Silver Ball Century ep. 11 - 1969
We're closing out the '60s with a long episode featuring long flippers!
Playing chronologically through pinball history is a lot of fun, but I'm going to be real with you: I am a little tired of flailing around with 2-inch flippers. So, great news! We get to see a few designs this episode with nice new 3-inch flippers, the length that we are used to on modern machines.
The first 3-inch flippers were on Hayburners II (1968), one of those obviously-for-gambling horse-racing machines from Williams. The first ones we'll see are on Post Time (1969), which is also about horses but has more typical pinball gameplay. Bally introduced their 3-inch flippers soon after, with Bally Hoo (1969), not to be confused with Ballyhoo (1932) from the first episode.
Gottlieb is going to keep their iconic 2-inch flippers that say "FLIPPER" on them for at least two more years. They're excited about a different new component: vari-targets.
Also, there's a fourth major pinball company we haven't seen yet! Chicago Coin is here.
Silver Ball Century goes live at 8 PM Eastern on twitch.tv/arborelia.
Tables in this episode
Here are the downloads for the tables we see recreated in VPX this episode. (As usual, you need free accounts on VPForums and VPUniverse to be able to download, which is a bit of a pain, but it's the only community-approved way to get tables for VPX.)
- Spin-A-Card - VPX by Teisen - Pinball Primer guide
- Pirate Gold - VPX by Scottacus
- Airport - VPX by EMUnderdogs
- Post Time - VPX by bord - Pinball Primer guide
- Target Pool - VPX by Teisen - Pinball Primer guide
- Astronaut - VPX by Friel01
- Lariat - VPX by Mustang1961
- Joust - VPX by Kees
- Skipper - VPX by loserman76
- Bally Hoo - VPX by Albert - Pinball Primer guide
- King Tut - VPX by Drinkcristal
- Road Race - VPX by bord