Pinball and golden age arcade goodness

[Pompidou]

If there's one crossover from the golden age to the present, and probably the one I relate to most, it's the arcade, and no arcade can be complete without a pinball machine. It's becoming harder and harder to find good arcade halls these days, and when you do, you're oft shocked at the dollar to play price tag. Anyone here a "Pinball Wizard"? Was? I wouldn't mind expanding this thread to cover the oldest videogames as well, like Pong and Pac Man. but I'm not sure any topic without roots in at least the 60s will be allowed to survive. The golden age of videogames was the 70s and 80s - probably a bit late. Still, pinball was wildly popular even before WWII - even had a scandalous history like anything fun back in the day. I just got three pinball games for my phone, and it spurred my renewed interest in the subject. So yeah, anyone spend way too many quarters on this stuff? Is there a pinball champion in our midst?

 

[The Good]

Hmm, I wasn't aware that pinball was that old, actually. I have recently seen a 1969 film though, Le clan des siciliens (The Sicilian Clan), depict pinball as a part of the legal business of Jean Gabin's character, who happened to be a Mafia don.

I still play some of the early video games from the 1970s and 1980s though, Pong, Pacman, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Space Invaders, etc... I can always find myself returning to them out of their good replay value.

 

[Pompidou]

Wikipedia claims the first pinball machine to have differentiated itself from earlier tabletop games in 1869, and it incorporated the plunger, but it wasn't till 1947 that pinball incorporated flippers, and as far as I'm concerned, that's when we should call pinball pinball. In the 30s they added bells and whistles and the coin slot. Just some neat info on Wikipedia's pinball article.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I don't know about now but up until the late 1980s both Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm theme parks had an arcade with vintage pinball machines and other arcade games from the '50s and '60s. I love the mechanical arcade games from that period.

 

[Miss sofia]

Oh i love pinball, but sadly there are very few around these days. There used to be a local cinema complex that had one in the arcade next to it and my son knew he was in for a treat after the film finished because we would always spend a ridiculous amount of time playing the pinball machine before we went home!

We do have a penny arcade in the local tourist information office in our town too, some kind patron donated his collection, so we regularly go and play. In fact i donated some of my old pennies to the arcade as they only had limited amounts. They have old fortune telling machines, machines that play out little scenes with puppets, like a drunk man falling into a coffin in the churchyard, i'm not sure what the name of these machines are, but they are all from the turn of the century onwards, and it's fab to see so many in one place. Not to mention getting to be a child again which is always a bonus!

 

[Foofoogal]

Pac Man and ms. Pac Man is still the tops with me but I also love the old tennis one.

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Ok, I just have to do this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZCwiNJ4wgo

I went to a grand opening of this movie and remember it like yesterday. It was at the Heights of Houston movie theater. Very cutting edge at the time. lol
http://www.heightstheater.net/

I had arrived.

When I think of old arcades I think of chickens dancing or stuff.