Pacific pinball expo

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Again tucked away were these two original machines from some movie and I actually talked to the guy who made them and played with him

 

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The movie poster and script, there was a record too but.....my head is literaly on a swivlel.

 

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Thats all for tonight FOLKS! still have friday and saturday to really get it all ofcoarse there will be guest speekers/seminars,tournaments and staff....oh This will be the last show of the BIGGEST PINBALL SHOW IN THE WORLD. The san fransico exploritorium wich is a large science exibit building is closing next year....and the pacific pinball museum is trying to fill the void by a kickstarter like program to PERMANETLY house all these machines in the middle of san fransico park But they wont be moving them araound anymore if ever again. I confirmed this with many people at the show.
Oh the X-MEN machine for raffle is $20 a ticket and only 400 tickets for that prize Ill get a photo of all that stuff to, I have to keep telling myself this is a marathon not a sprint.

 

[sotie]

Thanks for all the great pics. I'll be on the lookout for you tomorrow.

 

[shutyertrap]

oh This will be the last show of the BIGGEST PINBALL SHOW IN THE WORLD. The san fransico exploritorium wich is a large science exibit building is closing next year

Well that sucks. I've actually been to the exploritorium, when I was a kid, and thought it was one of the coolest places.

 

[Fungi]

Well that sucks. I've actually been to the exploritorium, when I was a kid, and thought it was one of the coolest places.

Don't worry. They're not closing. They're just moving.

http://www.exploratorium.edu/piers/

 

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So I arrived at 12pm today rested but sore all over, I dont think you want pics of my bruises do you?....sickos!
Like a trooper Im wearing every color day coordinated bracelet that they give me and Im the only one. You know youve done a good job when the dirrector of the show is constantley looking for and commending my brother and I to other people....we set the show up in RECORD TIME! on that note Im paying the price physically Im sore everywhere. I might aswell help breakdown as I may never see some of these machines again!
So I attended the P3 seminar today, the one and only one I really wanted to see.
The camera view of the demo was mainly on the screen so you didnt get a sense of lighting,but.....WOW! This is like a pinball/videog game system?!? it has a pleathera of features that go above and beyond modern pin tables such as built in audible leveling real time, so you tilt the table while trying to level it tells you how many degrees your off so you dont have to keep popping up and looking at a level. NICE! and pitch. Oh! I got to play it when they moved it to the main hall and my first shock was...the ball comes from the middle not the right side...I mentioned this as a shocker to the creator and he told me after 4 shows I was the first person to notice this There is really so much going on thats diffrent you really dont know dont know what to make of it at first but I asure you its PINBALL its just...well I need a more extensive play on it and I gatherd that those clear tubes arnt gonna stay as its not economically viable and they are lexan wich will probably be replaced with traditional chrome rails.
I have to say the ball tracking ability on this table is amazing! the screen has a spiderweb grid that senses location in atleast 3 points at al times and can be adjusted for ball speed for phantom flips up to 90% if so speed was calibrated within the lane grid/speed+trajectory=correction.
the ...dust cover? just a mock up but I told him it would be better if it opened sideways with a lock like a rolls royce hood, he agreed. There will be many many options for this cab such as extierior design if you want it to match furniture and thats why he went without the backboard if the owner so chooses they can decore it in any wayas well as the software and table even though they will present their own models they will still be highly customizable from the factories/it will be outsourced from many places to save $

 

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pictures from above.

the dust cover.

 

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You'll notice the screen is bigger on this machine as this is proto type#2 complete.

an interesting feature with the asteroid mini game, as the shield around your flippers weaken so does the strength of your flippers.
Many features like this can easily be implemented by code.

 

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Heres a picture of my free T-shirt for volunteering. There were many colors and designs but Im a RAT FINK!

