Play Meter

th t 'It in ntor
!ronltnu pd from page 181
PLA Y M ETE R: It was mo II confin d to th
lots ,
right?
WILLIAM : Right. You ouldn'[ put out a slot
an where in Il linoi in the old da s without going
through those gangs, But I was n v r inter t d in
sl tS , 0 it didn't pha
me ,
rlill
ovelt
was the greate t maker of lot
ma chines at the time , Then Jenning , then Walle ,
w the pi cture i ompletel diff r nt. Th
ill , no Walle , no J nning , Ju t Ball and
are making th e big lot now , nfortunatel
are
till in th hands of gangster in some areas of the
country ,
That ' s wh I had them tak th knock -off button off
th free · play unit. I fought for that when J wa
presid nt of thc oin Machin In tilut , I lried to how
th other manufacturers that it wa going to clo
up
our territor if we continued pa ing out mone u ing
the free -pia unit as a pa out de ice.
PLAY M ET E R: At one tim flipper game had that
n th m? I didn't know that.
WILLIAM : Oh , ure , The r a on I made it was be -
ause pingame w r going the wa of lot rna hines ,
pa ying out money ,
PLAY M ET ER : You ' re not r ferring to bingo type
game are you?
WILLIAMS : O,nO ,no . Regular one · ball pin table .
Y u hot one ball and if it fell in a pockt marked 10 , you
g t 10 cents . If it fell in 200 , yo u got 2; into 500 , ou
got :> , 1 cou ld ee th beginning of th end.
PLA Y METE R: YOLI fought against that ?
WILLIA M : I sure did b cause the gangst r would
gCt into it and e ntuall y , the towns would 10 e. Whi h
a lot of them did, an way .
That ' s wh we ha e 0 man y ru les on the books
again t pingames today , becau
of th e bad tabl
And the fr e · pl y unit we tried to limit to at mo t 10
free plays. J would rather see five , When I aw the
game going to mone and rede mabl
ti kets , I
thought , " How the h II an J mak
omething that
won ' t be red emed and will onl be an extension of
pia ,?"' And th t ' s when free -pia ca m .
PLAY METER: It was ce rtainl a re olutionar idea
and did a great deal of good for th indu Ir .
WILLIAM : It help d us win our ca e out here in
a liforni a . I wa on that stand for thr e olid w ek .
We had an ordinanc on the books that went on in 1939
th a t said pingam es w r a game of chance and
therefore illegal.
An way War ren Wolfe (an attorney) got the id a he
cou ld reop n Lo Angel on th con titutionalit is ue
th at a llowed a rich man to own one in his home . but
prohibited a poor man from going into a bar, depo iting
a ni kel and pia ing it. That ' not what won the ca e ,
though ; it wa th game of skill ver u chance i u
that did it.
Heavy artillery
, " he avy profits,
Enemy aircraft
are coming into
range . . you track
the target ... the
unique 3-button con-
trol panel gives you
three firtng positions-
three chances for a hit.
You press the firing button,
the enemy plane explodes!
Realistic jet sounds, explod-
ing shells and " hits", a 19"
monitor-
It's like you're
there . in the middle of the ac-
tion!
One or two " gunners w c an
play. Within operator-adjustable
game time, you win the battle by
shooting down more planes than
your opponent. Durastress' · test-
ed solid state circuits and built-in
easy accessibility for maintenance
means Anti-Aircraft is always com-
bat-ready-in any location.
Pul Anti -Aircraft In your battle
plan . Players can't resist testing their
shooting skills lime after lime! For all
th details your Atart distributor is the
man to see. Or contact us at ATARI. INC.,
2175 Martin Avenue, Santa Clara. Cali-
fomla, (4 ) 984 -1900.
[ ee nexi pagel
ircle 14 on r eader ervice card,
46