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Pinball History
The Advent of PinballWith a good start made by its bagatelle predecessors, only a few additional steps were needed to transform pinball machines into the devices that we know and love today. First, while bagatelles were basically tabletop devices, the first true pinball machines came into existence with addition of legs in 1932. The object of the game was still to get a plunger-launched ball into the desired hole on the playing surface, but with the games now at waist-height, standing players were able to "nudge" the machine and thereby change the ball's trajectory. This ability to nudge the game added an important new dimension to playing the game. The Rockola Company took the ability to nudge the machine a step further in 1933 by adding the ability of the machines to themselves mechanically nudge the ball. Rockola's WORLD SERIES and JIG SAW games provided such features. However, that same year a revolution was about to take place that rendered the mechanically ingenious ball-nudging devices obsolete - electricity was added to pinball! The addition of electricity to pinball machines was a quantum leap. In 1933 Harry Williams created the first battery-powered, solenoid-driven, ball kicker, giving pinball machines the ability to automously power nude the ball back up the playfield. By the next couple of years almost all pinball manufacturers had added ball kickers of one type or another. Moreover, with the addition of electricity, playfield lights and electric bells became regular features in 1934. The addition of sound and light made the machines not only more fun to play but also enabled them to better attract the attention of spectators. No longer did a ball have to physically strike a bell. Electric bells, buzzers, and chimes would add sophisticated sound to the games and make them more exciting. Lights and electric powered sound - two of the most basic yet important elements of all things pinball, became standard features on all games. Perhaps just as important, though, the addition of electricity made possible two new revolutionary and interconnected devices invented in 1936 by the Bally Manufacturing Company: the Bumper and electric scoring. The Bally "Bumper" pinball machine introduced for the first time pinball bumpers (which thereafter generically took on the name of the game). They consisted of coiled springs that gave the ball the exciting ability to rapidly bounce around the playfield as it went from one spring bumper to the next. Whereas before the pinball would for the most part simply fall from the top of the playfield to the bottom except as deflected by the strategically placed playfield pins or by falling into a scoring hole, now pinballs could bounce all over the playfield. Just as ingenious though, Bally added a simple electric switch to the bumper springs that would be triggered each time the ball hit them. The triggered switch was connected to the first electric scoring circuitry called a "totalizer." Depending on how many bumpers were hit, lights could be triggered on to illuminate a previously unseen score that was painted behind translucent glass. No longer did the players have to manually add up their scores by counting the values of the scoring holes that the balls fell into. Both scoring holes and pins were now eliminated because they would otherwise interfere with the ball's movement across the playfield. In any event, the final lit score was now automatically tallied by the Totalizer and there for all to see based on how many bumpers had been hit! < Previous Page -- Next Page >
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