Cecil, you should have mentioned Pachinko. It’s quite popular in Japan.
Pachinko is a mixture between slot machine and pinball. The player is quite passive while playing pachinko. He or she is only controlling the speed with which many small steel balls are thrown into the pachinko machine.
Regards, Uli
Flipperless Pinball Machines - a Cecil Classic from 1977.
Why is it that the column was written in 1977, but mentions “children of the 1990’s”?
The date represents the original publication. Cecil updates many of his columns as the years go by.
Sure, but Cecil says “we children of the 1990s.” (emphasis mine). How could he consider himself a child of the 90s when he has been writing a newspaper column since the early 70s?
On an only slightly related note:
I wish he’d updated the column a bit more. In the last ten years pinball has suffered enormously. The venerable Williams went out of business (or was bought out or something) and while I know there’s probably still one company at least still grinding along, I haven’t seen a new pinball machine in probably two years.
I’m curious as to what’s happening in the industry these days. I could search the Web, I know, or go back to rec.games.pinball (I used to hang out there about a decade ago), but it’s so much easier to have Cecil tell me everything I need to know.
Chris.hey CW, while I was registering, you started the crying and wailing I was going to get going with 
Williams and Bally merged, data east got bought by Sega (who finally sold out in an LBO to the stern family, bringing that full circle) Williams/Bally shut down the chicago plant, and now, only Stern is left. www.sternpinball.com 
don’t get me wrong, stern is great, good company, but only one? how sad. At least Stern is making awesome games. two of their last five have all the makings of classics in my mind. really look at the Monopoly game!
I love pinball. I have been hooked, ever since jurassic park (anyone remember the TREX that ate the screaming ball? too funny and, if you guys are really interested, the guy who designed Twilight Zone, Addams Family, and the aforementioned Monopoly has a website, where they talk about making of the games. really neat : www.patlawlordesign.com
check it out
Thanks for the links. Yeah, that sounds about like the story I heard. Last time I was at Stern’s site all the games were old, but it looks like they’ve got new data up. I haven’t seen any of these yet, but then my arcades have been limited to Chuck E. Cheese and similar since I had kids.
– Chris.
I lust after the Monopoly. addams family is still expensive (the most popular pin in history) and I wish I had snapped up the TZ for 2500 (canadian) when I had the chance. I want one, my GF is letting me get it. I just gotta find one And, no, ebay is not a place I would ship 4000 bucks to complete stranger
Do you have any pins personally, CW?
cheers
Rick
Me? Own pins? No. Too big an investment. Although I almost picked one up a neighbor was throwing away. It was an old electromechanical model from Bally’s, I think. Something with people playing the trumpet. It was missing the backglass and whoever was chucking it had rudely cut all the wires between the playfield and the head to make it smaller for the trash. I did a lot of Google searching trying to figure out what pin it was, see if it was worth salvaging (if not for me then for some collector on eBay) but I got nowhere. In the end, I figured the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) of an old, broken pinball machine was extremely low, so I left it on the curb.
A friend of mine has his own Addams Family pin. What a trip that is! I love it, but since he’s got one, I’d probably buy a Twilight Zone (there’s one on eBay up to US$1825, only $350 shipping!) or a Whirlwind. Whirlwind my wife and I have a sentimental attachment to, since we played it almost every night when we first lived together.
– Chris
ooo never tried whirlwind, but seems to me that is a pat laylor game
try this one for size: www.ipdb.com
the internet pinbal database. now, that is just cool
I should check to see if a friend of mine still has that circa 1978 Star Trek pin. He meant to repaint it, but never got around to it. It might still be in his mother’s basement.