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Pinball Map: Crowd-sourced worldwide map of public pinball machines

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Re: Pinball Map: Crowd-sourced worldwide map of public pinball machines

#71
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am super curious about getting data from Stern since they have added Stern Insider. They record all your scores and give you little icons for achievements etc. I don't know what other data they store, but it would be pretty rad to do some stats on it and look at the time of day when balls get drained, and multiball run times against a population. So curious to see if any outside factors influence gameplay. Outside…

They collect a lot of information, but make very little of it available. What is available isn't exposed in a particularly friendly way. Some of the extra data they gathered makes it into the Year in Review stats they make available at the start of the year. https://social.bdash.net.nz/@mrowe/111779120066480793 shows an example of this. I'd love to be able to see a moving average of my score on a particular game so I…

Would be cool to see some other data like that for sure. I'll drop it in the suggestion box haahha

Re: Pinball Map: Crowd-sourced worldwide map of public pinball machines

#72
post #70

There is zero (0) reason I don't currently own a pinball machine. There are several listed on my local Craigslist right now for between $500 and $2500 USD. I could simply play pinball whenever my heart desired. The fellas who bankrupt early and rode with someone else when we play cards could have something do. I could maintain it obsessively, finding original manuals and schematics. They don't depreciate significantl…

You people? I have 4! :P They require enough maintenance that you'll need a back up ;)

That's how mine started getting out of control. I had one non-working machine that I rescued from a family friend's barn. My wife decided we should get a newer, working one so we would have something to play while I kept working on the first. A year later and I'm at over a dozen…

Re: Pinball Map: Crowd-sourced worldwide map of public pinball machines

#73
I have two pinball machines in my basement waiting to be fixed up and restored. But I don't have the motivation to do the work, probably because I was never nostalgic for this era, I'm too young. I do find them fascinating from an engineering perspective, however.

Re: Pinball Map: Crowd-sourced worldwide map of public pinball machines

#74
I spent a lot of time playing Bally Twilight Zone at the Munich Maker Lab a few years back. I still miss the tungsten bulbs which lit the ball consistently, as opposed to LEDs which tend to "blink" rapidly (at 60Hz?). It makes the ball much easier to track at high speed, and has such a nostalgic soft glow which gently fades off into nothing.

I also miss reading the manual and fixing little things every so often.

It looks like this machine has either moved on from MuMaLab, or was never listed in the first place.

It would be nice to be able to filter machines here by what kind of lights they use. I imagine most places tend to use LEDs to save on electricity. At least that's been my experience checking the barcades I've found from this site.

Re: Pinball Map: Crowd-sourced worldwide map of public pinball machines

#76
post #72
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You people? I have 4! :P They require enough maintenance that you'll need a back up ;)

That's how mine started getting out of control. I had one non-working machine that I rescued from a family friend's barn. My wife decided we should get a newer, working one so we would have something to play while I kept working on the first. A year later and I'm at over a dozen…

There's a bit of a gap between 2 and 12. Can you elaborate?

Re: Pinball Map: Crowd-sourced worldwide map of public pinball machines

#77

I spent a lot of time playing Bally Twilight Zone at the Munich Maker Lab a few years back. I still miss the tungsten bulbs which lit the ball consistently, as opposed to LEDs which tend to "blink" rapidly (at 60Hz?). It makes the ball much easier to track at high speed, and has such a nostalgic soft glow which gently fades off into nothing. I also miss reading the manual and fixing little things every so often. It l…

The early LED replacement bulbs were bad and flickery, they are better now. They even make add on boards to smooth the on/off state to mimic incandescent bulbs https://www.cometpinball.com/collections/led-ocd-boards

Re: Pinball Map: Crowd-sourced worldwide map of public pinball machines

#78

Glad to see that the Silverball Museum in Asbury Park, NJ has more machines than anywhere else to the state. Love that place.

That place is awesome. Couldn't believe they had the dual player pinball Joust there. https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/joust

Re: Pinball Map: Crowd-sourced worldwide map of public pinball machines

#79
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how mine started getting out of control. I had one non-working machine that I rescued from a family friend's barn. My wife decided we should get a newer, working one so we would have something to play while I kept working on the first. A year later and I'm at over a dozen…

There's a bit of a gap between 2 and 12. Can you elaborate?

I've bought non-working pinball machines from Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist for great prices and brought them back to life. They cover a range of the pinball spectrum from electromechanical games from the 1970s through 1990s games with dot matrix displays. I fix these up, play them until I get bored of them, then sell them to make room for future projects or trade them for something new-to-me.

Separately from that, I've bought, sold, and traded to end up with a set of games that I enjoy playing. There are a couple of modern Stern games in the mix along with some mid-90s Bally/Williams games.

Re: Pinball Map: Crowd-sourced worldwide map of public pinball machines

#80
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a bit of a gap between 2 and 12. Can you elaborate?

I've bought non-working pinball machines from Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist for great prices and brought them back to life. They cover a range of the pinball spectrum from electromechanical games from the 1970s through 1990s games with dot matrix displays. I fix these up, play them until I get bored of them, then sell them to make room for future projects or trade them for something new-to-me. Separately from th…

If I may ask, are you making a worthwhile profit on the machines you sell, or are you doing it for the love of pinball? I used to know a guy who claimed to have done this with claw machines and made a lot of money. (Yes he had a ponytail)
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