The year was 1987. I had just completed my degree in Electronics Engineering Technology. I got a job across the street from the school at a vending company as a tech/mechanic. We worked on anything coin operated.
One of my favorite things to work on were pinball games. The late 80’s and early 90’s were a great time to work on games. The industry was changing. Games, especially pinballs, were becoming more advanced. Digital Processors, Stereo Audio, Matrix Displays that could run graphics, as well as, scores brought new life to the aging pinball. A new thing also started appearing… Multi-ball. The games would throw multiple balls on the playfield at one time.
Pinballs had always been themed. Elvis, Evil Knievel, Kiss, Star Trek and 6 Million Dollar Man were big hits in early electronic pinballs of the 70’s. The late 80’s upgrades to digital processing brought more fun and increased tie-ins to popular movies and tv shows. Games like Fire, F14 Tomcat, Road Kings, and others began to evolve and bring high speed multi-ball play to arcades and bars.
Then it happened. A game came out that was one of the first true Digital Stereo games my company had bought. It sat in the shop on a quiet evening. We had just assembled it. The attract mode music was playing its happy circus/carnival theme. The new digital games came with the volume turned up nearly all the way. Their internal amplifiers were now capable of reproducing much more than the simple bells and burps of old. And they were LOUD!
Out of the eerie quiet of the shop came a loud shout “HEY! YOU! WITH THE FACE!” We broke up laughing. How long was this game going to last in a bar? Sure enough, we had requests to turn off the attract mode sound and turn down the game volume. These requests usually came in fairly quickly after the game was set. One of the requests came from a bar where the cleaning person nearly had a heart attack after hearing the voices on the game. Apparently, she thought there was someone in the establishment that wasn’t supposed to be there. These machines were THAT much cleaner and clearer in the audio quality they put out.Another innovation, that started making its way into pinballs, was animated parts. The late 70’s and early 80’s era pinballs had spinners, bumpers and ramps. Late 80’s machines brought in opening and closing doors. Ramps that moved. Ferris Wheels that picked up the ball and dumped it on another playfield level. Funhouse Pinball even had a talking dummy that would choke when you got the ball in his mouth. Adam’s Family Pinball had “Thing” lend a hand. Thing would pop out of a box on the upper right hand corner of the playing field and capture your ball with a magnet.
The gaming industry kept you on your toes as a technician. Games advanced rapidly as better gaming systems moved into the home. Family fun centers and arcades had to have equipment that could compete. Technology had to change to keep up.
I sometimes miss the days of working on those machines. It was fun. Sometimes, it was dangerous. The outside of the machines, especially pinballs, were made to be as safe as possible for the player. Inside was home to a multitude of sharp objects, high voltage and pinch points. I got shocked more than once by folks who thought it would be funny to push the flipper buttons while I had the playfield raised to troubleshoot. In test mode, all switches and coils are live so that you can adjust switches and check operation.I don’t miss working late nights in bars. Back then, smoking was permitted just about everywhere. I didn’t drink or smoke. I came home every night smelling like cigarette smoke and stale beer. There were several incidents where a drunk or group of drunks didn’t want me to fix a machine and got mad at me. A couple other times, I was on the receiving end of a bar stool or other object thrown at someone else by someone who was overly intoxicated.
I managed a game room in the local mall, several years later. My experience working on machines in what I will call “Less than optimal conditions” made me well suited for a clean and easy environment such as a mall. I met some interesting folks along the way. I learned a lot about people and about the crazy things companies do to save a penny. I wouldn’t mind doing vending/games again, but I know I can’t contort myself like I used to, to work inside some of those cabinets. It was nice to take a stroll back through those years and see the difference between when I started, when I left and compare it to the machines out there today.Game rooms don’t exist like they used to. You can even play most of these games that I mentioned on your computer now… I might add that they are fairly realistic. I’m glad that I went through this stage of my life. I currently am looking for the next door to walk through. I wonder what I will do next. Time will tell.
~Cappy