HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ung (Bill Ung)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Another TAF bug, or a feature?
Date: 3 Apr 92 22:49:12 GMT
Reply-To: ung (Bill Ung)
Organization: FileNet Corp., Costa Mesa, CA
Return-Path: <darnold>
Apparently-To: felix!postnews

Note: This posting is a few days old.  I had some problems posting to
      the net this week.  My apoligies for duplicate posts.

I was messing with a local TAF pinball game and noticed something very
interesting.

Say you're playing a game and had the misfortune of having locked two
balls and then drained the third, ending the game.  So now you have
two balls locked and your game is over.  Now, the next person (you?)
to play a game will have to deal with a swamp kickout after each ball
lock.  Personally, I prefer getting one from the plunger as it allows
you an extra shot or two at the Skill Shot as well as making the second
lock very easy by letting the plunger shot drop into the swamp.

But, both balls are already locked and the game isn't going to unlock
them until a multiball is played.  What to do...

Well, if you're like me and like each ball to start from the plunger,
simply reach under the game, switch it off for a second or two, then
flip it back on.  The game will go through the usual test mode that
it does at power up or after getting seriously confused (the other
bug), however, while doing this, it will KICK BOTH OF THE OTHER BALLS
OUT OF THE SWAMP!  They'll find their way to the drain and now you
have three balls waiting for plunger shots.  Nice :-)

Just a tip, the TAF game I played was, I think Rev L-1.  I don't know
if this works for all TAF games or just specific ROM versions.  How
many ROM versions exist for TAF anyway?

Note:  Interestingly enough, the FUNHOUSE at Disneyland yesterday had
       a ball stuck in the drain.  It was sitting on the drain switch
       but the kicker didn't kick it forward.  Even powering down the
       game had no effect on it and putting in quarters caused the
       game to display "PINBALL MISSING" and went through the ball
       search mode but NEVER KICKED THE BALL from the drain.  Odd,
       FUNHOUSE is one of the better games IMHO as far as things like
       this go.  More on Disneyland in a separate post.

Bill Ung
  ung@filenet.com
From: overturf@bigbootay.sw.stratus.com (Dallas Overturf)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Milwaukee tournament
Date: 9 Apr 92 00:11:21 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Software Engineering


Dave Hegge won the Pin Masters division. 

Lyman and Mike won the Pin Masters doubles.

Not sure after that.

			Regards,	D...
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: dollr@aix02.ecs.rpi.edu (Richard Kieth Doll)
Subject: BlackOut For Sale
Followup-To: rec.games.pinball
Summary: Selling BlackOut (1980 by Wms) for $350 +s/h
Keywords: BlackOut pinball Williams for sale forsale
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 02:35:00 GMT

 
 ***** Pinball Machine For Sale *****
 
 BlackOut by Williams
 
 Manufactured in 1980 - fully Solid State
 One of the first games to implement digital voice
 
 100% working - strong flippers, kickers, and jet bumpers
 In great condition, some paint on playfield and backglass is a little worn
 
 Asking $350 + s/h
 If interested, e-mail to below address or call me at (518)276-4530.
 
 Richard Doll
 dollr@rpi.edu
 .sigless
 



Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: ottoh3@CFSMO.Honeywell.COM (Otto Heuer #3)
Subject: Info on "Big Guns"
To: rec.games.pinball
Posted-Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 18: 10:06 CDT
Mailer: Elm [revision: 64.9]
X-Disclaimer: I speak for me and not my boss; Honeywell's gain & Usenet's loss
X-Car: (612) 865-4301
X-Voice-Mail: (612) 785-4600 x8528
Organization: Hack-Man's Hangout
X-Internet: ottoh3@cfsmo.honeywell.com
X-2nd-Choice: hackman@pnet51.orb.mn.org
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 23:10:06 GMT
Received-Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 18: 08:46 CDT
X-Phone: (612) 785-4343


Hey,

I have a chance to purchase a 1985 Williams pin "Big Guns" (multiball,
single level, excellent condition).  I was wondering what the "bluebook
value" was on this pin.  :-)

                --Otto "HACK-MAN" Heuer
--
C, Pascal, Fortran, BASIC, Assembly Language, Snobol, Ada, APL, Prolog, LISP
Unix, MS-DOS, ProDOS       .  .   .   .... .  .   .   .   .   .   . Audio/Video
ottoh@cfsmo.honeywell.com  :..: .:.:. :    :.' .. :`.': .:.:. :`. :   Star Trek
hackman@pnet51.orb.mn.org  :  : :   : :... : `.   :   : :   : :  `:  Apple IIgs
From: blowfish@carina.unm.edu (rON.)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Thrice! Well done!
Date: 7 Apr 92 07:07:37 GMT
Article-I.D.: lynx.xvpjqc_
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <1992Apr7.055545.12051@u.washington.edu> phaedrus@milton.u.washington.edu (Phaedrus) writes:
>Perhaps the TILT quote is only said if you lose a certain
>amount of bonus by tilting or something; tomorrow I'll have to try playing a
>good ball and then tilting it away, and see if I get the quote.  

