Category: In The Arcade

Strange Science is a pinball machine made by Bally Midway in 1986. It is unique because it is one of the few pinball machines to incorporate neon lighting. The theme is a crazy scientist who intends to do a mind transfer with his particle separator – transferring the mind from his pet ape Gertrude into a poor unsuspecting damsel in distress. I guess by playing the pinball machine, you’re helping?

My friend had been looking for a Williams Jokerz! pinball machine. I located one in Spokane Washington and he managed to secure it. He said if he bought Jokerz!, he would probably want to sell Strange Science. I offered to help him out with that.

When the neon topper goes off, the entire room goes red. It’s kind of cool.

I will say, this is probably the heaviest machine I’ve ever moved.

This was my first pinball machine.

The guy I bought it from found it in a basement where it had been sitting for 10-15 years. Dusty, but overall in really good condition.

This machine is harder than it looks.

I found this pinball machine in Bremerton Washington. Over all it was in good shape, ramps aren’t too bad (which is good because they are very hard to replace), backglass is great, cabinet isn’t bad, it was just really dirty.

This is an unusual machine. Each ball starts as a three ball multi ball. You fire the three balls one at a time up to the “starting position”; then a gate drops and releases the three balls down a ramp. It is supposed to simulate the start of a motocross race – and it does.

Everything under the glass is playfield. This machine has a small lower playfield where the apron and rule cards should be. One flipper on the left side fires sideways and 4 targets to hit.

Five flippers in all, three playfield levels, lots of ramps and tunnels, no pop bumpers, and tons of chaos.

The cabinet for the machine is also unusual. It isn’t square on the bottom. It sort of has a slight V shape to it. Moving this machine with a regular hand truck is a bit wonky.

This will be a fun machine to have on deck because it’s a bit odd. This title has some historical significance since it was the last machine produced by Bally before it was acquired by WMS Industries (AKA: Williams).

Our Blackwater 100 is one of our problem machines at the moment. We pulled it from the arcade and back to the shop to hammer out the issues. Hopefully it will be back on deck soon.

Through some online pinball ad, I met a fellow in Vernon BC who was selling a Robocop. I ended up passing on it but we stayed in contact (as pinball people sometimes do). Months later he said he had a Bally Medusa in pretty good shape up for sale. That’s only a four hour drive from me and an excuse to have a weekend getaway in the Okanagan. Sign me up!

If you have never played Medusa, and you run across one, play it. It’s a unique pinball machine.

It probably has one of the harder skill shots you’ll find. You have to roll the ball over a series of star rollovers as they are lit. Each rollover you hit ads value to the points you get for the spinner.

The upper section has two small flippers which you use to wack away at seven Metamorphic drop targets. Knock one down, two come up. Knock those two down, three come up. Etc. Oh, did I mention these are zipper flippers? Knock a target down and the flippers come together.

At the bottom there is the “Hammer of the Gods” – a center post between the flippers which you control with a right side button. It can fire the ball forward to the top of the playfield.

There are lots of cool elements to this game and it has a fairly complex rule set for it’s era. In fact, it’s a little confusing until you play a few games.

Found this Time Zone pinball machine in North Delta in BC. Yet another person selling their house and not wanting to move the pinball machine.

This machine is in fair shape. It is complete with no broken plastics. Backglass has a few minor scuffs. Cabinet is in pretty good shape. The playfield has a few minor warn spots but I’m going to leave it for now.

The big issue with this machine was the mechanics. All the steppers were gummy and need to be cleaned. There was some minor corrosion dust over all the metal under the playfield. Player two score reels didn’t work when I picked it up (they work now). It took a few hours of cleaning and tweaking to get this running 100%, but nothing major. Just some labour.

I really like Time Zone. It isn’t a complex game but the time tunnel is just cool. I also like the pop-up between the flippers and the two gates on the right size. It’s just a fun machine.

Picked up this 2 player Bally Speakeasy pinball machine in Portland.

It was only partially working and is my understanding it went through several hands before I got it. It had some interesting work done, but most was easily reversed and put back together.

At one point this (or just the boards) were in Texas. A company called Two-Bit Score has their tags all over in the machine.

Some solder, some new wires, re-crimping pins and a new connector for the solenoid board, and the most important part, a new Alltek MPU. I’m sure the original MPU can be repaired, but since this is going in a public arcade, I’d rather have a new, stable MPU.

The playfield was really dirty, but since this is a resin playfield, it cleans up to like-new condition. It doesn’t appear to be missing any paint.

I really like this machine. I’m a big fan of add-a-ball machines and I think they’re great for a free play setting. It also satisfies two marks off my “collect all the gimmicks” list. It has 5 flyaway targets and a roulette wheel.

The rules are kind of cool. If you collect the 5 lanes at the top of the playfield in sequence (either right to left or left to right) you are awarded 2 add balls. If you get a lane out of sequence, it lets you spend points to remove the out of sequence target. This could pay off if it’s your last ball.

The roulette wheel adds points. You trigger it by the saucers to the left and right located mid-field. It also has one section to add a ball, and another to take away a ball. This is the only machine I know of that will remove a ball like that. The backglass display goes from -2 to +9 balls. I’m looking forward to a game I have negative 2 balls remaining.

From what I can tell, this is going to be a fun two player machine to have on the floor.

One of the first machines we brought into the arcade, it fired up, and then died. We’ve pulled it back to the shop for repair.

1973 Bally Nip-It pinball machine. It is in pretty good shape. I bought it from a friend who completely went through the mechanics and got everything running perfectly. I just need to clean it and give it a bit of touch up here and there.

The fun thing about Nip-It is it is one of the few EM machines with multi-ball. At my count, there were only about 18 EM machines made with multi-ball. Granted, many of the old pinball machines with a ball lifter could be multi-ball – just load and fire them all at once – but that wasn’t designed as the gameplay.

Nip-It was also one of the pinball machines Fonzie from the Happy Days TV show used to bang on.

Bally Space Time was the other machine in the show. There were a couple versions of this machine made. Space Time was a four player game. I have the two player version called Time Zone.