The Grand Old Lady
September 23, 2021 2:14 PM Subscribe
“When we opened the back panel, it revealed an amazing array of moving relays, stepper units and scanning motors worthy of vintage mechanical telephone switching equipment. I happily let my friends play the machine while I sat in the back watching the mechanism work. Eventually, I started to manipulate it, learning how the components worked. This machine taught me Boolean logic and was the genesis of my career as a software engineer.” K Lars Lohn reverse-engineers the electromechanical brain of a 1955 United Tropicana pinball machine.
TIL that pinball evolved from purely chance-based gambling machines. I’m guessing that flippers were added as a hack to make the machines legal we’re gambling was restricted.
posted by acb at 4:04 PM on September 23, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by acb at 4:04 PM on September 23, 2021 [5 favorites]
The solution for registering the wins is really clever! My dad did a lot of automation using relays, but that’s a whole dimension more sophisticated. I suppose there’s some alternative universe where digital logic never got much further than that, and sophisticated machine control systems use banks of rotating discs feeding to relays controlling the rotation of other discs, etc, which ultimately feed into the controls of stop valves and so forth.
Mind you, it’s a ghastly hack. Nowadays we’d use punched mylar tape.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:19 PM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
Mind you, it’s a ghastly hack. Nowadays we’d use punched mylar tape.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:19 PM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
The relays were arranged as macros! Did Claude Shannon start on pinball machines?
posted by whuppy at 4:21 PM on September 23, 2021
posted by whuppy at 4:21 PM on September 23, 2021
Also, TIL what "wipers" look like. I first heard the term in relation to the US PURPLE cipher workalike.
posted by whuppy at 4:22 PM on September 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by whuppy at 4:22 PM on September 23, 2021 [1 favorite]
The original machine had a base plate of pre-famulated amulite surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two spurving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fan. The latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzlevanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented.
The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots of the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible tremie pipe to the differential girdle spring on the “up” end of the grammeters.
posted by blue_beetle at 4:30 PM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-delta type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots of the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a non-reversible tremie pipe to the differential girdle spring on the “up” end of the grammeters.
posted by blue_beetle at 4:30 PM on September 23, 2021 [2 favorites]
So I worked in the pinball industry for about a decade and I spent half of that time at Williams, which bought United Manufacturing in 1964 and moved into their factory on the north side of Chicago. The pinball/bingo stuff got pulled into the Williams brand but United remained a trade name for years afterward and only for shuffle bowling machines.
The old-timers used to talk about the engineers that designed the relay logic and worked in a corner of the factory with a large sign on the door marked PROGRAMMING. It was all done on drafting tables. Simply incredible.
Bingos were indeed considered "grey" gambling machines where the player could win lots of credits (displayed as free games) but if the bartender knew you and we were all cool he could press a knockoff/reset button and pay you cash for those credits. There was maybe a bit of skill you could exercise in placing the ball but it was tough. More on that later.
Bingos are also what got pinball banned from many towns and counties up until the 1970s. The story of how that got reversed has been told many a time but the legend is true and it's amazing.
> I’m guessing that flippers were added as a hack to make the machines legal we’re gambling was restricted.
Player-controlled flippers had been on games long before the loosening of prohibtion in the 70s. Mostly to add a little extra playing time to the game but they were usually in wierd places and couldn't really make the ball last forever with skill...until... a gentleman named Steve Kordek put them at the bottom of the game in 1948 and changed history. Steve's in the factory tour video above if you want to say hi. Sadly, we lost him nine years ago.
Okay, what did I come here to yammer on about? Oh yeah, reflexing.
> There is a system called REFLEX and I have no idea what it does. Reading about similarly named systems in other machines, it subtly changes the behavior of the machine based on the history of its use. What that actually means, I do not know. It will likely be a question that I take with me to my grave as my time with the grand old lady is over
This is more complex yet simpler than K Kars Lohn could have guessed. It had to do with the gambling and payout aspect of bingos and how to maintain a payout percentage that would let the player win money but also give the owner a return on the investment.
When the game starts to pay out, the reflex system ratchets up and makes the payouts smaller. Coining in would make the payouts larger. Which is why you see these sequences of numbers on the backglass like [100 24 8]. It's showing the win for a certain sequence and only one of those is lit a time. Maybe it's 8 credits to start and as time goes on the number goes to 24 then 100. A win would pull back to 24 or even 8. Inserting more money might make the number climb again. The manufacturers would keep this algorithm hidden as much as possible. Many bingos don't have wiring diagrams for the reflex circuit in the manuals.
The end result is that the machine, through some relays and steppers and bakelite contact switches, can try to keep the payout in a healthy zone. The payout percentage is reflexing, thus the name.
The fun part is that this mindset carried on into pinball and even exists on the modern games when you pay actual money to play. The replay score (the score you need to beat to win a credit) in my games would increase by a certain amount any time someone won a free game. It would stay at that level and make the next replay harder until the player ran out of credits or a certain number of winless games was completed. Knowledgeable players know to burn off their free games before coining up again because then the replay score resets to the base score when you are out of credits. (Later games would run some statistics and raise the base over time, but that's a different story)
Now, the bowling machines are another fun thing. The relay logic in these is also pretty insane and somewhere in my files is a well-worn document listing the Special Magic Rollover Switch Sequences (macros, whuppy!) that made United bowlers really fun. It determined which switches needed to be hit in which order to make the pins feel like real bowling. It must have been distilled from decades of trial-and-error and became standard programming in the United bowlers. When Williams switched to solid state for the last few models someone just followed these logic charts and was told not to ask any questions.
posted by mookoz at 7:17 PM on September 23, 2021 [37 favorites]
The old-timers used to talk about the engineers that designed the relay logic and worked in a corner of the factory with a large sign on the door marked PROGRAMMING. It was all done on drafting tables. Simply incredible.