Well, on the machine I play on (a newer one), it give the quote for large
bonuses and small, I know, having lost balls to tilts of one form or
another on both.
Well, the quote list for TAF is still growing....at least two more additions
from the net, plus another one I found today....gads....
r.
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: sbb@panix.com (Steve Baumgarten)
Subject: Re: Spinners
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 04:09:12 GMT
	<1992Apr14.225705.15794@cbnewsd.cb.att.com>
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

In article <1992Apr14.225705.15794@cbnewsd.cb.att.com> knudsen@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (michael.j.knudsen) writes:

   OK people, what was the most recent pin with a spinner?  BK2000 had
   one in the white-arrow lane, but it was hidden from view.

Nope, not BK2K, unless they removed it from mine before they put it on
the truck...  :-)

As for the most recent game to have a spinner, can it be that you
don't hear even a faint echo of "Shoot the Spinner!" (said in a
Jamaican accent) in your dreams?  

It's SURF 'N SAFARI, of course.  A great, great game, though sadly
overlooked by a lot of people.  

I, too, like spinners.  Also drop targets, which seem to have gone out
of style on Williams games at least.  Fortunately, Data East and
Premier are keeping the faith.

   Funny how simple that game looks, and how everyone (myself included)
   still loves to play it.  They say all of Steve Ritchie's games
   are basically like that.  You don't have to plaster crap all over
   the playfield to make a great game, or have rules longer
   than the Constitution and the Torah put together -- not that anyone could
   tell lately ^-)

I was going to comment on how similar THE GETAWAY is to BK2K in a lot
of respects.  Certainly people commenting on that wicked left drain
have short memories, since that's been a "feature" of his games for
some time now.  FIREPOWER, BK2K, and T2 all have the same left drain.

Personally, I like it, especially if the game is set so that the
kickback doesn't relight automatically with each ball.  It forces you
to play the lower playfield (note how it's the lower playfield targets
on BK2K, T2, and THE GETAWAY that relight that same left kickback)
more than you might otherwise, and it sure makes the game more
challenging...  :-)

(And yes, I stood by helplessly when an "Install Extra Hard" was done
on the GETAWAY at Broadway.)

I'm wracking my brains for a Steve Ritchie game that I don't like, but
so far I'm coming up empty.  Scary, in a way...

--
    Steve Baumgarten       |  "New York... when civilization falls apart,
    PANIX, New York, NY    |   remember, we were way ahead of you."
                           |  
    Email: sbb@panix.com   |                            - David Letterman
From: gt0269b@prism.gatech.EDU (David D. Clark)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Another TAF bug, or a feature?
Date: 16 Apr 92 04:13:54 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

In <17060@fritz.filenet.com> ung (Bill Ung) writes:

>Note:  Interestingly enough, the FUNHOUSE at Disneyland yesterday had
>       a ball stuck in the drain.  It was sitting on the drain switch
>       but the kicker didn't kick it forward.  Even powering down the
>       game had no effect on it and putting in quarters caused the
>       game to display "PINBALL MISSING" and went through the ball
>       search mode but NEVER KICKED THE BALL from the drain.  Odd,
>       FUNHOUSE is one of the better games IMHO as far as things like
>       this go.  More on Disneyland in a separate post.

ARRGH! We JUST got TAF at Ga. Tech here today, and on my third game,
THIS HAPPENED!  Couldn't get it to register that damn ball, and trying
to start a new game (after going through the "pinball missing and out of
play" routine) yielded all three (4?) balls sitting in the drain, and
never giving me a ball at the plunger.  A guy helped me tip the game to
try to get the ball to slide to the right, and I ended up slam tilting
a dollar's worth of games away. I ended up powering it down and leaving
a note on it for when the guy came to empty the coin boxes...

The funny thing was, was that the "find the ball" routine never popped
any bumpers, like it did when the ball actually got stuck in the game
(right next to the skill shot, it wedged under the ramp); it just opened
and closed the bookcase, and had Thing come out and try to grab the ball.

And I had been waiting SOOOOOO long to play it, too.

