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Were you a Pinball Wizard!?


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I remember my brother and I got quite good at pinball back in the late ‘60’s playing many hours at the Regal in Eastbourne.

Our favourite machine was this one called Casanova, manufactured by Williams ElecTRonics.

Slow for it’s day but boy could we rack up some replays and it wouldn’t tilt easily either :lol:. It turned out we had some very cheap nights out. I remember dry old Jack who used to repair them wasn’t too pleased with us. And Vera his wife would sit inside the change booth and just stare at the portable TV all night!
 

Casanova had a soft feel to it, the flippers were responsive and it had some colourful features. I wouldn’t mind one but they’re now fetching as much as a TR! 
 


PS: this guy’s a rubbish player…

Kevin

Edited by boxofbits
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Yes there used to be a great little Cafe that we used to frequent on idle Saturdays when not trying to earn a crust while I was still at school. great fun for 6d.

Stuart.

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2 hours ago, stuart said:

Yes there used to be a great little Cafe that we used to frequent on idle Saturdays when not trying to earn a crust while I was still at school. great fun for 6d.

Stuart.

Priceless memories Stuart and like you say, so much fun for a tanner! One of the first things we learned was to trap the ball by holding the flipper open. If you could get it right I’m sure Casanova has a shute up the top left side and a hole you could get the ball in. Not sure what it was worth, could’ve even been a replay. 

Kevin

Edited by boxofbits
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Same here,

we became very experienced in the “Fun Hall” in my home town. We could play forever on the bonus-games (“Click” “Click”).
And the owner had two nice daughters.

Waldi

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3 hours ago, Waldi said:

Same here,

we became very experienced in the “Fun Hall” in my home town. We could play forever on the bonus-games (“Click” “Click”).
And the owner had two nice daughters.

Waldi

Glad to hear it Waldi, and the clunk of all those replays was music to the ears ! It was ‘real’ fun. Casanova was quite slow but you could speed the pace up a bit with accurate shots off the end of the flipper ‘til you got the ball jumping up off the bumpers and smacking the glass :lol:. You were really getting going then…Magi+al times!

Kevin

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When I was about 12 years old I became fascinated by the way that pinball tables worked and decided to build my own. I forget how far the project went (probably not very) but I have always wanted one to pull apart and put it back together again.

Here is a bit of trivia. The flipper solenoid works in exactly the same way as a TR overdrive solenoid. One high current coil to give the flipper the “Umph”, and then switched to a low current coil to hold it in.

If you ever want to build your own, start here:

https://pinballmakers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

 

I’ll take my anorak off now.

Charlie

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Yep, spent many a cheap night out playing pinball in a small gang.  It was all down to flipper timing.  The owner  used to get a bit cheesed off at how often we could get replays, but overall I think he was happy that passers-by  would be more likely to enter if there were customers already in there.  The place was (and still is) close to Deal beach and was definitely warmer and often drier than being outside!   It's also not far from where there used to be a decent coffee bar where we practised the well known art of making a single coffee last for hours.  It was a classy place - at the time - Italian name and they sold something exotic called cappucino.

Edited by Alfrom
correction of typos - hopefully not introducing more!
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2 hours ago, Alfrom said:

Yep, spent many a cheap night out playing pinball in a small gang.  It was all down to flipper timing.  The owner  used to get a bit cheesed off at how often we could get replays, but overall I think he was happy that passers-by  would be more likely to enter if there were customers already in there.  The place was (and still is) close to Deal beach and was definitely warmer and often drier than being outside!   It's also not far from where there used to be a decent coffee bar where we practised the well known art of making a single coffee last for hours.  It was a classy place - at the time - Italian name and they sold something exotic called cappucino.

:lol: They didn’t get rich on us that’s for sure ! Good story.

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On 4/20/2022 at 9:44 AM, Charlie D said:

When I was about 12 years old I became fascinated by the way that pinball tables worked and decided to build my own. I forget how far the project went (probably not very) but I have always wanted one to pull apart and put it back together again.

Here is a bit of trivia. The flipper solenoid works in exactly the same way as a TR overdrive solenoid. One high current coil to give the flipper the “Umph”, and then switched to a low current coil to hold it in.

If you ever want to build your own, start here:

https://pinballmakers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

 

I’ll take my anorak off now.

Charlie

Yes they were very high in solenoid content.  They must’ve had keep relays or timer relays of some description as the ball would drop into the hole, then get ejected a few seconds later. The beauty of those early models is that you could hear the entire electro- mechanical processes it went through during a game, including the display counter re-set at the end of a game. The later generation in the mid 70’s got much faster. 

I think they were quite maintenance intensive for that reason and I remember Jack at the Regal ( always looked pissed off to me) often had the tops up on two or three machines with his soldering iron and meter at hand.

Kevin

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20 minutes ago, boxofbits said:

...including the display counter re-set at the end of a game...

Reading that I suddenly got the vision of the destination boards they used to have at airports. That clicking sound they used to give when they reset to blank, going through the entire alphabet to get there, and then changed to another destination.

I guess that many people here were brought up on electro-mechanical devices that seemed to actually be “Alive” when they did things.

Electronic pintables just seemed dead in comparison.

The same with electronic one-arm bandits.

 

Charlie.

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