - back when they were much more expensive - that most people won't watch a video often enough to justify its cost vs. renting it when they wanted to see it. But there are benefits in having a movie you like around when you want to. But I tend to be selective, I buy a movie because I really liked it AND it's inexpensive. That's why I only have about 8 DVDs because I have to watch what I collect.

My brother has about 600. He has them in racks so he can find them. He also has a list of all of them; I started him on it many years ago, because if you don't catalog them you can end up buying the same movie a second time.

So let's ask the question, what's your reason for wanting the space-eating box of a pinball machine? Just to be another item out in your collection like your video games, or are you going to actually put it in the house and play it?

I mean, I'm not a billiards fan, but if a guy plays it at least one or two times a week then it makes sense to have his own pool table so he can practice regularly. Otherwise it's less trouble to just visit a laundromat and pay a buck to play there. (The laundromat down from my house has 3 coin-op pool tables.)

One of the local tabloid-format daily papers - the Examiner or the Express - has an article about how lots more people are going carless. With the ability to rent a car by the hour as needed a lot of people are finding that owning a car is no longer necessary. (It mentioned that it took short-term car rental company ZipCar 11 years to become profitable.)

Tdarcos wrote:

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I throw in a little cash of my own and I could own a pin.

As someone once pointed out, you should not buy things unless you need or want them around.

I... okay?

All right, I picked it up tonight. I plugged it in. It booted!

At first I thought it didn't have any pinballs, but they were wrapped in plastic and placed inside. So we were good there!

Next up was getting them inside the machine itself. Embarrassingly I didn't know how to do that. But I figured out how to get the glass up so I could drop 'em in.

A pinball. Me! A pinball. Me! Rudy even speaks!

THE
GOOD SHIT
AARDVARK

[quote="TdarcosOne of the local tabloid-format daily papers - the Examiner or the Express - has an article about how lots more people are going carless. With the ability to rent a car by the hour as needed a lot of people are finding that owning a car is no longer necessary. (It mentioned that it took short-term car rental company ZipCar 11 years to become profitable.)[/quote]What does this paragraph have to do with pinball machines? Fail.

AArdvark wrote:I find it's one of those you-gotta-be-in-the-mood things. Most of the time it sits in the corner and collects random junk, as the large glass surface is a perfect spot to 'temporarily' place stuff.

Ooh, good point. I gotta make sure I don't do that with mine.

Then one gets the pinball fever and cleans everything and plays for a couple hours. Like any other game, once you discover the difficult parts, every other part is boring. I suppose that's why people have more than one table.

Yeah, I mean, that was one of the key things about this deal. Having played it, and knowing that it works, I could probably sell it for a little more than what I paid for it instantly, while making it worth more if I install a new playfield and new art. So even if I get sick of Funhouse, I feel this, unlike all the other arcade games I've acquired, has the potential to increase in value.

What game did you have, Vark? I'm gonna check the archives but I can't remember off the top of my head.

I really really like the smell the best. The old electro-mechanical tables have that Loinel train smell to them when you open them up. That's really the best part.

Ha! I had never been this close to one, but I had to stick my head in because I couldn't figure out how to get the balls inside. It is a pleasant smell, isn't it?

Turing Test wrote:[quote="TdarcosOne of the local tabloid-format daily papers - the Examiner or the Express - has an article about how lots more people are going carless. With the ability to rent a car by the hour as needed a lot of people are finding that owning a car is no longer necessary. (It mentioned that it took short-term car rental company ZipCar 11 years to become profitable.)

What does this paragraph have to do with pinball machines? Fail.[/quote]

You again show your ignorance. I am referring to the idea of not buying something when it's not necessary.

Also noted is the fact YOU can't even do a quote correctly, your attempt to quote me was done wrong. Yet you accuse me of being a computer program. Sounds more like you're the one that is full of errors.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:At first I thought it didn't have any pinballs, but they were wrapped in plastic and placed inside. So we were good there!

Modern Marvels on The History Channel had a segment on something, probably coin-operated devices, about the Stern Company, the last remaining pinball manufacturer in existence, which almost went out of existence because they had trouble finding a manufacturer of balls.

I find that a little hard to believe, that they couldn't simply have gotten some machinery company or ball bearing manufacturer to either cast molten steel into 1 1/6" spheres or gotten steel rods cut into 1 1/16" or slightly larger cubes then ground down on a lathe or something. Even if the balls cost $1 apiece to be made that way, it wouldn't be that big a deal.

For comparison, a nuclear submarine requires 50,000 ounces of silver in its manufacture, but on a billion-dollar submarine, if silver costs $10 an ounce or $100 an ounce it's not that big an issue.

So if a pinball machine costs $3000 or $5000, that the machine needs 5 balls really isn't an issue whether the special "ball bearings" it needs of 1 1/16" in size cost 10c, $1 or $10 each. It's an extra $50 at worse on a potentially $3000-5000 item. And I bet if you ordered them from some company in China you could probably get them for $2 apiece. I mean, the company makes about 3,000 pinball machines a year, so if it needs 20,000 pinballs a year, I'm sure it could order them or have them made.

(Some pinball machines have extra balls released in certain bonus scenarios so the machine might have more than 5, and you're going to need replacements when people order them, that's why I said 20 rather than 15 thousand.)

the large glass surface is a perfect spot to 'temporarily' place stuff.


Ooh, good point. I gotta make sure I don't do that with mine.

That's the same exact mindset I had when I got mine in playable condition. It lasted about a week before it was covered with random papers that needed to be filed or computer parts that ... 'I'll put away later.'

It was a Bally Bon Voyage, 1974. Some of the plastic playfield pieces I could not find anywhere so I just had to make do with epoxy. Funhouse, being much more popular will have easily obtainable replacement parts. Because it's a popular machine It will have good resale value if you hold onto it. Bon Voyage kinda sucked when it was first released so nobody cared that much about it thirty years later.
here's a good starting place

steel rods cut into 1 1/16" or slightly larger cubes then ground down on a lathe or something. Even if the balls cost $1 apiece to be made that way, it wouldn't be that big a deal.

I'm not getting into the practical aspect of this process, but casting and polishing is way cheaper. Funny thing is, one inch ball bearings are much more common but 1-1/16 bearings are not. You woulda thunk pinball makers would just make tables to accommodate the slightly smaller ball bearings and call it good. Weird, huh.


THE
SLIGHTLY UNDERSIZED
AARDVARK[/url]

Maybe it was for exactly that reason -- to make sure inexpensive, easy-to-find replacements wouldn't work.