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It's ShowTime ~ or should I say "show-and-tell" time ~
A gifted young electrical engineer named Don hooker. |
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Here are some of Russ Jensen's notes he took during
the interview:
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 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.
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.
~
Awesome!
Raymond
Watts has posted the complete audio files on his website for download = http://rwatts.cdyn.com/
I
have a DVD copy if anyone would like one, please let me know?
Page last updated 5-31-2010
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