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Don Hooker was the main
Bingo Designer at Bally and he was a guest speaker at the 2nd Pinball Expo in
1986.
Russ Jensen was kind enough to share with me
some notes he took on Don's speech at the Expo. Here is a small excerpt
which references the design of what is known as the Reflex Unit:
"Mr. Hooker then said that a man named Bernie Bernside 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."
Russ Jensen also shared with me a taped interview that he and a few other
well know gentlemen had with Mr. Hooker when he was 85 years old - where he
again talks about the Reflex Unit.
Don talks about how the old "One Ball" machines and the early
"Bingos" where intelligent and would tighten and loosen up the
odds and features based upon whether the player was winning or loosing. He
goes on to say how designing the machines to do this got much easier after
they developed the Reflex Unit.
A little later in the interview he is asked about when did he decided to
give the players a payout. Was it after they had insert a certain amount of
coins - etc.
This interview is wonderful and I cannot wait to get it posted for you.
At another time in the interview he explains that one of the best ideas he
had behind the Bingos was that he involved the players. He explains that he
wanted to involve the players and give them the ability to make decisions
and influence the outcome of the game.
"He had a theory about the games, yes they would like to when money,
but what they wanted to do is use their heads. If you had a game that they
had something to figure out, when they won, you didn't say hey I am lucky
you say hey I am smart."
He says that the rest was really up to the owners. The owners had options
for choosing what coin the machine would use.
Here they surprised me some, talking about nickels, dimes, and quarters. I
have only see the nickel and dime options, as on my Hi-Fi Bally. If anyone
has info on quarter machines please email me with details.
Mr. Hooker goes on to reference the magic "Reflex Unit"
again, and how the owners could "adjust" the odds.
They could adjust the machines to pay off anywhere between 70% and 90% of
the time. So the owners could tighten up and loosen the odds on the
machines based upon the location, the popular machines, the new machines -
etc - as needed.
OK! So how do you adjust the Reflex Unit? How does it work at all?
Well let's talk about that.................
We're on our own here, Don never said how, but I think we can figure it
out. Please look at my page on the reflex unit.
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