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Which pin got you hooked?


bigredbird

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For me it was Flash..

As everyone on this forum knows ..lol

 

I use to pinch $1 to $2 in 1&2 cent pieces from my stepfather and go and play at the local pinball parlour in engadine

I would get up 10 games and sell them for a $1

And I would stand there a wait until the games were finished..

 

And play it again to get the credits up ..

 

I would stay till closing time which was 10pm ..

 

I was 13 years of age at the time I think?

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One of my other earliest pinball memories was Hercules. Being about 10 at the time it was enormous. Could barely reach the flippers. Was in a huge arcade somewhere on the central coast - the entrance or Gosford maybe.

 

 

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The big (milestone) year was 1979 , Phoenix was the first SS I'd played , could swear they had different sounds (maybe i was drunk) BUT then Playboy came to town , this is still my pick of old devices although never owned one . So expensive now but have such fond memories .
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For me the first game I played was Gottlieb Top Card. Back in those days (circa 1975) 40c got you three games (20cent a game @ 5 ball).

I put 20c in and got three games? Added to that I matched the first game I played!! I was intrigued but found it hard to get a game amongst the older people around the games at the time - can remember Gottlieb Sinbad (a show of the popularly of pinball at the time). Had a bit of a hiatus until around 1980.

 

It helped that every family vacation my father would take my brother and I to find the local arcade and play for hours.

 

Later, Williams Black Knight was the one that really got me hooked. Found many examples to play during the early 1980's. Could ever really beat it (had to have one!!). I remember playing one at an arcade close to Central Station in Sydney. Gave nothing and made me feel like I had to put another 20c in to try again - which I naturally did.

 

Other games offered a similar challenge Haunted House, Black Hole, but gave nothing. Some sympathy came from Bally games like Centaur or Space Invaders or Harlem Globe Trotters. thankfully I didn't take to video games as they took off!

 

So many examples of ground breaking pinballs - including the great Hercules.

 

What a great time to grow up!

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I remember playing one at an arcade close to Central Station in Sydney. Gave nothing and made me feel like I had to put another 20c in to try again - which I naturally did.

 

 

Was that arcade called the Wembley Club or Big Top?. Both were on George Street near Central.

 

They were the first two arcades my friends and I would go to after getting off the train.

 

The first two arcades that was like a pub crawl for us only pinball arcades.

 

We would go from that end of the city and play at every arcade to the other end of the city, (about 20 pinball arcades in total), and then up to Kings Cross where there were about another 10 arcades of pinballs that you simply couldn't bet.

 

About $20 each and we all had entertainment for a whole Saturday.

 

Amazingly cheap entertainment when we could all play good pinball.

 

We all had our favourite machines that that player could beat and win games for us all.

 

I had one mate that could smash any Sinbad or Harlem Globetrotters. (something about those double flipper games he liked).

 

One mate loved Flash, Pokerino and Charlies Angles.

 

My favourite to win games on were FirePower, Kiss and Playboy.

 

Funny how we all seemed to have our specialty machines but that enabled us to share around games and "preserve the money and fun".

 

We did these "pinball crawls" about once a month from about 12 -16 years old. Good times.

 

By 17 I was employed by the industry and worked on pinballs off and on all my life. Amazing how an addiction and yes it was an addition, my mother often called it an addition stopped me putting all my spare money into and it become pretty much free play from then on.

 

At around 20 I would work on some operators machines in these centers so my mates could play for free.

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First pin I played was Haunted House back in the early 80's. It was the only machine in a small Italian cafe in North Melbourne where men would gamble, smoke and drink coffee out the back. The place was full of smoke but HH was right up near the front door, that was always open. 20c for 5 balls! Got me hooked.

 

From there it was any place with a pin we could ride our bicycles to. Other cafes, bowling centres, dedicated arcades in the city. Played every weekend with mates. Real social it was and played everything including arcade video machines.

 

Then got older and drove the car looking for venues with the best selection during the day.........then chasing skirt at night! Fun times.

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My addiction started early i believe i would have been about 8 .

Not one in particular .

I can remember driving with parents from Mt Isa to Brisbane for Xmas Holidays .Every time we would pull up for fuel or a toilet stop i would be scoping out the local cafes etc looking for a pinball machine .Loved finding a game i hadn't seen or played before . It was like Xmas every time i played a different one .

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Was that arcade called the Wembley Club or Big Top?. Both were on George Street near Central.

I do recall those arcades and some others around them at the Cinemas. And the arcade next to the cinema complex in Pitt Street.

The Arcade I am thinking of was next to the Great Southern Hotel where Eddie Ave meets George St. the same vintage as the Big Top.

 

Going way back to 1980 (?) I can also remember a place between Town Hall and the Cinemas. Venturing up the stairs I noticed a wall of bingo machines. And a solitary Space Invaders (blue box). The air was thick with smoke. Obviously a gambling den. The players continued despite the presence of a 13 year old! Some bloke behind the counter taught me to count the shots on space invaders, 14 then 7 (I think) to maximise the mystery points on the UFO. How times have changed!