Does anyone know what does this?  Is it caused by the drain switch going
on the fritz?  I seem to remember this happening to me at least once
before, on other games.
-- 
David D. Clark:With a middle name like Darwin how can I not be an athiest?
Internet:   gt0269b@prism.gatech.edu        Zoom!        GEnie:   D.CLARK7
Disclaimer:  These opinions belong to noone. Not even me.  "We only want a
quiet place to finish working while God eats our brains." --Bruce Sterling
From: breuker@cs.rulimburg.nl (Dennis Breuker)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: TAF rules
Keywords: TAF
Date: 10 Apr 92 08:23:51 GMT
Organization: University of Limburg

Finally, The Addams Family has arrived in Leiden, The Netherlands.
Could someone email (or post) me the rules, for I don't have a clue...

Thanks in advance,
Dennis Breuker
(breuker @cs.rulimburg.nl)

P.S. Are there any other pinball players from Holland who are reading
     this group?
From: v121r529@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Scott A Elwood)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Party Zone
Date: 9 Apr 92 17:33:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

Has anyone played this?  Do you like it?  How do you score?.. etc...
Party Zone is a Williams dot matrix... I like it alot.
I have the high score on it with 265,000,000.
Any replies would be appreciated... 8)

						Scott Elwood
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: wesselak@sunb9.cs.uiuc.edu (Erik Wesselak)
Subject: Re: Funhouse "Grand Champion"
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 21:49:28 GMT

aq009@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (David A. Johnson) writes:


>I was playing Funhouse today and managed to get the three highest scores on
>the machine (it was a very good day for me).  But when the high score list
>flashed on the display, it first lists a "Grand Champion" and then the four
>"highest" scores.  The Grand Champion score was astronomical (around 169
>million points) compared to my scores (oh, around 24 million).  :-)

>What I'm asking is, what is the "Grand Champion" score anyway?  It seems
>like it almost keeps two "highest scores."  So what's the deal?

This annoys me also.  Some machines keep a Grand Champion as well as 4 high
scores.  I think the Grand Champion score can never be erased.  Other machines
that do this are Whirlwind and I beleive Gilligan's Island.  IMO, if a machine
is going to keep a Grand Champ standing it should start it's secondary high
score table with 2nd place.

Erik
-- 
|"Is money the root of all evil?"     |   __| /  |__    "He'd kill us all     |
|"Yes."                               |   __|<  /|__       you know"          |
| --Horace Gorey and God,             |     | \/ |      "Just for starters"   |
| Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children | Erik:  wesselak@suna0.cs.uiuc.edu     |
From: 910680p@ace.acadiau.ca (JOHN PERRIN)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: Williams' ruthless outlanes
Date: 6 Apr 92 12:05:44 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: Acadia University

In article <1992Apr4.201528.20455@ils.nwu.edu> lopez@ils.nwu.edu (Chris Lopez) writes:

>overturf@bigbootay.sw.stratus.com (Dallas Overturf) writes:
>>
>> [much stuff deleted]
>>
>>  I should think that auto adjust should be limited to
>>  some reasonable maximum level; and let the replay boost be responsible
>>  (within reason!) for making us so called wizards put in money
>>  occasionally.
>> 
>>                               Regards,        Dallas...

>The feature you ask for does exist.  Operators can set the auto-adjust to
>reset the play level every 1,10,100,1000 plays on some of the machines I
>have been inside.

>The only place I ever saw a funhouse had it set to readjust every game.  The 
>first time I beat the machine it raised the replay by about 30%.  The second 
>time I beat it, it raised it another 40% or so (I went over the replay score by 
>a larger amount the second time).  Needless to say this put it beyond me.  As 
>soon as my credits were gone the replay dropped back to its initial value.

>I complained to the manager who said 'and that is how it will stay.'   Why?
>Because the only people really effected are those who can win consistently
>and thus tie up the machines for extended periods of time.  He figured that
>the profits he could make on the faster turnaround customers far exceeded the
>loss of the better players business, even if they were more steady business.

>Never played that (or unfortunately any other) Funhouse again.

