Yes, I do recall those signs warning people that the pinball machines were not to be used for gambling. And, I also recall the bartender paying out people discretely. Or not so discretely in some cases. I do not recall the need to flood the machines with coins, however. Truth be told I was not allowed to play those kind of games, but I did have access to the shuffle boards which seems rather innocuous.
Well, I don't know which situation would be more stressful; having upper management screaming at you about millions of dollars they are losing or having a dozen bratty kids yelling to get their game working again. Now that I think about it, the tactics used by both groups were identical. LOL
Not A Windows Server
Re: Not A Windows Server
My dad used to go up to the Village Bar owned by Wimp Schinzing, who's brother owned the grocery store next door.
He rarely missed going on a Wednesday evening after work, and before they got busy.
About once a month he would take me with him, and I would play with the Schinzing boys, out back or in the store rooms if it was raining.
Dad would go through several rolls of nickels before shooting a ball, and probably another roll between each shot, hi hi.
Interestingly enough, I do know that he was well ahead on his gambling, which is not usually the case.
It wasn't until later years when I was working on the machines that I understood how he managed to win more than lose.
He knew just how to manipulate the odds screens so they were in his favor. But then too, math was one of dad's high points.
Plus, probably from playing for so many years, he knew instinctively how the balls rolled on that particular game too.
Oh, I've had my share of upper management hounding me to get something done NOW, after others had already messed it up, and the deadline was looming, hi hi.
With all the draftsmen they had at MRTC, I was the one they selected to go out to a repair on the pipeline to draw up the repair plans right there on site. I guess it could be because I got it right the first time, and using the least amount of labor and materials. X-Ray Welders are very expensive, so you don't want to have something not fit right and they have to do it over.
He rarely missed going on a Wednesday evening after work, and before they got busy.
About once a month he would take me with him, and I would play with the Schinzing boys, out back or in the store rooms if it was raining.
Dad would go through several rolls of nickels before shooting a ball, and probably another roll between each shot, hi hi.
Interestingly enough, I do know that he was well ahead on his gambling, which is not usually the case.
It wasn't until later years when I was working on the machines that I understood how he managed to win more than lose.
He knew just how to manipulate the odds screens so they were in his favor. But then too, math was one of dad's high points.
Plus, probably from playing for so many years, he knew instinctively how the balls rolled on that particular game too.
Oh, I've had my share of upper management hounding me to get something done NOW, after others had already messed it up, and the deadline was looming, hi hi.
With all the draftsmen they had at MRTC, I was the one they selected to go out to a repair on the pipeline to draw up the repair plans right there on site. I guess it could be because I got it right the first time, and using the least amount of labor and materials. X-Ray Welders are very expensive, so you don't want to have something not fit right and they have to do it over.
Re: Not A Windows Server
If I were to make a guess I'd say those old time pinball machines relied on a gaussian distribution (Normal Curve) to determine the most likely place for the balls to fall. I am also certain some consideration was given to the placement of the pins, which probably had a few standard patterns predetermined by some math guru. Thus the least likely spots for the balls to land were well known by the people who made the machines, or by anybody who put enough nickles in the slot to determine the pattern by observation. Your dad probably had that latter part down pat.
I know nothing of x-ray welding but I do have a fair idea why you would be the guy sent out to do the job right the first time. It's truly am honor to have that kind of reputation.
I know nothing of x-ray welding but I do have a fair idea why you would be the guy sent out to do the job right the first time. It's truly am honor to have that kind of reputation.
Re: Not A Windows Server
I only know how a few of them worked.
On the back panel when a ball fell into a hole, it would light up a light on a grid.
Then in front of this were panels you could move around by pushing up and down and left and right buttons, until the grid you selected would be over the grid with the lights.
Also, since lights burned out quite often, each hole had three lights in it, the main light, and two wired in series so were dimmer, but enough for you to know which hole was lit up, until the main bulb could be replaced.
It seems the two lamps in series never ever burned out for the lifetime of the machine, hi hi.
Sorta like the address lights on my Gold Medallion Home, they were dim and wired in series also.
