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Taito Modified Miss America
Supremes
Miss America
Supremes from Belgium
Keith wrote into me one day, starting his email with the line`
Here's a bingo story…
Venturing out into the sub-zero cold to help someone, he ran across a few
Bingos that had been returned to America, including the one you see here`
A few excerpts
from Keith’s email`
“After taking a closer look, I
noticed the games had been set up for European voltage. I saw some kind
of foreign coins in the bottom of one cabinet. The interior service
outlets had been changed and the plug was a different shape. One of them
had a ticket to the Grand Prix of Belgium inside the cabinet. Another
one had a very odd looking light inside it. Some had these real big
capacitors in them. Finally, the last one had a tag on the backglass
that said the game was property of "camp willys"
located in Tessenderlo Belgium. Hey, I started
to figure out these machines had been in Belgium.
I had a heck of a time returning these machines to an operational
state. They needed switched over to US volts and hertz. They needed
extensive cleaning.
Wires needed repaired. The
digital replay meters had failed and needed replaced. Everything was gummed
up and rusty. On top of all this the operators
had modified them. I am truly
just an avid enthusiast. I was in way over my head. If it wasn't
for the help of Phil Hooper, Bingo Joe, Franz Pilger
and Coos Hackvort
(Spelling?) I would have never, never been able to fix these. I wish I
could find a way to thank them.
I'm not going to bore you with all the details about the modifications but I
would tell you about one neat little modification. One of the Miss
America Supreme machines had been modified so the only way to put games on it
was for somebody to literally call the pinball. Yep. You had to
call it. There was a telephone modem in there. It was cleverly
wired in through the wires of the key switch or kumbackey
if you prefer. You couldn't put a coin in this game. The coin
return was jammed open and the wires to the coin switch were cut. How
cool is that?! I wonder what the number was? 1-800 BINGO? You
could probably stand there in front of it and use your cell. Maybe it
was a 900 number and they would charge your cell phone two bucks a minute to
gamble.
Think about the trip these bingos took. They were made in
Chicago. Went to Belgium. Somewhere in there they went to Taito for an
overhaul or modifications. I think maybe Saito put the modem
in. Then they somehow made it back to America. An operator in
Columbus had them. He went belly up and they sold in a local
auction. An old farmer down the road saw them at auction. He had
fond memories of these machines from his youth so he bought them. Then I
hear from a guy who heard from a guy, so I go get them and they end up in my
basement in the thriving metropolis known as Salineville
Ohio. That's really a hell of a trip.
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