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From: ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian)
Newsgroups: net.games
Subject: Re: Old pinball machine favorites
Message-ID: <420@wjvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Apr-85 12:25:31 EST
Article-I.D.: wjvax.420
Posted: Fri Apr 19 12:25:31 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Apr-85 16:24:26 EST
References: <224@petfe.UUCP>
Organization: Watkins Johnson, San Jose, Calif.
Lines: 50

*****
From: evan@petfe.UUCP (Evan Marcus)
Organization: Perkin-Elmer DSG, Tinton Falls, N.J.

...[pinball machines]

There was one, I believe it was called Fireball.  It appeared years before
the modern multi-ball machines, yet it had multi-ball capabilities.  The other
remarkable feature about it was a big rubber spinner in the middle of the
table that (when turned on) would put incredible spins on the ball.  It
included targets and pins representing Odin and another mythological god
(Roman?  Greek?) whose name escapes me.

Anyone care to add anything???

--Evan Marcus
*****

Wotan!

Not Roman or Greek, Scandinavian, I think.  Fireball!  My personal
favorite!  Gee, it's been a long time.  There were two ball traps
on the top left and right sides with the names of the gods, and
two targets lower down called 'Release Odin' and 'Release Wotan'.
If you got a ball caught in the trap you got another one, and when
you hit the 'Release' target, you'd get the second ball back in play.
You could get three balls at once in the game!

I believe Heathkit released a 'home' version of Fireball, but it
didn't have the center spinner and was missing a few other features.

Gee, I haven't thought about this for a long time.  Thanks, Evan.

Two others from my college days come to mind.  One was a vacation
motif, had a big counter built into the backplane, and you had
a certain amount of *time* as opposed to *balls* to play.  Losing
the ball stopped the clock.  You could also stop the clock by hitting
a special target, and in a sense continue playing for free.  I
think the game was called 'Time Zone'.  Anyone else remember it?

Another one was a space (time) travel motif and had a tunnel in
the middle of the playing area (glass covered), made up of decreasing
concentric circles that lit up in different colors.  I think the idea
was to hit a target when the color was that of the highest point value.
I don't remember the name.  Anyone remember more?
-- 
--
	Ron Christian  (Watkins-Johnson Co.  San Jose, Calif.)
	{pesnta,twg,ios,qubix,turtlevax,tymix,vecpyr,isi,idx}!wjvax!ron
	"What do you mean you backed it up the wrong direction???"