Silverball Chronicles (TPN) - Pinball

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Topic starts at 10:03   Episode Summary: A Brief History of Pinball is a great place to begin! Let's wind the clock back WAYYY back. We're going to visit the beginning of many 'games' in the early days of fancy pants Europe, the importation of table games t...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary:  George Gomez is the Creative Architect of pinball as we know it today. Without our Homie Gomie (trademark Zach Meny), Stern Pinball would not be the creative studio it is today. When Stern began to be rebuilt in the 2010s, it was the creat...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary: The late '70s were a boom for pinball manufacturing. Bally and Williams had transitioned to Solid State early and evolved their platform, but Gottlieb struggled to keep up. However, by early 1980, Gottlieb knew they needed a new solution an...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary:  It is often through failure that we learn, and after the collapse of Stern Electronics, Gary Stern did not give up. He collected himself over a year and then would work with Joe Kaminkow and Shelley Sax on building Data East Pinball. Often...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary:  John Popadiuk, also known as J-Pop, created some of the most interesting and whimsical playfield designs of the 1990s. He went from a god tier Bally-Williams designer to a start-up pinball company owner and finally to a pinball pariah.  Jo...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Topic starts at 8:38   Episode Summary: Ramps are mesmerizing and hypnotic and create excitement deep inside when you shoot them. You can almost feel the ball rolling around a bend in a ramp. Too many people Pinball IS Ramps. In fact, when one of my non-pin...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary:  There are many stars inside the pinball industry, but few create such an emotional ripple in the hobby when they pass.  Lyman Sheats gave so much for pinball and always wanted to give more. A perfectionist who was often too hard on himself...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary: The '90s saw the biggest leap in pinball mechanics and technology that the hobby had ever seen. The Dot Matrix Display and how Bally/Williams leveraged it made the pins from the previous decade look like a horse and buggy. The purchase of B...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary:  The early 1980s were a boon for pinball manufacturing. Bally and Williams had transitioned to Solid State early and evolved their platform. Gottlieb struggled with System 1, and as soon as they found their stride with the new System 80 boa...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary: The Bally-Williams Era has often been considered on of the most mechanically exciting times in the Pinball Hobby. In fact, many of the games of this era still carry a hefty resale price on the secondary market. The magic of pinball and the...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary: When we last left Steve Ritchie, pinball was dead. It was done. Williams, gone. Bally, gone. Gottlieb/Premier, gone. The last manufacturer standing was Sega which ended up being sold to one Gary Stern and became today's Stern Pinball Inc. S...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary:  Pinball was suffering in the late 1990s. Home gaming consoles dominated households. In the decades that preceded the 90s, people ate at home and went out for entertainment; society was changing. As a result, arcades suffered. Pinball neede...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary: Barry Oursler is a William institution. As a designer he kept the line going at Williams during the massive decline that the coin op industry experienced in the early 1980s. He designed 35 games including Space Shuttle, which 'saved pinball...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary: George Gomez has created some of the most well-received pinball machines our hobby has ever seen. He got his big break with Williams Pinball, but the current Executive Vice President and Chief Creative Officer of Stern Pinball had a big car...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary:   Pat Lawlor has a demeanor that has rubbed some the wrong way over the years. Let's face it: as a designer, you need to get strong personalities in line, meet corporate deadlines, push your creative vision to the edge, and have confidence...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Summary Episode: By the early 1980s, Pinball was dying. Sales in Pinball fell from peaks of 9-10,000 units to 900 units in 2 years. Video was on an upward trend, and that is where the coin op industry began to focus. Only 1 full-time designer remained at Wi...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary:  Dwight is one of pinball programming's most important figures. Throughout the 1990s, Dwight worked on some of the best-selling games of all time, added a level of polish not seen before, and brought a new level of fun and uniqueness that c...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary: Pat Lawlor is a pinball statesman. He has a long, lumbering, and detailed way of explaining himself. This deep and controlled thought process is why Pat's pinball designs and mechanical toys are so detailed and dedicated to being exciting....

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary: John Borg, affectionately known as 'Borgie', entered the industry as a mechanical engineer building ramps and ended up being a designer on some of the fondest remembered nostalgia pins of the 1990s. Join Ron and Dave as they chat about Borg...

Want to Support the Show?  Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary:   David and Ron are going to finish what they started last month. As mentioned in the previous podcast, from 1975 to 1980, Bally was breaking sales records. It seemed that Paul Faris's art team could do no wrong, but by 1981, the gaming in...

  Want to Support the Show?  Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary:   David and Ron are here again this month to use an audio medium to talk about visual art… will it work? Art sells Pinball machines. There was no better team ever in pinball than the Art Team at Bally. From 1975 until Bally was sold to M...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary: Join David and Ron this week as they ride on a dirt bike made of quarters and fueled with pinball players' tears with Steve Ritchie. Through this awesome time in pinball, the bestselling designer ever, continued to build his legacy and, as...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary: Gottlieb was a giant in the pinball industry. Some would say that they created more fun in the Electro-Mechanical era than all the other manufacturers combined. When the sea change of the Solid-State Era appeared on the horizon, Gottlieb, t...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary: Python Anghelo was an eccentric, passionate, charming, classically educated, combative, spiteful, and caring individual. He gave his all for pinball. Python is a guy who added social commentary to his back-glass art, added Easter eggs to hi...

Want to Support the Show? Visit our Patreon at www.patreon.com/silverballchronicles   Or pick up a tee shirt at https://tinyurl.com/kz5xt4hc   Episode Summary: e all been from the early solid-state era. The late 70s and early 80s was when the industry went through some of its largest shifts, we call that 'disruption' nowadays. The exit of electro-mechanical pinball and the entrance of solid-state...