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Where did it all begin?

teachp8

Registered
Joined
Jul 26, 2011
Messages
935
Location
Peterborough
Can you think back to when your love for the silver ball began. For me, it was playing Cyclone practically every day during the school holidays with my mate Ed. We pumped so many 10ps into that game we could probably have bought it and taken it home. The pier where we used to go in Felixstowe used to have a row of about 10-15 pins and was just awesome - kept us all out of trouble I suppose. How did you get hooked and when?
 
Electric Cafe, Tulse Hill in South London. It was on my way home from School and "Perse" the owner would put up fifteen bob a week for the top score on each of his pins. He also had two bally bingo machines but they did not hold the same attraction.

Still trying to find a playable Bowling Queen.
 
teachp8' date=' post: 1686903 said:
Can you think back to when your love for the silver ball began. For me, it was playing Cyclone practically every day during the school holidays with my mate Ed. We pumped so many 10ps into that game we could probably have bought it and taken it home. The pier where we used to go in Felixstowe used to have a row of about 10-15 pins and was just awesome - kept us all out of trouble I suppose. How did you get hooked and when?









Felixstowe!!! If only it still had pins. I only live ten mins away. It'd be ideal. Are you still local?
 
Gaz Shiells' date=' post: 1686942 said:
Felixstowe!!! If only it still had pins. I only live ten mins away. It'd be ideal. Are you still local?

Not any more - left Felixstowe about 10 years ago - up near P'boro now. Used to spend most of my time as a kid in the Pier, Mannings and the Carousel - pinball machines galore!!! Wasn't much else to do growing up in a Victorian seaside town when I was a teenager.
 
My in laws now live in Felixstowe - in the Martello Tower overlooking the pier :cool: ! - so I visit every few months. No pins anywhere
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At some point I'm gonna dump a game up there so I can get a pin fix when visiting.



Anyway - for me it really took off with T2 in our grungy music pub in Huntingdon. Played it soooo much, after work with the guys, beer, jukebox ...awesome times ! Was gutted when Dr.Who replaced it after about a year, never took to that as much.



Great few years then of playing pins all over the place. Cambridge quite a few pubs had them, bowling alley at Bedford, day trips to coastal towns. Its such a shame there are so few out on location now.
 
I don't think it ever really 'Began' until I got my own machine (BK2K) in 2001. But I do have very fond memories of both Black Knight and Gorgar in the back of the Olympia in Minehead "back in the day". I don't feel old, but that kind of makes me think I should!



Only other time I really came across pins in the wild was a bar that was in a cellar in Bath, can't remember it's name but it was probably something obvious like 'The Cellar Bar' (in fact, think it may have been, but I could barely remember my own name at that time!). Would have been sometime around 1993 or 1994 maybe? Pin in question was a ST:TNG. Remember spending quite a lot of time in there just because it was the cool place to be and really remember the fact that the pin had those cannon type things was a real draw. Spent loads of money on it.



Then, back to 2000 or so, things got a little mental as I did something like five import runs over to Holland and Belgium in Luton vans. Mostly for video games, admittedly (the first was a massive group run for UKVAC), but at one point we visited a guy who had a basement full of probably about 50 pins in Belgium. Me and a mate cherry picked a few all at pretty low prices. Went for DE SW, Fish Tales, GnR and Shadow (to sell on and cover the costs). All about €200 - €300. Also brought back a yellow Pacman upright. Looking back on it, I probably could have picked some real winners if I'd had a bit more knowledge. I remember playing Popeye, F-14, one of the Pinbots and a White Water.



If my crystal ball had been a little less murky, I'd have bought the lot and stored them
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Still have the SW though - and it has a tonne of history now as I used to be part of a team that put on a big Star Wars convention down in Devon every year.
 
teachp8' date=' post: 1686976 said:
Ha - my mum used to work in the tearooms there when I was at school.



Wow ....small world ! The tearooms have now been converted into guest accomodation - I pushed for the mother of all games rooms, prob could have fitted 30+ games in there ....but they weren't having it
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Looks like the felixstowe massive is on here!! My mum used to work at the candy floss stall on the pier back in the 60's!! Well Jel of your in laws living in a Martello tower though Ive! That's cool.
 
