Page Created on 06-29-2023

Bally started the Bingos in 1951 and naturally, the early years were very formative`

Probably the biggest change occurred in 1952 with Palm Beach, when they moved the internals up top`

Prior to this, most of the guts were in the lower cabinets, like the old One Balls

Hence, the reason there are side-doors on the very early games`… Atlantic City is a good example`

Here are a few photos to help to help answer your curiosity`

It was often common place to see the doors covered, redone, blocked-off to prevent tampering`…like below`

Owner/Operators with machines in remote locations would do so to protect their machines`…Often pretty, was the last consideration`

Many of these modules were based upon early design work and they also weigh a lot`

So at first, continuing to use the lower cabinet was kind of ideal`…Old-School

This also kept the top cabinet (backbox) opened up for assembly and heat considerations`

Look at an old Horse Race machine`…Smile, it kind of makes sense`

But things had to change and the engineers knew that and wanted to start moving everything possible to the top cabinet`…the backbox`

In design form always follows function and as the features and the bingo cards were to advance, so would manufacturing and test`

So, they started the move early`…To get ready for the more complex games they were planning`

1-Card and 3-Card “fixed” games are somewhat easy to design and build`…Technology like the old days`

But when you start to have complex, overlapping, features and movement in the cards`

More stuff`…you need to get more clever and compact with your mechanical and electrical design`

You also want to be able to lock things up a little tighter, less tampering, and the backbox is much easier to secure`

_ Pretty Cool _

_ Thanks for asking Chris _