thought I'd introduce myself, just freed up some shed space and thought I'd "get back" into pinball.
I am an electronics tech/engineer by trade, Ive always loved pinball and can vividly remember in the late 70's, early 80's helping to debug and repair Pinball MPU Boards for a company in Melbourne, I "cut my teeth" on the 80's technology, does anyone here remember Motorola D2 and SYM-1 CPU Evaluation kits? And did lots of early assembler programming on 6800, Z80 and 6502 systems. (All this is of course useless now but if I stick to old Pinballs it may help a bit!)
I had several EM machines years ago but that was when I was renting and found it all too hard to move them each time I shifted.
I bought a couple of what you blokes call "container trash" machines about 8 years ago, expecting to have to do repairs and general cleaning but it turned out both had extensive water damage, warped cabinets, playfields and of course dodgy electronic connections that would never be reapairable so I flogged them off as scrap for about 1/10th of what I paid and lost interest in the whole thing.
Just recently I got hold of a Hankin Orbit 1 locally (pretty unusual to find machines out this way) paid way too much for it I think but its cosmetically good but riddled with fauits that Im slowly working through. Its frustrating but Im having great fun with it but repairs are getting held up by the process of "fix one fault, then lets have a few games"
Pinball stuff I can remember from years ago.......a place on the middle of Phillips Island Vic (Koala Park???) that had a huge range of EM machines that were ancient when I played them regually there in the mid 70's......a huge warehouse in North/West Melbourne in the 80's that was full of old Pinballs going to the tip (I recall the owner telling me since " bloody Space Invaders" came in there was no money to be made on them....and playing the pinballs at Ringwood Lanes (Vic) and getting the high score on a brand new "Marta Hari" machine at the bowling alley in Albury NSW.
My aim is to have 6 or 7 working machines set up in the shed, a couple of EM's and some later ones, I really liker tinkering around with them and the combination of repairable electronics, artwork, and the creative minds that must of thought up each machine appeal to me....I don't think I will progress into the "concourse" restoration thing, I'll just be happy to have working games I can play and tinker around with in the shed.
I get a bit confused here with all the machine name abbreviations but hopefully I will work it out eventually.
I played a "family guy" machine in a pub in New Zealand a couple of years ago and this would be the "holy grail" machine for me if I can ever find one.
Sorry for the rant!, all the best
