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Page Created Jun 2022
_ Bally Reflex Remnants _ I have completely lost track of what I have posted and have not`…Sorry Increasing
Odds of Winning EM Bingos Pinside.com.html Russ Jensen emailed me one day`…Cool I
just talked to my old friend Marc Fellman in NB and he gave me some more info
on the Reflex unit. First, he said in all his years working with coin
machines and bingos he has never seen anything printed on how to change the
Reflex Unit. It was apparently some "secret" knowledge passed
on only to people with the "need to know". Anyway, I was
wrong. What you have to do is change the gears on the unit to change
the odds. So, you must have all the proper gears to do it. PINBALL EXPO '86 -THE SECOND 'HURRAH'- By Russ Jensen Well, they did it again! Another very successful
Pinball Expo; the second in what we hope will be an annual event for many
years to come. As with Pinball Expo '85, Expo '86 was held at the Holiday Inn
O'Hare/Kennedy in Rosemont IL, and again on the same November weekend as the
winter Chicagoland coin machine show. A very useful coincidence for coin-op
lovers. This year's show, while quite similar in many
respects to last year's, seemed to me to be a little more oriented toward the
modern 'digital' pins than the older machines, especially in the content of
many of the seminars. But, this is as it should be since Pinball Expo is a
"pinball show", not an "antique show". As most of you know, my personal preference is for
the older electro-mechanical pingames, but I can appreciate the new games as
well. Modern pinball is certainly vastly different from the pingames of the
past and is reflective of the space/computer age in which it was spawned. I
can see how these flashy, colorful machines, with their complex multi-level
playfields, and space age and rock music sound effects, attract the player of
today as they rightly should. In order for pinball to live on it must attract
a contemporary following, and it looks like it may be doing just that. Well,
enough preliminaries; on with the show! DON HOOKER After the opening remarks by show producer Rob Burk,
the first seminar speaker was introduced. He was Don Hooker, former designer
of "bingo type" pinballs for Bally, who is now 82 years of age. Mr.
Hooker began by stating that he first joined the games industry in 1936 when
he went to work for Pacific Amusement Manufacturing Co. (better known as
PAMCO) where he worked until 1938. He recalled working on a game at PAMCO
called LITE-A-LINE which was somewhat similar to the bingo pinballs he
designed twenty years later at Bally. Sometime later (he did not mention the exact year,
but it may have been 1938 when he left PAMCO) he went to work for Bally. He
mentioned working on the "one-ball" horserace pin CITATION, which
came out in 1949. He remembered that it had "guaranteed advancing
odds" (Author's note: It was the first "one-ball" with that
feature) like the bingos which came out later. Mr. Hooker then said that a man named Bernie Burnside
came up with the idea of the "Reflex Unit" which was used in the
later "one-balls" and all of the "bingos". The purpose of
this unit was to 'tighten up' Or 'loosen up' the payout chances for the player
based on how well the game had been paying out in the past. This was a
marvelous invention and many people connected with bingos don't have any idea
how it works, certainly not the players. He talked about bingos having very complex electro-
mechanical systems. He said they developed automatic test equipment to test
the games in the factory. He also said Bally had quite a few years of big
production of bingos (the mid 1950s) until "the government declared
bingos were gambling devices." (Author's note: he was apparently
referring to the "Korpran Decision" of the Supreme Court in 1957
declaring bingo pinballs to be subject to the Johnson Act.) The players, he
said, still liked the bingos but "the Government said 'no' ". Finally, he talked about testing the games in New
Orleans. He also said he left Bally in the early 1970s and he and a partner
designed a dice game which Bally bought from them. He then went back to Bally
until around 1980 when he finally retired. He said he was the primary
designer of most of the Bally bingos. Bally Bingo Reflex Unit Adjustment Korpan Case Addresses The Reflex Unit A
simple mechanism in the game which stepped up when credits were won and
stepped down when credits/coins were played. As it stepped up/down,
electrical circuits in the game were broken/made. The circuits were used when
playing for increasing the scores/features or extra balls. Bally marketing-speak
referred to the reflex unit as "proportioning the game". What that
really means is that as credits are awarded, the game is less likely to give
you extra balls or increase the scores/features. As credits are played
off/coins deposited, the game gets more generous. The reflex unit does not
reset between games, so if you win big, leave the game and let someone else
loosen it up with their money! Tapatalk Touts The
Reflex Unit
This is lousy lousy quality, but check out this story of the Reflex
My favorite wonder and fascination of the
Bingos…The Bally Reflex ~ ~ ~ |
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