Ask Uncle Willy #15: June 4, 1998
Uncle Willy answers your questions about pinball machines. The questions
should be of a general-interest nature, and will be answered via an article
posted in rec.games.pinball, and subsequently archived at:
http://www.wms.com/williams/willyworld.html
Asking questions of a proprietary nature ("How many of game X were produced?"
"What games do you have in the works for next spring?" "What game is designer
Y working on?") will not get you very far, as Uncle Willy is constrained from
answering them.
If you have questions about fixing, restoring, or purchasing an older game,
Uncle Willy would like to refer you to:
Ask Uncle Willy #10
Uncle Willy would like to start off this edition of Ask Uncle Willy with a
few housekeeping items. First of all, whatever rumors you may have heard
about why it has been so long since the last installment of Ask Uncle Willy
are completely false. (Uncle Willy does not now, nor has he ever had an
alcohol or drug problem. Uncle Willy did not run off to join the Peace
Corps. And she most certainly was too over 18.)
Next, Uncle Willy's mailbox is straining under the weight of questions that
don't belong there. Either they have been covered already in previous Ask
Uncle Willy articles, or they are in the FAQ, or they are beyond the scope of
what Uncle Willy can do, or they are not of widespread interest. Uncle Willy
cannot tell you how much your old pinball machine is worth and would prefer
not to have to tell you how old it is, when there are so many other good
resources out there for that sort of thing. Uncle Willy cannot find you
parts for your machine, other than to point you, once again, to authorized
distributors (for newer machines), and any of the various "other resources"
listed on the web site (for older machines.) Uncle Willy cannot fix your
broken game, nor can he help you troubleshoot it long distance. Uncle Willy
does not know everything, as hard as that is to believe, so not every
question can be answered. Also, keep in mind that half the fun of owning a
pinball machine is learning to fix it and track down parts to restore it
yourself. If you have a question that might fall into one of the above
categories, but you still think it might have some larger relevance or
interest to others, by all means send it to Uncle Willy but Uncle Willy makes
the final decision about what questions to answer.
Here are a couple of examples --
Question: I have a Wizard backglass that is in perfect condition, my
question is... How much is it worth? And I have a Bally Elektra
that's in good working condition, how much is it worth???
Answer: Uncle Willy would dearly love to answer such questions like so:
"They are both utterly valueless. Please send them directly to
Uncle Willy for proper manufacturer-certified disposal."
Uncle Willy resists that urge, as that would be an abuse of the
immense power that comes with being such a respected cultural
icon.
Then there are the questions like these (Uncle Willy swears he is
not making this up):
Question: I would like to know how to get rid of my very old ballys [sic]
pinball game and not come out a looser [sic], also I don't know
the name of the game, I know it has a mexican chick and some
snakes on it and most of it is red.
Answer: Even if Uncle Willy were in the business of appraising old games
(which he stresses again, he most certainly is not), he is amazed
at someone who cannot even spend the time to go copy down all the
alphabetical characters appearing on the backglass in the area
usually used for what industry insiders commonly refer to as "the
name of the game." And yet Uncle Willy is supposed to go spend
hours researching the game's value, and using his psychic
abilities to determine the game's condition. Uncle Willy wishes
he could say this was the only mail he received like that, but
they are all too common.
Uncle Willy couldn't resist giving snappy answers to a few other
inappropriate questions, and they are sprinkled throughout the rest of this
article. See if you can spot them.
Question: I have a question regarding some mystery switches which appear on
the switch matrix for Bally's Corvette, but aren't anywhere on
the game.
The switch matrix lists switches for "1st gear (optional)", "2nd
gear (optional)", etc. There is also a mystery switch for "Skid
Route Exit".
Was there actually going to be some kind of gearshift option for
the game? What was the other switch for and why was it removed?
Answer: Uncle Willy had a little chat with George Gomez and found the
answers to these questions...and some other tidbits as well. In
fact, Uncle Willy had to excuse himself from George's office when
George started launching into conspiracy theories about why
pinballs are exactly 1 1/16" in diameter. (Sometimes when you
get George going, it's hard to shut him up...) For instance,
Uncle Willy learned that two of the cars in the artwork have
license plates to match those on Corvettes owned by George Gomez
and Pat Lawlor.
But on to your original question... When Corvette was nearing
production, an error was discovered in the cost calculations for
the game. Turns out the cost of materials was way over budget
and George was forced to delete things left and right to try to
bring the cost down. Cost reduction is a normal part of the
design process, but it's not usually done all at once and in a
hurry like that.
