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Episode 8 - Pinball Terminology Explained (new players start here)
PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago40 min listen
Highlights
- EM (electro-mechanical) era pinball machines used bells, chimes, score reels, and lights instead of circuit boards for scoring
- The Wedgehead podcast name derives from Gottlieb's wedge-shaped backbox on single-player machines, affectionately called 'Wedgeheads'
- Solid-state era pinball spans roughly 1979 to 1989, characterized by circuit boards, electronic sounds, and alphanumeric displays
- DMD (dot matrix display) era roughly spans 1990 to 2012, characterized by pixelated orange or red displays and multiball modes
- Jersey Jack Pinball's Wizard of Oz (2013) changed industry standards by introducing LCD screens, making DMD feel outdated
- Modern flippers have been standardized at three inches since the mid-1970s, with EM era flippers at two inches
- Addams Family's hidden magnets (called 'the power') made the game ubiquitous and created a widespread misconception that all weird ball bounces are due to magnets
- Death saves and bang back moves are not tournament-legal and Alan explicitly bans them at Wedgehead venue
Notable quotes
“My normal co-host, Alex the Waterboy, he is out sick, so I'm going to be doing a solo episode for you here”
“There's a lot of weird verbiage that has just become invisible to myself or to long-term pinball players or pinball heads”
“You can be a pedantic little ass if you want and be like, oh, I'm actually, that's Translight, but whatever. People refer to it as a back glass.”
“I really like those old Gottlieb wedge heads with a lot of drop targets. I just think they don't make them valuable like they used to.”
“George Gomez over at Stern say, but I just think they don't make them, they don't make them valuable like they used to.”
“If they do have magnets, they're usually to grab and hold a ball for a feature. Yeah, but it's a common scapegoat for people that don't really kind of know better”
“Don't even learn them don't even fucking do them you know end of story”
“Tilting a game is not nudging a game. Tilting a game is failing to nudge properly, right? You're nudging until you tilt.”
“Shats that in lane and then hit the spinner you're partying okay”
“Let's say that right like everything's lit they're not worth a lot back in the day jackpot used to mean jackpot and it used to mean something it's been a little bit devalued nowadays”
Entities
- Gottlieb· company
- Jersey Jack Pinball· company
- Stern Pinball· company
- Addams Family· game
- Alien Star· game
- Atlantis· game
- Attack from Mars· game
- Ghostbusters· game
- Godzilla· game
- Medieval Madness· game
- Metallica· game
- Nip It· game
- Theater of Magic· game
- White Water· game
- Wizard of Oz· game
- Wedgehead Pinball Podcast· organization
- Alan· person
- Alex the Waterboy· person
- George Gomez· person
- Neil Shatz· person
- Pat Lawlor· person
- Steve Richie· person
