Bingo Pinballs


I am adding this bingo page today due to a neat little coincidence, the other day I was looking at my picture collection while listening to the Don Hooker inter-view and something odd popped right up.

The guys were asking Don how did they test out the machines, did they have someone play them before shipping or what.

Don started talking about how he designed automated test equipment so they could check out the modules, cable harnesses, and backboxes while they were being built. He thinks they were the first to use automated test equipment, even beating the Japanese.

He talked about how it was really the only way to build these things and stay in business, the only way to ensure the odds. How a machine could easily make or break a company if it didn't payoff correctly. One mistake, one wire mis-placed, wouldn't necessarily cause a machine to not operate, but it could easily change the odds and allow the machine to payout to much.

How this was one of the keys to their success at Bally, and may have hurt the others since he was pretty sure they were the only ones doing this.

He also mentioned that they never could build them properly, that no backbox ever went together and was found problem free. That they were simply to complex.

He said the real trick was finding and correcting the errors. That the guys, techs, that did this were the real artists. That finding the problems could be difficult and that he wasn't to sure if he could do it, that they had some pretty "good" guys who did this :)

What caught me as odd, was the repeated references to the complex backboxes. Like that Bally had always put the bulk of the electro-mechanicals in the upper cabinets...................




The 1st Bally Bingos were released from 1951 to 1954 and from these photos we can see that the 1st two series seemed to have the electronice down uder the playing field. I have a feeling that this is a hang over from the one-ball days.........
 




As I was playing, I thought it might be nice to also include these 4 photos together. The upper set shows how much changed over a 20 year period. At the same time to lower pair shows how little changed :)

I would love to see the guts of the one-balls. I am going to continue to search for photos. A set of one-balls might really finish off this page nicely :)
 




Well I'll be back with more on this baby. The above photo showing the internals of a Bally Grandstand One-Ball, courtesy of Mr. Raymond Watts, definitely support my hunch, that these early Bingos were definitely tied to the earlier pins :)

Raymond, who also has a copy of the Don Hooker interview, pointed out that a few of Don's dates and memories were probably incorrect.

Don mentions that his 1st game at Bally was a one-ball that Ray Malloney (Bally's Founder) named Citation after the famous race horse. He kind of mentions that it was a thinking machine that was capable of tightening and loosing the odds.

He says that "It really brought them back, that at that time they were kind of hurting." He also makes it sound like it was the first of the one-ball, which Ray points out as being incorrect. That in fact, the one-balls date back to the 30s.

Don probaly was saying that this was his first one-ball style pin, which makes you wonder if he designed others..........

I will research this on the IPD, and when I find the dates of Grandstand and Citation - I'll post them here.

What I am hearing, feeling from all this, is that Bally also had mechanical engineers. Not just an electrical guy like Don who did everything :)
 




This page last updated 12/02/2002