All kinds of subtle things were removed: rebound switches,
flashers, general illumination lamps, etc. There were also a
couple of redundant switches removed, such as the one at the end
of the Skid Pad/Route 66 wireform ramp. It would have been nice
for the software to have another data point about where the ball
was, but it wasn't crucial to the game.
There was also going to be a 4-speed shifter mounted to the right
side of the cabinet. During drag strip mode, you could give the
car gas with the left flipper, and shift up through the gears
with the right flipper or with the gearshift. The code for these
4 switches is still in the game, and if you somehow attached your
own shifter unit there it would work. About 15 games are
believed to exist with this shifter unit installed from the
factory, and they are largely in the hands of the game's design
team.
Believe it or not, the left side standup targets were originally
going to be drop targets. The art for the stickers had "Feel The
Power" and "B2K" written across the 3 targets. (The latter is a
reference to the factory option code used for Calloway
Corvettes.) The latest ROM revision for Corvette (Version 2.1,
available from the Williams web site at http://www.wms.com/)
actually has the code to handle either the standups or the drop
targets, much like the Firepower drop target retrofit discussed a
few years ago. Only one game with drop targets is currently
believed to exist, and it is in the hands of one of the design
team members. If Uncle Willy can come up with the technical
details of retrofitting drop targets to a Corvette, he will post
that in a separate article to rec.games.pinball.
While we are on the subject of George Gomez. . .
Question: You mention that George Gomez was a designer on the original
arcade Spy Hunter. Do you know who else worked on it? I have
always loved that game.
Answer: Uncle Willy often hums the Peter Gunn tune to himself, while
searching for the oil-drum button on his steering wheel. If only
commuting were like Spy Hunter, it might be more bearable.
(DISCLAIMER: any implied endorsement of "road rage" driving
techniques is not intended!)
Uncle Willy managed to find a few names of the original design
team: Tom Leon was the programmer and co-designer with George
Gomez. Bob Libby created the algorithmic jazz riffs that segue
between the Peter Gunn excerpts. Lots of folks contributed that
great video art, including Steve Ulstad, Sharon Barr, Brian
Colin, and Kevin O'Conner. Doug Watson and Tony Ramunni did the
art for the cabinet. Uncle Willy does not own a Playstation, but
he hears that there is a "Midway Arcade Classics" game available
for that platform which includes the definitive listing of
credits, and interviews with some of the designers.
While we are on the subject of video games...
Question: I see that you have a ROM Library but it apparently only has
Pinball ROMs. I have a Robotron with a bad ROM 1 chip. Can I
get ROM images for my Robotron from you?
Answer: Uncle Willy feels your pain. Robotron is one of the way-coolest
video games of all time. Unfortunately, there is no move afoot
to add video game ROMs to our web site. The ROM archives have
slowly been created through the spare-time effort of employees in
the pinball engineering group, and Uncle Willy hasn't heard of
any of them working on compiling the video ROM information.
While Uncle Willy can't provide you with the ROMs, he does know
that you might be able to repair your game by asking your
question on the rec.games.video.arcade.collecting newsgroup.
Surely some kind soul there will be able to help you. (I know,
and "stop calling you Shirley" right?)
While we are on the subject of Eugene Jarvis games...
Question: I am from Germany, and in a recent interview here a well-known
software programmer with the initials DPH [ed: name omitted to
avoid embarrassment] claimed that when he was 12 years old he
programmed the game "Defender" for Williams Electronics. Is this
true?
Answer: Uncle Willy couldn't find anyone here who had ever heard of a
"DPH." If he helped write the Williams coin-op version of
Defender then he did it via supernatural mind control, since the
people who did write it don't remember him! Perhaps he meant
that he wrote a Defender-like game for his Amiga or something?
Or perhaps you made the whole thing up just to see your question
in an Ask Uncle Willy article! (Oops, Uncle Willy spent too much
time talking to George and is developing conspiracy theories of
his own.)
Question: I recently bought a Williams '4 Star' pinball machine and I am
interested in getting a rough idea of its age. Are there some
general rules of thumb that can be used to date old machines?
(Scoring techniques? Glass art? Type of wood used in its
construction?)
Answer: For dating pinball machines, Uncle Willy frequently uses the
Internet Pinball Database. (For dating women, Uncle Willy uses
his little black book, but we won't delve into that right now.)
The IPD can be accessed at http://lysator.liu.se/pinball/IPD.
Uncle Willy just happens to know that "4 Star" was made in 1958.