Well this will make me look old, rewind to 1968... Williams "Ding Dong" sited in a Warners holiday camp (Woodside Bay) on the IOW. I remember watching this hairy biker type guy nudging the machine all over the place, just like our Stan does nowdays, and wishing then at the tender age of ten and a half ,cor i wanna play that machine like that I spent all my holiday money in that machine plus more that i could con off my parents 6d a play IIRC but i did manage to get some decent scores and specials out of it trying to copy that guys style. Thats when I wanted my own machine, well it took 40 years to realise my dream to own my old machine(s)
 
First game I played was Bally's Game Show in a Haven holiday camp. Must've been about 1990ish. I played repeatedly througout my holiday there.

I was terrible.



Played the obvious games during the early 90's DW, TAF, TZ etc but then kind of dropped off the map as I was always a videogamer at heart.

Re-bitten by bug last year, courtesy of Pinball FX2 and the UKPP. Now truly in love, fortunately, so is my girlfriend, which makes it easier.



We are yet to own our first machine due to financial and location situations. All in good time, right?



I'm still terrible.
 
mine would be when I first was doing my apprenticeship in 1986, at dinner a few of us would hit the arcade. They'd play the vids but I was useless so migrated to the pins.

Used to drop by Crystals in Leicester every dinner from work and play Fathom. Took me 5 years to find one for sale. Ah, the time before the internet...
 
Pinball came to me when hollywood bowl in Teesside park opened in the early 90's. I walked into the arcade and quite clearly remember a TAF and TZ side by side. Both machines were constantly in use almost everytime i went there so my interest was piqued due to the crowds that gathered by them. I dont remember my very first game, but i do remember being frustrated with both games until an IJ turned up a while later. All the people that crowded the TAF and TZ, suddenly hoarded the new IJ and i finally got to spend some time learning how to play. I loved TAF as a kid, mostly due to the movies, but the game felt magical to me (no concept of magnets and their uses back then, so i thought the game was possesed!). It all came to an end when Killer instinct came and totally blew me away. I now own a KI machine, but i no longer have the ability to play it like i once did....



Didnt think too much about pinball for a few years until a Medieval Madness came to my college local pub. Pinball couldnt have been further from my mind at the time, but it just sucked me right in the very second i played it. The course i was on was sometimes ultra boring so whenever a free period came up, it was straight to the pub for a couple of pints and a game or two on MM. Just my luck its one of the most expensive pins out there.....
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I used to love watching and playing all the old Electro Mechanical games in the seaside arcades whilst on holiday as a kid in the late 1960's. I loved the way the score reels went round, all the sparks coming off the slingshot switches, and all the bells and chimes sounding as the games were played. I could also make my precious pocket money last a lot longer on pinballs rather than on all those greedy one armed bandits in there as well.
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Now in the village where I lived as a teenager, there were a couple of pubs which had children's rooms full of slot machines and pins for the passing tourist trade. I saw the changeover from EMs such as Bally's Captain Fantastic, Williams Triple Strike and Grand Prix onto the early SS machines such as Harlem Globetrotters and Evel Knievel, then later still through to the more innovative machines such as Bally's Space Invaders, Williams Gorgar, Flash and Firepower. Pinball of course had to share my coins with the explosion of video games around by then. I was also spending more time actually inside the pubs proper, as I was by now (sort of) old enough to drink...
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Anyway the duties of married life came along in the mid 1980's, so pinball took a back seat for many years as raising a family took priority. I missed all the years of gradual innovation, such as modes and DMDs, and the great 1990's years.



I got back into pinball again in the summer of 2009 after discovering IPDB on the internet, and that Pins were up for sale on Ebay (you could actually own a piece of arcade history in your own home!) There was an upcoming pinball show in Northampton that happened to be near to where I lived. A couple of hours spent inside this show and I was hooked! The first machine (FT) was bought shortly afterwards.
 