Welding a gas pipe line takes many layers of beads around the pipe. And after each bead is placed, the pipe is X-Rayed about 6 times around the circumference, looking for any tiny gap in the weld, where slag may have prevented it from being solid.
When they found one, that area was ground out, rewelded, and X-Rayed again. If it passed, the welder started on the next bead.
In the years since then, newer welding methods that didn't produce slag, all controlled by computer, with a continual arc spinning around the pipe, has made the process faster. But they still have to X-Ray the pipe after each pass, except now they can do the side by side passes between X-Rays.
Think of where the pipes join as being like the Letter V, and the weld beads placed like bowling pins. First 1 bead, then 2 beads, then 3, etc. up until the weld has filled the thickness of the pipe, then one more set that gets ground down so the pipe is smooth. And once that is done, the area is coated with several coats of a 3M brand coating, which goes on hot and is baked as well.
One thing that surprised me big time, not about the natural gas pipes we had, which were all buried lower then the frost line, was when you see Oil Pipelines installed above the ground, where temperature can make them expand and contract quite a bit, just like railroad tracks do and some even buckle causing train wrecks.
On the back panel when a ball fell into a hole, it would light up a light on a grid.
Then in front of this were panels you could move around by pushing up and down and left and right buttons, until the grid you selected would be over the grid with the lights.
Also, since lights burned out quite often, each hole had three lights in it, the main light, and two wired in series so were dimmer, but enough for you to know which hole was lit up, until the main bulb could be replaced.
It seems the two lamps in series never ever burned out for the lifetime of the machine, hi hi.
Sorta like the address lights on my Gold Medallion Home, they were dim and wired in series also.
Welding a gas pipe line takes many layers of beads around the pipe. And after each bead is placed, the pipe is X-Rayed about 6 times around the circumference, looking for any tiny gap in the weld, where slag may have prevented it from being solid.
When they found one, that area was ground out, rewelded, and X-Rayed again. If it passed, the welder started on the next bead.
In the years since then, newer welding methods that didn't produce slag, all controlled by computer, with a continual arc spinning around the pipe, has made the process faster. But they still have to X-Ray the pipe after each pass, except now they can do the side by side passes between X-Rays.
Think of where the pipes join as being like the Letter V, and the weld beads placed like bowling pins. First 1 bead, then 2 beads, then 3, etc. up until the weld has filled the thickness of the pipe, then one more set that gets ground down so the pipe is smooth. And once that is done, the area is coated with several coats of a 3M brand coating, which goes on hot and is baked as well.
One thing that surprised me big time, not about the natural gas pipes we had, which were all buried lower then the frost line, was when you see Oil Pipelines installed above the ground, where temperature can make them expand and contract quite a bit, just like railroad tracks do and some even buckle causing train wrecks.
Re: Not A Windows Server
I only have a vague idea of how to weld a gas pipe. I do realize that it must be perfectly sealed and that a lot of effort is put into the process. X-rays have to be pretty good in order to determine the kind of flaws you are talking about. It's all very amazing.
I recall way back when the Alaskan Pipe Line was first built. I believe all or most of it is in fact above ground, which was a big complaint from those concerned about potential environmental damage. Well, there was a leak one day and it turned out to be massive. I don't suppose they can lay pipes into the permafrost which is why they did it above ground. I haven't heard much about it since that one time. All I can say is that there are some very brilliant engineers out there solving some very interesting problems.
The lighting on those pinball machines can't be what you describe it as being. Anything wired in series will disable the entire line if any one of the devices go out. That used to be a huge problem for Christmas tree lights. When one bulb burned out you had to replace them all one at a time until you discovered the bad one. Eventually they figured out how to wire them in parallel, which means only the bad bulb goes out now and the rest stay shining. Also, those dimmed bulbs would naturally last a lot longer than the fully illuminated ones. The temperature of the filament is a lot lower when the bulb is dimmed and thus less opportunity to blow out.
I recall way back when the Alaskan Pipe Line was first built. I believe all or most of it is in fact above ground, which was a big complaint from those concerned about potential environmental damage. Well, there was a leak one day and it turned out to be massive. I don't suppose they can lay pipes into the permafrost which is why they did it above ground. I haven't heard much about it since that one time. All I can say is that there are some very brilliant engineers out there solving some very interesting problems.