There are several good books on the history of pinball, and Uncle
Willy can't hope to explain things as well as they have, but here
is a very rough chart of some major components of pinball that
have changed over time, from oldest to newest:
-- Field of pins, no electricity
-- Electricity, lit-number scoring, and bumpers
-- Flippers!
-- Score reels instead of lit numbers
-- Metal side rails and legs instead of wood
-- Automatic ball serving instead of manual ball lifter
-- Longer flippers
-- Solid-state electronics instead of electromechanical relays
-- Alphanumeric displays instead of basic seven-segment displays
-- Dot-matrix displays with animated graphics
-- XXXXXXXXXXXXXX with XXXXXXXXX and XXXXXXXXXXXXX to XXXXXXXXX.
(Uncle Willy hopes that last one, a peek into the future of
pinball, makes it past the corporate lawyers. They like to X
stuff out if it's too exciting...)
Question: How does one become a distributor?
Answer: Very carefully.
Question: I'm just wondering if there will be any more wide-body machines
from Bally/Williams. I'm also curious if you are considering any
other types of display technology in the future.
Answer: As he has mentioned before, Uncle Willy can't talk about future
technologies or designs that might be under development at
Williams. Even if Uncle Willy were to admit that a designer was
currently building a machine with an actual full-sized 2-door
Yugo in the backbox, that game might not ever be produced, or the
Yugo might be removed (but not for cost reasons!) before the game
goes into production...and you would be upset with Uncle Willy
for having misled you. Uncle Willy wants to be your friend, not
someone who gets you upset.
Question: How do you decide which game is manufactured under the Bally
label or which one under the Williams label?
Answer: This has been one of the industry's most closely guarded secrets.
Unfortunately Pat Lawlor let his guard down at the last Pinball
Expo, and revealed the precise formula: "First we make a
Williams. Then we make a Bally. Then we make a Williams. Then
we make a Bally..."
Uncle Willy can't think of any way to explain it better than that!
Question: We want to know if there are pinball versions to play on the PC.
Answer: Yes.
Question: Any reason why the Cirqus Voltaire's at IAAPA didn't have the
green trim around the backbox? The trim makes the game look
great, and I was surprised that it was removed.
Answer: Green trim? There is an optional head trim kit for Cirqus
Voltaire that is made of purple plastic, perhaps this is what you
are referring to. While the trim was part of the original design
of the game, and is the "look" envisioned by the designer (John
Popadiuk), it was decided to make it an optional accessory.
(Many pinball operators don't like things sticking out from a
game, things that will get torn from the game as it is
transported through doorways and in and out of trucks. They just
take them off anyway.) If you have a Cirqus Voltaire and would
like the optional kit, the part number is A-22029. This includes
the trim pieces and everything needed to install them. As there
is such low demand for this trim kit, Uncle Willy cannot
guarantee that you will receive it promptly (or ever) when you
order it, unless a very large number of people, slavishly following
every command from Uncle Willy, rush to their distributors and order
the kit. (If that does happen, Uncle Willy has a few more
commands he'll have to try out on you!)
Question: Several friends and I play Whirlwind at lunch time at a local
shop. We cannot figure out how to increase the multiplier.
Answer: To answer this question, Uncle Willy had to dig deep into the
arcane-rules filing cabinet here at Williams. Brushing aside
some worthless pieces of paper concerning secret modes on Star
Trek:The Next Generation, Uncle Willy came upon the answer you
seek: Locking a ball increases the multiplier.
Question: I'm writing to you because I have to write a final paper of
roughly 10 pages for that class and I want to write it on the
medium of Pinball. What is the history of Pinball? What are the
greatest works in the history of pinball? Who are the greatest
pinball designers? [and so on]
The last thing I ask is that if you are going to reply could you
please do it before the end of the week because the paper is due
on Monday.
Answer: Uncle Willy needs to consider making some cash on the side ghost-
writing term papers for people who wait until the last minute and
then want someone else to do the hard part. However, since Uncle
Willy wasn't prepared in time for your request, looks like you'll
get an F. Sorry.
Question: I have a Jokerz Flipper from Williams. I want to set it to 5
balls per game, but in the menu there is no setting for 5 ball
game. How can I do this?
Answer: Uncle Willy found some information on this. Apparently you need
to be running at least L-4 software (L-6 is on the Williams
website in the ROM archives), and you need to cut jumper "W7" on
the CPU board. This will expand the menus to include a setting
for 5-ball play, and an "install 5 ball" option. From the notes
he found, Uncle Willy can't quite tell if upgrading the sound
ROMs at the same time is Mandatory or whether it is just A Really
Good Idea, but if the ones on the web site are newer than yours,
perhaps you should upgrade to the newer ones.
