C.O.C.A. Times

PINBALL HISTORY
From its earliest origins, modern pinball has taken a
noteworthy course. It probably began with cave
men rolling boulders at each other, but we'll never
know that for sure. Most historians agree that
"bagatelle" (pin table) gained popularity among the
elite in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It was a
parlor game that involved cue sticks and gauged
skill by your ability to hit balls into numbered scor-
ing holes. The concept had an appeal to the masses
and soon this game of royalty migrated to the work-
ing class, although it was a smaller game and the
cue sticks were replaced with a spring-loaded
plunger.
In the 1870's, an inventor named
Montague Redgrave received a patent on a tabletop
version of bagatelle. Soon after that, there were lit-
erally hundreds of imitators and the popularity of
the game grew exponentially. It didn't take long for
someone to figure out how to add a coin slot to
these games, and pinball was born. Pinball games
became commonplace and actually began to fade
from their earlier popularity. Then the advent of
batteries and electricity added something new to the
game, making it more interactive as the achieve-
ment of the game objective drew attention to the
game and the player through light and sound. The
popularity of this form of entertainment helped lift
the spirits of a depression weary nation. The 1930's
provided many innovations, which have survived
through today---the tilt mechanism , bumpers, gates
and the ball lift. The first payout pinball machines
were also introduced in the 30's to compete with the
popularity of slot machines. The major manufac-
turers all experimented with payouts, but only Bally
continued to produce them. The last great innova-
tion of the 30's was the illuminated backglass. This
increased the recognition of individual games and
gave the designers and artists a greater opportunity
to attract new players. Soon, World War II halted
pinball production, as the assembly lines of all of
the manufacturers were re-tooled to support the war
effort. Obviously, there were no raw materials to
build new pinballs, so the entrepreneurial small
manufacturers began to produce conversion kits,
which basically swapped out the backglasses and
playfield plastics. No one knows for sure how
many games were "lost" or new games "created"
during the war years, but occasionally a previously
unknown game shows up that can only be explained
as a wartime conversion. When the war ended, the
pinball industry re-grouped and for the next 15
years produced some of the greatest games ever
made. Many call this woodrail era the golden age of
pinball There was an inevitable shakeout in the
industry and only four major players remained
(Gottlieb, Williams, Bally and Chicago Coin). The
next 20 years produced games with more features
and more players and the introduction of the add-a-
ball concept to avoid certain states' gambling laws.
The idea was that a player's skill extended play
rather than relying on chance (match feature).
Gottlieb and Williams produced the same game
themes under different names to satisfy both the
replay and add-a-ball markets. The next era of
games was the introduction of solid state technolo-
gy, which allowed the game designers to incorpo-
rate previously unimaginable features, so much so
that they even produced wide body games to hold
all of the gadgets. Unfortunately, the many choic-
es we have for our entertainment dollars has led to
the fading of pinball's popularity. Today there is
only one manufacturer left in the United States still
producing games (Stern Pinball Inc.), and I hope
their success continues and even draws others back
into the production of games. There will always be
a place for pinball and I will sure try to keep the sil-
ver ball alive!
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