>----

>Readjusting every 10 plays, or limiting the replay score increase to 5-10%
>may have made it reasonable.  Whether he had any control over how much it
>increased the replay score by I don't know.
A fiftyth aniversary looney toons game I played recently also had this 
feature.
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: HSII (was Re: Diner being "a classic Williams Pinball")
From: matthew@oread.cc.ukans.edu
Date: 9 Apr 92 15:11:57 CST
 <LFS.92Apr1140937@d62avalon.mitre.org> <1992Apr8.025747.9520@cs.columbia.edu>
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Serces

In article <1992Apr8.025747.9520@cs.columbia.edu>, amb@cs.columbia.edu (andrew m. boardman) writes:
>>Also, I'm wondering if the license plate KINGPIN has any significance.  I
> I'm 99% sure it was the plate on the original HS's car, too.  Speaking of

	You're right about "Kingpin" being on the original HIGH SPEED.
We have one here at the local bowling alley which is in terrible
shape, and they won't fix it!  (and I've tried talking to the
repairperson and he says it's fine.  Then again, he doesn't play
pinball....)
	Last night I was playing HSII, and was doing reaaly well
when--you guessed it--the display read SLAM TILT and reset itself to
the "introductory" screen.  I wasn't even in Multiball!  The owner
just said that he'd have the repair person look at it.  I told him to
tell the repair person to check the coin door (which was tightly
closed, but you never know).  And I still had two credits on the
machine, so he didn't even credit me a game for the one which the
machine, and not I, lost.  (I wasn't using any body english, shaking,
etc--it never works for me anyway.)
	By the way, didn't somebody say that they couldn't put two
balls in the Supercharger without the machine going haywire?  Mine
can--and it made getting to the Jackpot even quicker!  Is the 25M the
standard Jackpot, or is there a way of raising it?  And how do you get
that darn Helicopter Jackpot anyway?
	Just my usual amout of rambling and questions....
					--Matt
-- 
Matt Chatterly               |   "How'd you get hand lotion all the
(a blatant pseudonym.....)   |    way up there?"
Matthew@oread.cc.ukans.edu   |   "I told you I spilled it...."
					--_Young Lady Chatterly_
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: gleeson@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Martin Joseph GLEESON)
Subject: Re: REQUEST: Quote in Bride of Pin-Bot
Organization: Computer Science, University of Melbourne, Australia
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 01:32:03 GMT

In <CONSP03.92Apr6115156@bingsunn.cc.binghamton.edu> consp03@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu (Kriston J. Rehberg) writes:

>QUOTE: "Build me" or "Blow me"
>I'm not sure about this one.. which is why I'm posting this.  During
>attract mode, every 4 or 5 minutes the attract music comes on and she
>says something that sounds like "Blow me".  What is she saying there?
>The voice sampling rate on these machines is really pathetic.

Hmmmm. "Blow me"??? Me thinks not. Try "Play Me".....

I've heard the "sexism in pinball" debate, but if that one were true, well....

----------------------=============***O***=============-------------------------
Martin J. Gleeson   | Computer Science, Melbourne Uni, Oz |    ...  __o    Outta
gleeson@cs.mu.oz.au |        B I K E   I T   ! !          |  ...   -\<,       my
" We gladly feast on those who would subdue us." - Addams |  ....(_)/(_)..  way!
----------------------=============***O***=============-------------------------
From: ung (Bill Ung)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: TRANSPORTER
Date: 6 Apr 92 19:19:11 GMT
Reply-To: ung (Bill Ung)
Organization: FileNet Corp., Costa Mesa, CA
Return-Path: <darnold>
Apparently-To: felix!postnews

In article <4944@tekig7.PEN.TEK.COM> jerryc@tekig7.PEN.TEK.COM (Jerry C Carathers) writes:
|In article <1992Mar31.153340.27150@chinet.chi.il.us> koziarz@chinet.chi.il.us (Louis Koziarz) writes:
|||...  Has anyone had an advance preview of BLACK ROSE?  And when are
|||we getting color, dammit!  :-)
||
||
||As long as we're on the subject of the dot matrix displays, are these 
||macnufactured custom for Williams/Bally?  Most electronic catalogs I've
||read do not carry them. 
|
|Color is still a ways off. Tom Kahill told me that true pinball players
|would balk at a pinball resembling a video game that much. However, an
|Italian company called Mr. Game puts a color CRT in the headboard. Maybe
|the market will drive such a thing.

*sigh*, I'm still deciding whether or not I like the dot matrix displays
or not, much less COLOR displays.  TAF has a beautiful logo on the dot
matrix display, which would have been impossible with alpha-numerics.
On the other hand, HIGH SPEED II: THE GETAWAY has a lovely video mode,
that I'm not sure I like.  Going to a video mode seems to defeat the
purpose of playing pinball in the first place.  Sure, it's a nice way
to get points and maybe it's not so bad (maybe it's just because it
has the name HIGH SPEED on it that I'm worried)... but I'm just hoping
that this whole thing doesn't get out of hand.  Color displays WOULD
be nice, as long as they don't end up half-video/half-pinball.

|The current pinball dot-matrix display market is wholly owned by Cherry.
|They manufacture both DE's half-sized and Williams' full sized displays.
|There are no other alternate vendors that I know of. Interestingly, how
|many of you have already witnessed failures on these displays? An operator
|that I work for has a GI with the lowest row burned out and another
|operator I work for has a T2 with the left column out.