 

Even recall a Jungle Lord in the St James Tavern. They were all over the place.

 

apologies, didn't mean to hijack thread.

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Rather than the games, the places I remember playing first were, fish and chip shop on the corner of Waverley rd and Bourke rd east Malvern, putt putt in rosebud, night fever Fitzroy st, basement arcade on flinders st, an arcade on level 1 on corner of little Collins and Swanson st, arcade on corner of sir John Monash dr and queens av. Princess's pool hall. I am pretty sure the bk2k in the fish and chip shop is where I first learnt how to "cheat" the game.
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I'm another one of those that played arcade more than pinball. To be honest I never really had many goes of anything when I was younger but loved it when I got the opportunity and still remember the times.

 

With that said, it would be no surprise that my interest in pinball was created later... I remember a couple of pinball machines from younger years with the most memorable being Haunted House which I never got to play. I saw my cousin have a go, asked what it was like and I was told hard and then I was told that we didn't have 40 cents for me to have a game. I finally got to play one at Pinfest this year... but all this dribble and I still haven't got to the answer.

 

It was a 3 pin process for me, if I was to name one it would be Fish Tales but the process went like this:

 

I went to an arcade next to a movie cinema and they had Guns N Roses and I was drawn to the loud music playing that could be heard throughout the entire arcade. I played it and sang along and had a ball. On another occasion I played Last Action Hero and had no idea multiball existed before playing it so when I had balls going everywhere, I was flabbergasted. Both of those tables had an impact on me but when I played Fish Tales I got the bug... all I wanted to do was play it again... I never got to play another one for ages but at that point I was addicted.

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Ive had a few attempts at getting into pinball. In 1998 there was an Addams Family at Hamburger Haven in Newcastle. Was never good enough to get very far in it but would always hear people playing it getting "THE MAMUSHKA!"

 

Then when I first moved to Sydney in 2004 there was one at the Lord Roberts in Darlinghurst. I would go and play after work. That machine was Star Wars Phantom Menace and I actually enjoyed it. Maybe because I hadn't played many other games...

 

Moved away from there and only got back into it in 2013 when there was a Pirates of the Caribbean at the pub next to my work. Would go and play that on my lunch breaks. Seeing the grand champion scores I didn't understand how people were getting these scores. Initials like MUD and MJV putting up huge scores. Found pinballnews.com and they had instructions on how to actually play the game. Then found forums like AA and the rest is history.

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I do recall those arcades and some others around them at the Cinemas. And the arcade next to the cinema complex in Pitt Street.

The Arcade I am thinking of was next to the Great Southern Hotel where Eddie Ave meets George St. the same vintage as the Big Top.

 

 

 

apologies, didn't mean to hijack thread.

 

If it was next to the Great Southern, it was the Big Top.

 

Regards,

 

Johns-Arcade.

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I don't recall playing when a kid.

 

In high school there was a gambling den we called Binkies on Parramatta Rd in Petersham.

 

The barman Sammy (who I later saw on four corners when they raided a den) would serve booze to you in school uniform, and got the more stupid among us to 'deliver packages'. They had a Spy Hunter and a Flash Gordon. We would be there a lot, during and after school. I played Flash Gordon. A lot. Pretty certain it was still 20c in the early 90s.

 

There was also one machine at the Imperial Hotel over the road. IJ, Tommy, Maverick all passed through. Became an obsession from there. Faded out a bit until I stumbled across ZBall comps in Newtown where you could win a machine about 12 or 13 years ago. STTNG was the clear winner for me at that time.

 

Still want to get a Flash Gordon.

 

 

 

Sent from my SM-G935F using Aussie Arcade mobile app

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... The Arcade I am thinking of was next to the Great Southern Hotel where Eddie Ave meets George St. the same vintage as the Big Top. ....

 

Used to go to this place in the early 80's, wonder if we crossed paths then? The place had an amazingly loud juke box I recall too.

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All I know is that it would have been a manual ball loader at Mama's Fish Shop on Beecroft Rd Epping. 5c a game with 5 balls. Later, Gottleib EMs in the 70s then Flash and Nugent were my golden age.

 

Sent from my CPH1701 using Aussie Arcade mobile app

 

This one Mark?

 

http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=185

 

It's certainly the 1st one I ever played at Mamas. Only if the local bully boys weren't in there creating havoc with Mama and her chip oil vat.

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Still want to get a Flash Gordon.

 

 

 

Sent from my SM-G935F using Aussie Arcade mobile app

@newy16216 has a bloody beautiful one. He even has it inside the house compared to the remaining machines in the garage. He lives not far from me. You should come over one day and we both attend to play his machines. It's a ripper to play too. I'm sure he wouldn't mind a quick 30 min visit.

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@newy16216 has a bloody beautiful one. He even has it inside the house compared to the remaining machines in the garage. He lives not far from me. You should come over one day and we both attend to play his machines. It's a ripper to play too. I'm sure he wouldn't mind a quick 30 min visit.

This sounds like a magnificent idea! Last time I saw one was at netherworld but it was out of order.

 

Sent from my SM-G935F using Aussie Arcade mobile app

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