Question: I am looking for information on this Williams game called
"Diamond Score Pool". I would like to know how to play it or get
a copy of the instructions. I would also like to know what year
it was made.
Answer: Uncle Willy dug deep into the Williams archives and determined
that Diamond Score Pool was a coin-operated novelty pool machine
made around 1956, one of a seemingly endless series of pool
variations manufactured by Williams that year. After a little
more digging, Uncle Willy discovered that Diamond Score Pool was
the highlight of the bunch! Most of the games were little more
than coin-operated bumper pool tables, but Diamond Score Pool was
much, much more.
Two players each play from behind the foul line on the same side
of the table. The spot the ball is placed on for the shot lets
the machine know who is shooting (left side for player 1, right
side for player 2.) The players take turns using a short pool
cue to shoot the cue ball around a single lit bumper and against
the back wall of the playfield, trying to land the ball in one of
6 holes, which award varying point values. There are two
diamond-shaped rollover buttons on the playfield which double or
triple the value of any shot that crosses over them and then
lands in a hole. (Uncle Willy determined the above by reading a
February, 1956 trade newspaper description of the game, and
inferring some things from an old publicity shot of the game.
Please don't hold Uncle Willy's feet to the coals over any minor
inaccuracies, OK?)
Uncle Willy congratulates you on your ownership of an obscure but
quite interesting little piece of coin-op history. Anyone else
trying to find one of these should also look for a variant called
"Senior Diamond Score Pool" which was the same game but with a
playfield that was 18 inches longer.
Question: In the game "Doctor WHO", the prototypes had a motor to move the
Dalek robot at the top of the backglass, but this feature did not
make it into production games. Is there, laying around Williams
somewhere, a schematic for the motor assembly used in this
moving-Dalek feature? Can I get a copy of it? I someday will
get a Doctor WHO game, and want to restore the moving Dalek...
Answer: Uncle Willy was only able to find out the simplest of details on
this. Apparently the support for the moving Dalek head is still
in the production software, with an adjustment to enable it. The
motor and gear assembly must have had some sort of cam
arrangement to turn the single-direction motor movements into
reciprocating head movements, but Uncle Willy couldn't find out
much more about that (other than to note that the part number was
14-7976). The motor was driven like a flasher, with its voltage
coming from J107-5,6 and its drive coming from Q26/J122-1
(Blu-Brn wire, solenoid number 25). There was an optical switch,
presumably to detect the "home" position of the head, that was
connected as switch 81 (Column8/U20-11/J206-0/Grn-Gry;
Row1/U18-11/J208-1/Wht-Brn).
A scan of the prototype instruction manual page that shows this
whole assembly is available at:
http://www.wms.com/williams/ww/gallery.
Question: Recently I've bought a 'Safe Cracker' pin in my hometown, Madrid,
and I found that the messages were translated into Spanish, but
very poorly. I wanted to know how I'm supposed to change it back
to English (if there's a way to do it).
Answer: There is a setting under standard adjustments for translations in
English, if that would work better for you. As you might
imagine, the pinball engineering staff at Williams is not always
fluent in the languages needed for other countries, so this work
is generally contracted out. Uncle Willy did a bit of research
and discovered that the company that performed the Spanish
translations for Safecracker is located in...Madrid, Spain! If
their translations aren't correct for their own city, Uncle Willy
is not sure what to think!
Question: Can you tell me anything about a United Skippy or United
Manufacturing (now possibly Williams) shuffleboard bowling alley
game. It is a 6 player, coin operated bowling game that uses a
puck to knock down the pins on this 12' long table. I have been
searching for some information on this such as the year and
value.
Answer: Shuffle Alleys and Bowling Alleys were a strong suit for United
Manufacturing (which became part of Williams Electronics in
1965). Uncle Willy doesn't have much resource material kicking
around for pre-Williams United Products, and what he does have
makes no mention of a game called "Skippy." (Though there
certainly were a large number of other odd names!) Uncle Willy
is not sure what to tell you - there is no "Internet Shuffle
Alley And Bowler Database" site to do a search on. Perhaps a
letter to one of the various game collector magazines could turn
up someone with more knowledge of this game.
Question: Were there any pins other than Xenon and Space Invaders that had
that 'infinity' look with the lights in the backbox?