Perhaps these displays need time to mature?  Will ones made next year
be less likely to fail, or is this a more permanent problem?

|		        BURN RUBBER!!!

HS2: The Getaway ... I get it now.  :-)

Bill Ung
  ung@filenet.com
From: sbb@panix.com (Steve Baumgarten)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Re: HSII (was Re: Diner being "a classic Williams Pinball")
Date: 11 Apr 92 05:09:48 GMT
	<LFS.92Apr1140937@d62avalon.mitre.org>
	<1992Apr8.025747.9520@cs.columbia.edu>
	<1992Apr9.151157.1@oread.cc.ukans.edu>
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

In article <1992Apr9.151157.1@oread.cc.ukans.edu> matthew@oread.cc.ukans.edu writes:

	   By the way, didn't somebody say that they couldn't put two
   balls in the Supercharger without the machine going haywire?  Mine
   can--and it made getting to the Jackpot even quicker!  Is the 25M the
   standard Jackpot, or is there a way of raising it?  And how do you get
   that darn Helicopter Jackpot anyway?

If you time it right, you can get all three balls in the Supercharger;
however, if you send the ball up the ramp just as another is crossing
in front, they'll collide and likely both come flying back down to the
flippers. 

The elusive Helicopter jackpot -- arguably the worst documented major
feature in pinball history -- can be obtained after you get the
jackpot by sending the ball into the Supercharger (or possibly into
the "tunnel" saucer).  Something like that...  You definitely need to
get multiball first, and then I'm pretty sure it's not available until
after you get the jackpot.

(By the way, how do you all feel about doing something just because a
digitized voice tells you to do it?  "Shift Gears!" indeed.  Next
it'll be "Insert Quarter!" and we'll all be reaching for our change...)

;-)

--
    Steve Baumgarten       |  "New York... when civilization falls apart,
    PANIX, New York, NY    |   remember, we were way ahead of you."
                           |  
    Email: sbb@panix.com   |                            - David Letterman
From: d1jussi@dtek.chalmers.se (Oscar Abrahamsson)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
Subject: Hook, and other stuff
Date: 12 Apr 92 21:28:55 GMT
Organization: Chalmers University of Technology

I recently  played Hook at our local arcade, and it struck
me that on this game you didn't seem to be able to get free-plays.
In the other case the limit must have been awfully high. I saw guys score
at least 250 millions without getting any extra credit. Strange.
Does anyone know anything about it?


BTW, Hurricane arrived to the same arcade this week. The bastards 
had replaced T2 and Party Zone with 2 pieces of this lousy game.
What a disappointment it was to play. One of the worst pins I've ever
played. Williams should know better than this.

/Oscar
========================================================================
| Oscar Abrahamsson     Department of Computer Science and Engineering |
|                       Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg  |
| E-mail :              d1jussi@dtek.chalmers.se                       |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|   Feels like I'm knockin' on heavens door...  - Dylan                |
========================================================================
Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball
From: sbb@panix.com (Steve Baumgarten)
Subject: Re: Another TAF bug, or a feature?
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 05:38:36 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

In article <1992Apr16.015401.3779@u.washington.edu> phaedrus@milton.u.washington.edu (Phaedrus) writes:

   I've seen at least two different ROM versions, perhaps three.  (One
   version, the P- versions I believe, has animations for G-R-A-V-E
   and Tunnel Hunt, and some other different features; another
   version, the L- versions I believe (I may have these backwards),
   does not.  One of these days I'll have to ask what the P and L
   stand for...

The "P" stands for "prototype"; the "L" stands for "release version",
or something similar that (presumably) starts with an "L".

The number after the letter tells you what revision the ROM is.  So
"L-4" means that the game has the fourth released version of the ROM.

Williams usually adds more animation to the "L" ROMs -- I guess their
programmers have some free time on their hands after a release and
before the bug reports start rolling in...  :-) :-)

The new animiation on PARTY ZONE was quite noticeable in several
places; I assume that the "GRAVE" animation was also added after the
inital prototype games had already gone out the door.

--
    Steve Baumgarten       |  "New York... when civilization falls apart,
    PANIX, New York, NY    |   remember, we were way ahead of you."
                           |  
    Email: sbb@panix.com   |                            - David Letterman