Bingos were indeed considered "grey" gambling machines where the player could win lots of credits (displayed as free games) but if the bartender knew you and we were all cool he could press a knockoff/reset button and pay you cash for those credits. There was maybe a bit of skill you could exercise in placing the ball but it was tough. More on that later.
Bingos are also what got pinball banned from many towns and counties up until the 1970s. The story of how that got reversed has been told many a time but the legend is true and it's amazing.
> I’m guessing that flippers were added as a hack to make the machines legal we’re gambling was restricted.
Player-controlled flippers had been on games long before the loosening of prohibtion in the 70s. Mostly to add a little extra playing time to the game but they were usually in wierd places and couldn't really make the ball last forever with skill...until... a gentleman named Steve Kordek put them at the bottom of the game in 1948 and changed history. Steve's in the factory tour video above if you want to say hi. Sadly, we lost him nine years ago.
Okay, what did I come here to yammer on about? Oh yeah, reflexing.
> There is a system called REFLEX and I have no idea what it does. Reading about similarly named systems in other machines, it subtly changes the behavior of the machine based on the history of its use. What that actually means, I do not know. It will likely be a question that I take with me to my grave as my time with the grand old lady is over
This is more complex yet simpler than K Kars Lohn could have guessed. It had to do with the gambling and payout aspect of bingos and how to maintain a payout percentage that would let the player win money but also give the owner a return on the investment.
When the game starts to pay out, the reflex system ratchets up and makes the payouts smaller. Coining in would make the payouts larger. Which is why you see these sequences of numbers on the backglass like [100 24 8]. It's showing the win for a certain sequence and only one of those is lit a time. Maybe it's 8 credits to start and as time goes on the number goes to 24 then 100. A win would pull back to 24 or even 8. Inserting more money might make the number climb again. The manufacturers would keep this algorithm hidden as much as possible. Many bingos don't have wiring diagrams for the reflex circuit in the manuals.
The end result is that the machine, through some relays and steppers and bakelite contact switches, can try to keep the payout in a healthy zone. The payout percentage is reflexing, thus the name.
The fun part is that this mindset carried on into pinball and even exists on the modern games when you pay actual money to play. The replay score (the score you need to beat to win a credit) in my games would increase by a certain amount any time someone won a free game. It would stay at that level and make the next replay harder until the player ran out of credits or a certain number of winless games was completed. Knowledgeable players know to burn off their free games before coining up again because then the replay score resets to the base score when you are out of credits. (Later games would run some statistics and raise the base over time, but that's a different story)
Now, the bowling machines are another fun thing. The relay logic in these is also pretty insane and somewhere in my files is a well-worn document listing the Special Magic Rollover Switch Sequences (macros, whuppy!) that made United bowlers really fun. It determined which switches needed to be hit in which order to make the pins feel like real bowling. It must have been distilled from decades of trial-and-error and became standard programming in the United bowlers. When Williams switched to solid state for the last few models someone just followed these logic charts and was told not to ask any questions.
posted by mookoz at 7:17 PM on September 23, 2021 [37 favorites]
Fun note: when he tests the stenographer doing the live captioning for his talk by rapidly saying a tongue twister (which the stenographer captured perfectly), it was a hoax. He had arranged it with the stenographer beforehand.
I've worked with him, and he is one of the kindest, gentlest souls I expect to ever meet. There is no version of Lars anywhere in the multiverse where he springs a joke like that on somebody as a surprise. Not a single one.
posted by mhoye at 6:40 AM on September 24, 2021
I've worked with him, and he is one of the kindest, gentlest souls I expect to ever meet. There is no version of Lars anywhere in the multiverse where he springs a joke like that on somebody as a surprise. Not a single one.
posted by mhoye at 6:40 AM on September 24, 2021
That keynote ALSweigart linked to in the first comment is the best thing I've seen in ages. Absolutely awesome, what a guy.
posted by Kosmob0t at 7:09 AM on September 24, 2021
posted by Kosmob0t at 7:09 AM on September 24, 2021
If I had more time it'd probably be worth a full post, but you can play pong and watch the logic gates fire in realtime.
posted by AzraelBrown at 11:49 AM on September 24, 2021
posted by AzraelBrown at 11:49 AM on September 24, 2021
Thanks for this post, I'll read (more than a skim) the later.
I have a (who knows how old) old fully clockwork mechanical nickel slot machine that was once in my grandfather's gas station that's been passed down and is sitting in a closet back at the old family place.
It's so similar sort of wonder and amazement at how the whole thing works. When my father first brought it out to tinker with and keep me entertained... we found out that it was rigged, there were little screw on additions so that it never could stop on the big payouts.
Relays are cool and all that, springs and levers and gears are cooler. :)
posted by zengargoyle at 8:02 PM on September 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have a (who knows how old) old fully clockwork mechanical nickel slot machine that was once in my grandfather's gas station that's been passed down and is sitting in a closet back at the old family place.
It's so similar sort of wonder and amazement at how the whole thing works. When my father first brought it out to tinker with and keep me entertained... we found out that it was rigged, there were little screw on additions so that it never could stop on the big payouts.
Relays are cool and all that, springs and levers and gears are cooler. :)
posted by zengargoyle at 8:02 PM on September 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
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Fun note: when he tests the stenographer doing the live captioning for his talk by rapidly saying a tongue twister (which the stenographer captured perfectly), it was a hoax. He had arranged it with the stenographer beforehand.
posted by AlSweigart at 3:54 PM on September 23, 2021 [3 favorites]