1905 Mills Novelty Co.: Retro Design Gold
Step right up and witness the incredible 1905 Mills Bag Puncher! This vintage amusement machine promised a fun way to earn a daily income, as proclaimed in this captivating advertisement. Invest just $60 and start punching your way to prosperity! 💰🥊
#millsnovelty #millsbagpuncher #bagpuncher #punchingmachine #1900s #vintagead #retro #nostalgia #amusementmachine #arcadehistory #earlygaming #earlymachines #antiqueadvertising #moneymaker #classicfun #chi
The Williams Pinball 2000 platform was an interesting beast in many ways, but since we're on the topic of pinball displays, then here's the mother lode.
Instead of a matrix gas discharge displays of the previous generation, this one had a 19" CRT screen (a Duckscan CGM-1901CW) in it! Now keep in mind it was 1999 when this game came out, so TFT screens weren't economical for an arcade game at that point.
This huge screen is reflected to a semi-mirrored glass, which has a gradient to completely transparent around half-way down. This causes a rather neat effect of the screen reflecting off the glass, but the player still seeing the playfield. The game can also dim the playfield lights at the back to make the screen image more pronounced.
The effect was like experiencing some sci-fi gadget in real life. The game can project virtual targets, which you can hit thanks to strategically positioned switches on the playfield.
While the gas discharge displays were very common in pinball, there were many other peculiar examples of displays.
Many 80s kids will definitely remember the cyan (and often partly red) VFD, or vacuum fluorescent displays. Gottlieb was big on them since their first solid state pinball platform, demonstrating anything from absolutely huge 8-segmented ones (yes, 8!) to 14-segmented alpha numeric ones.
Naturally the LED 7-segments also had to show up, but for some reason they were more common in European made pins. Curiously some American pins made in Europe under a license got LED displays instead of original gas discharge ones. One example is the Williams Space shuttle, where the Spanish made version had exactly this to happen.
Speaking of weird, NBAFB has the biggest single 7-segment I've ever seen in my life! It's 1.8" tall!
Naturally we can't forget what was before electronic displays. Those rotating drums ruled pinball display technology for decades!
Up to late 80s various coin operated devices had separate mechanical rejector for each type of coin accepted. This was often not optimal, the customer wanted the conveniency of paying with what they had and in some places, like border towns the neighbouring country's currency was also taken.
Enter the electronic rejectors. Now a single device can recognise various coin types and let the connected game or vending machine know what coin was exactly inserted. The pricing could be as complex with discounts as the coin operated device's software could do.
The electronic rejectors could be easily configured via computer to accept new currencies or updated versions of the local coins. Your arcade had custom tokens? No problem.
The rejector scans the coin for things like dimensions, metal composition, surface embossing, holes and will reject the foreign coins that were close enough to local ones to fool a mechanical rejector.
#pinball #arcade #history #arcadehistory #mechanism #didyouknow
Until the 90s, between you inserting a coin and starting a game stood a mysterious mechanical device. Like magic, it would take in a coin, shuffle it around and decipher if you were trying to pass a washer as a coin or if it was the real deal!
Mechanical coin rejectors also caused the now completely forgotten limitation of each coin type having their own slot. Since one rejector could be tuned only for a single coin type, you'd need a whole coin chute - rejector - reject/accept -chute combo for each coin type the machine accepted.
The rejector weights the coin, runs it past a magnet in a track where too small coins would fall through, too large ones would get stuck and only the right size coins, made of right metal would move the exact right speed, so they'd be slowed down to drop into the accepted chute instead of being rejected.
Bonus points if you can name the currency shown in this video!
#history #pinball #arcade #arcadehistory #mechanism #didyouknow
🕹️📅 Happy 45th anniversary to the classic #arcade game, Warrior! Fun fact: Due to hardware constraints, it featured prints of hand-drawn backgrounds overlaid with character projections. #ArcadeHistory #GameFact #gaminghistory
Play your favourite classic #retrovideogames, all on one device, with our #retrogaming handhelds. Explore our collection at K-TEC UK, complete with brand-name SD cards and custom firmware pre-installed. Get your gaming nostalgia fix today.
A fascinating piece on one of Sega's early hits in America, Basketball. The piece by Caitlyn reveals a similar tangled web to what we've uncovered about Periscope. #sega #arcadehistory
https://earlyarcadesjapan.blogspot.com/2024/02/1966-basketball-by-sega.html
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