 

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I'll be wearing this shirt saturday,and a shaved head

 

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I didnt know what you look like SOTIE so I drank beer and GOT MYSELF A HOTDOG with JERSEY JACK! & a lil private BBQ He's aware of TPA and likes it,but when I pleaded my case as a gamer to him about video games killing arcades hence ending pinball but now coming full circle bringing or causing new generations seek out REAL PINBALL,he took noteand partially put the blame on the operators for not keeping up on the machines..... A whole other discussion about P3 and its upkeep advancements, but I think...suspect the hardcore pinheads arnt videophiles, on that note I met a rainbow of characters and played pin with them ALL! A life changing event....I'lll never forget it,but I see Its me who's never satisfied with the next THING! Girls,Cars,Sports,hobbies..... its attempting the same thing over and over EXPECTING a diffrent result that has now finally sank in IM CRAZY and I DONT CARE! Seriously I probably had as much fun meeting people and playing with complete strangers more than anything...gettin all sniffy....it was the last show.
But on a bright note I made so many friends I now have a open mat to a library of pins. PINBALL is COMING BACK STRONG!!!! When WOZ enterd the building on the cart there was a LINE 90 PEOPLE DEEP! just to look at it! Ididnt wast my time in that line just CHAMPION PUB and X-MEN but everything besides STERN's current lineup was 1-2 player. It wasnt a sprint.....it was a marathon. 2 things missing PURELL hand sanatizer stations and foot massagers like at the fair but on FREE PLAY no CV,TOTAN to compare but the tables I leveld played close...like dead bounces but the variables of pitch can make a game like OXO seem like MM ok thats pushinNit but you get me....I am a silver eyed zombie right now TIME FOR TPA! BAAAAAALLLLLLLLS!!!!! <----thats scary! Im oficialy quarantining myself I AM SICK!

 

[Animator_pin_fan]

Sorry man, I saw alot of shaved heads at the Expo, but didn't see any with that shirt on. Played a ton of pins, met a lot of really cool people, and even though I'm exhausted, I could still play some more if I had the chance. They had to turn the power off to get us to leave!
What were the highlight tables for you?
For me, I really really really enjoyed Earthshaker! Someone had a really nice LED modded version that vibrated my hands off, but wow, what a great table. I hadn't really played it at any great length before this weekend, and now I absolutely cannot wait till they add it (hopefully) to TPA.
Aside from the other obvious classics, I also really got into The Party Zone. It's somewhat simple, but has such a great layout, and smooth ramps.
I also really dug Pharaoh, it's like a better/more fun version of the Black Knight. And I finally got to play Gottlieb's Lights... Camera... Action! It had a really funky layout, and a cool interactive animated back glass cutout coupled with these bright red and blue lights above the back glass that really grab your attention. It's definitely one of the most unique tables I've ever seen, I played it a bunch.
And last but not least, I found myself skipping the lines to play more popular tables and going back again and again to play... Phantom of the Opera!
The layout is really nice & fast with great ramps, and that organ toy is super fun! I only got to a 2 ball multi-ball mode but after peeking at the rule sheet online, I'd like love to take another crack at it again to see what else it has to offer... I guess I'll have to wait till next year...

Overall though, I'd say, while the Pacific Pinball Expo offers an unmatched hands on look into the history of pinball and some of it's most exciting pinball tables, that if you're mostly interested in playing the modern stuff (1990 to now) then the California Extreme actually has more to offer. This past years CAX had more than double the number of modern tables available for play than PPE. And again, If I had my choice I'd go to both, but next year, it's going to be a tough decision. Hopefully the Pacific Pinball Museum will get the funds to move to a bigger facility, so it will become a permanent fixture in the bay area. But I'm thinking next year I might just stick to CAX since it's a bit closer. What did you guys think?

 

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THE CHAMPION PUB was a blast! and I agree with your party zone assesment. I did plat lights...camera...action and the red and blue light makes the table art look different when they light fun table did you get a chance to play gottliebs 1812 in the tournament room? it had 2foot legs on it with a horror theme. The phantom of the opera is fun too! I played this once before the show and liked it so I made sure to get some play on it and never noticed until the backglass was lit the phantoms face!!!
I believe this was the last year because they are trying to move into the current home of the exploritorium wich will move next year,so CAX might be the only show,to go to next year.