Been playing pinball for as long as I can remember... No idea what my first games will have been on... :eek:



I do know that most of the early games that I can remember playing were at the local bowling hall in Sheffield and whilst going to Judo at Herringthorpe Leisure Centre in Rotherham (just looked it up and was shocked to see that they've now demolished it
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) which had a Sky Kings. As a 7 or 8 year old, it could be very difficult to get on that one as groups of (much bigger people) people used to camp round it to see who could get the best scores and the only option was trying to find a decent viewing point in the crowd.
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An early favourite of mine was Skylab which I found in amusements at Flamingoland and did really well on. Then a few years later another Skylab was introduced into the youth club that we could frequent during lunchtimes as a 5th former at school! I've always found hitting the captured balls from one side to other a really easy thing to do. Needless to say I was clocking it in no time, indeed the first time I remember well as the youth club ground to a halt because everyone thought the machine had gone berserk when it count down the extremely large bonus at the end of my ball!
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Not seen or played one since but it would be nice to play one again someday. :cool:




College saw a daily dose on Fairy and again a cheap way to keep one occupied during meal breaks in the common room.
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Then came the early 90's and was spoilt for choice for a few years - lunchtimes down the pub, weekends in the arcade (after footy matches in London had for the arcades there) or nightclub. To name a few pins of the time TZ, TAF, DE SW, DW, CFTBL, JP, T2, IJ, JD, A13, Hook, ST:TNG. :cool:



My favourites were when there was a reward for the top score each week (5 free pints at one place on JP; £15 at another on TAF (In those days I could get to London and back for a tenner)).
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And then pretty much nothing when they went out of circulation at the end of the 90's.
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My dad was mad keen on pinball and used to buy us all small plastic machines when we were kids. Then in my early twenties i was a manager of Rileys snooker in Hove, when discussing site machines with our supplier i asked for a pinball machine, they delivered AFM, never looked back!!!
 
for me it was about 20 years ago, used to go to blackpool for a few days each year, every arcade had at least 3 machines and i remember one year a brand new bsd being delivered and i thought then that one day i would like to own a pinball machine
 
For me - I used to be in a ten pin bowling league in the early 90's, and in the alley where i used to bowl there was always an Addams Family. I must have single handedly kept the machine going in there, as there wasnt ever anyone playing it until i came along - it was almost like a weekly ritual. Hence why Addams has a special affinity with me - Reminds me of when i was 19 again
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I started with a big wooden arcade cabinet I bought off ebay for £100. That got me into arcades big style and in the space of 3 years I had blown a fortune on the following!



Cabs

AWSD

New Net City Standup

Net City

New Astro City

Converted Neo Geo Woody

Joy Ro 21



CPS2 Blue A Board

CPS2 Green A Board

Streetfighter 2 New Challengers

Streetfighter Zero

Streetfighter Zero 3

Marvel Vs Capcom

Super Streetfighter 2 Turbo

Progear No Arashi



Naomi Motherboard

Capcom IO

Guilty Gear X

Virtua Striker 2

Capcom vs Snk



MV1C

MV1FZ

Street Hoop

KOF 98

KOF 03

Sengoku 3

Rage of the Dragons

Snk Vs Capcom

Garou Mark of the Wolves

Neo Turfmasters

Last Blade

Waku Waku 7

Super Sidekicks 2

Ultimate 11

Real Bout Fatal Fury 2

Samurai Showdown2

Puzzle Bobble 2

Metal Slug 2

World Heroes 2

Fatal Fury



Atomiswave Motherboard

Hokuto No Ken

Demolish Fist



CPS1, CPS3, PCBs etc

Streetfighter 3 Third Strike

Winning Eleven 2003

Final Fight

Double Dragon

Carrier Airwing

Football Champ

Space Invaders DX



Then thought I would like a pinball to go with my collection and bought SF2. It wasn't long before Pinball took over my love for arcades and the lot was sold to fund the following over the last 2 or 3 years!



Gottlieb Grand Slam

Gottlieb StreetFighter 2

Gottlieb Super Mario Bros

Data East Lethal Weapon 3

Williams Star Trek: The Next Generation

Williams Indiana Jones

Williams The Addams Family

Williams Tales of The Arabian Nights

Williams Whitewater

Bally Twilight Zone

Bally The Shadow

Stern Spiderman

Stern The Simpsons Pinball Party

Jersey Jack Pinball The Wizard Of Oz (Delivered 2012)
 
I remember neo geo games being a small fortune when they were first released. (£200 or more, i think)......Samurai showdown was the only title i can recall playing and it was a million miles away in terms of graphic quality and gameplay to other consoles that were out at the time.
 
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