Bally Spectrum (1982) Pics

Since this machine is fairly rare - there were only 994 made, and only about half those were sold; the rest were salvaged or destroyed unsold - and IPDB doesn't have pictures of the illuminated playfield, I decided to take a couple of shots of CP Pinball's Spectrum for everyone's viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Spectrum Upper Playfield
Off to the sides by the spinners, there are hidden return lanes. When the ball falls into one of these, the ball locked on the corresponding lower kickout releases immediately. Star Trek: The Next Generation is not the first table with preloaded balls to speed up gameplay! (TX Sector's "teleporting" ball uses a similar system as well.)







Spectrum Lower Playfield
Note that Spectrum has no outlanes! Unfortunately, it has an extra wide center drain to compensate; a great deal of the strategy is to only shoot the green and yellow banks when you absolutely must to make progress on the color code. You can't nudge the machine enough to save a SDTM ball.

Spectrum also has no plunger; you use the right flipper button to launch the ball out of the center drain onto the playfield.

Thanks for posting. I'm very jealous that you have a Spectrum on location. I've played it a handful of times at conventions, but always wished I could put more time on it.

Man, that's absolutely gorgeous. I know where I'm going if I ever make it to St. Louis.

The lack of a launch trough always messed with my head.

I've never seen one in person but would love to play it. Beautiful light show. I'm a sucker for the Bally's of this era.

aaaah memories used to play this table all the time when it was released .. interesting info too sean

Pretty looking table. Unfortunately I've never seen one. I'm planning on hitting Pinfest in Allentown this May for the first time. Maybe I'll get lucky and see it there.

Judging from the ball-launch alone this has to be a memorable playing experience. Beautifull playfield artwork too.

LED'd would look so sick! I think I seen 1 at PPE it looks familiar.

I love playing Spectrum at Silverball. Gotta get this one on TPA.

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I got a chance to play two Spectrum machines at the German Pinball Convention 2013 in Berlin last weekend. WOW! What a crazy game. It's so rewarding because it has such a rigid ruleset. It's like playing Mastermind with flippers, right? Every single shot counts and making ONE SINGLE wrong shot ruins an entire three ball game (if you are aiming to crack the code, that is!) Somehow I couldn't get enough and while everybody else was queing to play the Top 10 machines, I kept returning to Spectrum... "How about another game...", "Not Yellow", "Not Red", "Go for the right saucer". This is truly a machine that broke the mold...

Someone listed a Spectrum in Denver recently on the Mr. Pinball classifieds for $1100, supposedly in decent shape, although not shopped. Haven't seen one pop up in a long time.

Far out, looks like an offspring from the computer in logan's run.

Clawhammer said:

Someone listed a Spectrum in Denver recently on the Mr. Pinball classifieds for $1100, supposedly in decent shape, although not shopped. Haven't seen one pop up in a long time.

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I would have snapped it up for that price. Anyone buying a game of that age should be prepared to shop it themselves anyway. I've played Spectrum at a couple of pinball shows in the UK and loved it. Way ahead of its time and one of the prettiest early-SS Ballys.