The lighting on those pinball machines can't be what you describe it as being. Anything wired in series will disable the entire line if any one of the devices go out. That used to be a huge problem for Christmas tree lights. When one bulb burned out you had to replace them all one at a time until you discovered the bad one. Eventually they figured out how to wire them in parallel, which means only the bad bulb goes out now and the rest stay shining. Also, those dimmed bulbs would naturally last a lot longer than the fully illuminated ones. The temperature of the filament is a lot lower when the bulb is dimmed and thus less opportunity to blow out.
Re: Not A Windows Server
I don't know much about other pipelines, but do know the supports on the pipelines in permanently frozen areas, have a special pipe that is used for mounting the pipe too, that manages to stay frozen half way down and to the bottom of the pipe. This is because the top side is hot from the oil or fuel passing through it.
I often though about this and wondered why they didn't make pipes like that to use in a home. A whole wall of short foot long pipes passing through one wall of the house. If one end of the pipe gets hot, the other end would get cold, and vice versa. So in the winter, the pipe would be hot on the inside, cold on the outside, in summer the pipe would be hot on the outside and cold on the inside. But maybe they didn't work at normal temperatures, and or were very expensive to make, hi hi.
The natural gas pipes had many fail-safe mechanisms. Some of the early safety devices were simply mechanical, sorta like a foot valve in a way. The equal pressure in the pipe kept the valve open so the gas could flow. But if there was an unexpected drop in pressure, the valve would slam shut stopping the flow of gas.
And although I shouldn't say this. That sudden stop of flowing gas could actually cause the good pipe feeding it to burst also. But it was rare for that to happen, and if it did, then the next valve would snap shut. But the the over-pressure sensors would shut down the pumping station.
The company I worked for was proud of the fact they only had one or two minor leaks they didn't catch right away. They only had one major leak in the 5 years I worked for them, but the safety devices shut the pipe down almost instantly.
It's the minor leaks that are the biggest nuisance to the company. They are very hard to find. And since the pipes are underground, they have to do a lot of digging in search of the actual leak. Many times it cannot be spotted using a Pig inside the gas line itself. So the only thing they have to go by is looking for patches of dead grass from an airplane that flies back and forth along the pipeline every day. A small leak doesn't cause a noticeable pressure drop.
Now they have sensors all along the pipeline to find leaks before they are enough to register above ground.
The twin lamps in series were fed from the parallel feed, and yes, if one did go out, both would go out, but I never saw that happen. In fact, I never ever found a paired lamp that was burned out, and some of those machines were decades old too.
The same contact switch that turned on the main bulb, also turned on the two that were in series, and most of the contact switches were actually two switches also, just to make sure at least one of them made contact.
One of the things we did every time one of these old machines were in the shop, was to burnish every single contact in the machine, and of course test every switch that both sets of contacts were closing.
More often than not, the problems with these super old pinballs was the fiber gears would get a dead spot, a broken tooth, so the drive motor wouldn't spin the large gear. As a precaution against this, during the fiber gear era, a small belt was also used on the gear so if a cog did get worn or broken off, the belt would be enough to get it to skip past the broken tooth.
Unfortunately those belts didn't last very long. They were just like a piece of thin bias tape coated in rubber, so would deteriorate within about 3 years. Eventually we replaced them with neoprene bands which lasted like forever, hi hi.
Miniature Christmas Tree lights are wired in series, but they don't burn out because there is a resistor in each lamp to keep the juice flowing. Only a broken wire on the bulb will cause them not to light up. The bulb itself is not lit, but the current goes through the resistor. The big problem with these miniature light strings is that they all use different voltage lamps.
The total of the individual lamp voltages has to equal the voltage applied, normally 110 to 120 volts AC.
And even more confusing. If you have some lamps that don't have the resistor in them, you have to use a lamp of twice higher voltage for it to burn at the same brightness.
Or put this way, if a lamp is rated at 3 volts, this filament itself is rated only at 1-1/2 volts, and the resistor at 1-1/2 volts.
Yeah I know, it is all done using Watts. But Christmas lights only tell you the voltage on the package, hi hi.