Answer: Uncle Willy remembers that Gottlieb's "Mars, God of War" had a
similar lamp arrangement in the backbox, using red bulbs. Uncle
Willy isn't sure if there were others, but certainly doesn't know
of any other Bally games made like that. Uncle Willy did notice
a recent slot machine from WMS Gaming (yay!) called "Winning
Streak," that used infinity lights in its top box for quite a
stunning effect.
Question: How about making a pinball that is related to the history of
jukeboxes - which may include some classic soundbites of music
related to the date of the box.
Answer: Uncle Willy suggests you look for the pins "Jukebox" and "Sound
Stage" made by Chicago Coin in the mid 70's. As far as Williams
making a new pin with a jukebox theme, consider this: Chicago
Coin was out of business within a few years of making a pin with
a jukebox theme. Scary, eh?
Question: Can you tell me if there is going to be a new Kiss pinball
machine??? If so, when???
Answer: Uncle Willy cannot tell you that, ever.
Question: It is becoming increasingly difficult to find people to work on
the old electro-mechanical machines like my FunFest, Big Top and
Pit Stop. The distributors in my area have been somewhat helpful
in locating people to fix them, but they are all older folks. I
am concerned how an un-mechanical man as myself, will be able to
get by when these older repairmen are gone. Also, is there
collectors site that talks of machine value trading, etc.
Answer: Uncle Willy is picturing Mad Mort, The Last of the EM Repairmen,
driving through the Australian desert on his pin dolly, fighting
off young thugs who are trying to steal his dwindling reserves of
flexstones and contact bending tools...
While there is certainly an art and science to the repair of EM
pins, Uncle Willy takes comfort in the fact that they are fairly
straightforward implementations of basic electronics and
mechanics. There will always be someone who can figure it out if
they try. Uncle Willy is more concerned about anyone in the year
3006 having the equipment to program something as ancient as an 8
megabit EPROM...
As for mingling with others who share your passion for all things
pinball, Uncle Willy recommends lurking on the internet newsgroup
rec.games.pinball for a while. There are plenty of pin lovers
there, and there are always references to web sites that cater to
some specific part or another of the pinball collecting hobby.
Question: I own two T2 machines. One of these is outfitted with white
rubber parts and stainless legs on the cabinet and the other is
set up with all black rubber parts and black painted legs. Do
you know if these are both factory issue setups and if not, which
was the "stock" configuration?
Answer: The original scheme for all T2 pins was chrome legs and white
rubber rings.
Question: What games has Steve Kordek designed?
Answer: Oh my. Uncle Willy isn't sure there are enough megabytes on your
hard drive to save that list - it's quite extensive! Uncle Willy
decided to keep things to a manageable size by limiting the list
to just those games Steve Kordek has designed while at Williams
(where, by the way, he's still going strong!) If we were to go
back to games he designed while at Genco, it would probably
double the size of the list.
Most of these are pins, some of them are novelty or arcade
pieces, some of these he co-designed with others, they are in
rough date order, ready, set, here we go: Space Glider, Bobo,
Highways, Hollywood, Ten Spot, Double Barrel, Skill Ball,
Reserve, Space Ship, Kismet, Metro, Jolly Jokers, 3 Coins,
Coquette, Trade Winds, Friendship 7, Valiant, Vagabond, Mardi
Gras, 4 Roses, Tom Tom, Big Deal, Jumpin' Jacks, Swing Time,
Skill Pool, El Toro, Big Daddy, Merry Widow, Beat The Clock, Oh
Boy, San Francisco, Palooka, Heat Wave, Whoopee, Zig Zag, Wing
Ding, Pretty Baby, Alpine Club, Ski Club, Pot 'O' Gold, Big
Chief, Teacher's Pet, Hot Line, Big Strike, Casanova, Shangri-La,
Beat Time, Touchdown, Kickoff, Derby Day, Daffie, Doozie, Student
Prince, Hayburners II, Cabaret, Set Up, Seven Up, Gay 90's, 4
Aces, Aces & Kings, Planets, Zodiac, Olympic Hockey, Winner,
Honey, Super Star, Big Star, Match Race, Jubilee, Darling, Star
Action, Triple Action, Spacelab, Skylab, Star Pool, Big Ben,
Triple Strike, Little Chief, Black Gold, Space Mission, Space
Odyssey, Grand Prix, Liberty Bell, Big Deal, Contact, Pokerino,
Ticket Tac Toe.
Whew! Uncle Willy needs to go rest his typing fingers now.
All text and images (C) 1998 Williams Electronics Games, Inc.
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