Silver Ball Century ep. 22 - Spring 1977
At 8pm tonight (Thursday, May 1) on twitch.tv/arborelia, I'm covering six more pinball tables from 1977. Among them are the earliest solid state machine I actually enjoy, Bally's Evel Knievel, and the first releases from a new pinball company: Stern Electronics.
No, not that Stern
The link between old Stern (1977-1984), and the Stern (1999-) that's the biggest name in present day pinball, is pretty weak. The connection is mostly that the people they are named after, Sam Stern and Gary Stern respectively, are father and son. Current Stern considers themselves to be the same company as Data East Pinball (1986-1994), but not the same company as old Stern.
Stern Electronics emerged when the longtime pinball manufacturer Chicago Coin fizzled. Chicago Coin was one of the OG pinball companies, making over 200 different pinball machines between 1933 and 1977. My favorite machine of theirs is Rapid Transit (1935), and I kinda think it was downhill from there. We've only covered two Chicago Coin machines, both of them in the 1969 episode.
When Stern Electronics acquired Chicago Coin in 1977, they acquired a finished design, "Rawhide", which they released as Stern's first machine. So let's see it.
We also get to see a Stern original design in this episode, "Disco", which is the most 1977 design I can imagine. Not just because the theme is disco, but because I mean look at it.
(Image from IPDB by David Ramage)
Tables in this episode
These are downloads for VPX (Visual Pinball 10). Here are some setup instructions for the current newest version, Visual Pinball 10.8. You'll need free accounts on VPForums and VPUniverse to download.
- Rawhide (Stern) - VPX by JPSalas
- Circus (Zaccaria) - VPX by Teisen. We get to play a Zacc table in VPX this week, instead of in Magic Pixel's increasingly cursed app!
- Mustang (Gottlieb) - VPX by EMUnderdogs
- Full (Interflip) - VPX by Teisen
- Disco (Stern) - VPX by JamieP
- Evel Knievel (Bally) - VPX by Hauntfreaks. You'll need the ROM, which is available on IPDB.
All of them except Full have guides in The Pinball Primer.