 

[shutyertrap]

I'm so freakin' jealous of you guys going to a place that had that many pins and that many pinheads! It's motivated me though to make a trip into the city of angels this weekend where there's a place with 25 tables, though only 6 of them are 1990+ (which is what I'm interested in). Gimme more stories of what happened! I'm eating this stuff up, trying to live vicariously through you

 

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This was wednesdays setup, my brother is the second guy in line with the sunglasses Im not in this video i must have been moving around too fast! I was unloading from the middle of the truck. Youll like this one SYT I was given a universal key for all the machines to open coin doors and back boxes wich is required for assembly funny thing is it worked for the brand new X-men tables as one night I was playing and the ball got stuck and the guys who were running the booth had left because it was late, so I opened the coin door unlatched the lockdown bar for the glass took it off slid the glass down enough to free the ball and put it all back together Finally the call attendant feature worked! I still have the key. Oh my brother and I were responsible for leveling the tournament tables wich was tricky on soft carpet that indented because the weight of the machines. I swear whoever leveld the newer machines SUCKS! I found many where a foot wasnt touching the floor causing the table to rock like the COLOR DMD adams family so I notice this when Im playing and I take it upon myself to do it right so Im leveling it and this guy is just standing there not saying anything off to the side of the machine and it takes me a couple trys finally the guys like C'MON MAN! I just laugh in his face and say I just made it playable. Color DMDs make the games that much more fun and all three to date were there AFM,MM and adams family and regular DMD versions of those.

 

[shutyertrap]

He's aware of TPA and likes it,but when I pleaded my case as a gamer to him about video games killing arcades hence ending pinball but now coming full circle bringing or causing new generations seek out REAL PINBALL,he took noteand partially put the blame on the operators for not keeping up on the machines.....

This. When I worked at an arcade in '91, we had 2 guys who knew how to fix and maintain most of the games, whether it be video or pinball. Of the games in our arcade, at least 3/4 were owned by the arcade itself. We weren't allowed to touch the machines that came from a distributor. During the 6 months I worked there, I never saw anybody strip one of our pins down, but I was told to at least wipe the playfield down once a week. Of the pins that weren't ours, if one started having problems, we just called the distributor and told them to get it out of there.

I spent a lot of time unsticking balls from Fire!, to the point I really hate that game to this day. Nobody ever complained about loose joysticks or burned in screens on the video games, but you'd get an ear full about what went wrong on a pin. So yeah, I get why operators stopped wanting those tables. Also, when you saw the amount of a coin either Street Fighter II or the Neo Geo machine brought in compared to pinball, why would you want the headache of maintaining pinball when there's no work involved in a video cabinet?

I find it kinda ironic though that the thing that killed video arcades is kinda the thing that did pinball in. All the sudden you started seeing these interactive games, games with motorcycles to ride or driving games that were all linked to each other. They had big footprints and they had mechanical aspects that required maintenance. Only redemption games (gives tickets to buy useless crap with) come along and are small, have a gameplay time of between 5 and 60 seconds max, and put crane machines to shame in terms of profitability. Go into a Chuck E Cheese and you'll find 98% of their games are redemption. And people lay the blame on consoles for killing the arcade. Yeah, right.

 

[Animator_pin_fan]

I'm so freakin' jealous of you guys going to a place that had that many pins and that many pinheads! It's motivated me though to make a trip into the city of angels this weekend where there's a place with 25 tables, though only 6 of them are 1990+ (which is what I'm interested in). Gimme more stories of what happened! I'm eating this stuff up, trying to live vicariously through you

Are you going to Pins and Needles? or to a collectors house? I met a guy there I had worked with a couple of years ago, and didn't know he had 25 tables in his house until it came up talking at the expo.