I often though about this and wondered why they didn't make pipes like that to use in a home. A whole wall of short foot long pipes passing through one wall of the house. If one end of the pipe gets hot, the other end would get cold, and vice versa. So in the winter, the pipe would be hot on the inside, cold on the outside, in summer the pipe would be hot on the outside and cold on the inside. But maybe they didn't work at normal temperatures, and or were very expensive to make, hi hi.
The natural gas pipes had many fail-safe mechanisms. Some of the early safety devices were simply mechanical, sorta like a foot valve in a way. The equal pressure in the pipe kept the valve open so the gas could flow. But if there was an unexpected drop in pressure, the valve would slam shut stopping the flow of gas.
And although I shouldn't say this. That sudden stop of flowing gas could actually cause the good pipe feeding it to burst also. But it was rare for that to happen, and if it did, then the next valve would snap shut. But the the over-pressure sensors would shut down the pumping station.
The company I worked for was proud of the fact they only had one or two minor leaks they didn't catch right away. They only had one major leak in the 5 years I worked for them, but the safety devices shut the pipe down almost instantly.
It's the minor leaks that are the biggest nuisance to the company. They are very hard to find. And since the pipes are underground, they have to do a lot of digging in search of the actual leak. Many times it cannot be spotted using a Pig inside the gas line itself. So the only thing they have to go by is looking for patches of dead grass from an airplane that flies back and forth along the pipeline every day. A small leak doesn't cause a noticeable pressure drop.
Now they have sensors all along the pipeline to find leaks before they are enough to register above ground.
The twin lamps in series were fed from the parallel feed, and yes, if one did go out, both would go out, but I never saw that happen. In fact, I never ever found a paired lamp that was burned out, and some of those machines were decades old too.
The same contact switch that turned on the main bulb, also turned on the two that were in series, and most of the contact switches were actually two switches also, just to make sure at least one of them made contact.
One of the things we did every time one of these old machines were in the shop, was to burnish every single contact in the machine, and of course test every switch that both sets of contacts were closing.
More often than not, the problems with these super old pinballs was the fiber gears would get a dead spot, a broken tooth, so the drive motor wouldn't spin the large gear. As a precaution against this, during the fiber gear era, a small belt was also used on the gear so if a cog did get worn or broken off, the belt would be enough to get it to skip past the broken tooth.
Unfortunately those belts didn't last very long. They were just like a piece of thin bias tape coated in rubber, so would deteriorate within about 3 years. Eventually we replaced them with neoprene bands which lasted like forever, hi hi.
Miniature Christmas Tree lights are wired in series, but they don't burn out because there is a resistor in each lamp to keep the juice flowing. Only a broken wire on the bulb will cause them not to light up. The bulb itself is not lit, but the current goes through the resistor. The big problem with these miniature light strings is that they all use different voltage lamps.
The total of the individual lamp voltages has to equal the voltage applied, normally 110 to 120 volts AC.
And even more confusing. If you have some lamps that don't have the resistor in them, you have to use a lamp of twice higher voltage for it to burn at the same brightness.
Or put this way, if a lamp is rated at 3 volts, this filament itself is rated only at 1-1/2 volts, and the resistor at 1-1/2 volts.
Yeah I know, it is all done using Watts. But Christmas lights only tell you the voltage on the package, hi hi.
Re: Not A Windows Server
Your understanding of the gas pipe lines is well advanced beyond mine. The oil keeps flowing through Alaska in spite of the cold weather and that is all that really matters to me. LOL
You are correct about the string of Christmas tree lights having a parallel conductor to keep the circuit complete when a bulb burns out. The whole string adds up to the supply voltage so that the supply voltage divided by the number of bulbs tells you what voltage each individual bulb will see. If there are different bulbs with different voltages, that means the number of lights in the strong is not the same.
I too spent many hours using burnishing tools on relay contacts, but then they changed the relays to reed types. No more burnishing was required.
You are correct about the string of Christmas tree lights having a parallel conductor to keep the circuit complete when a bulb burns out. The whole string adds up to the supply voltage so that the supply voltage divided by the number of bulbs tells you what voltage each individual bulb will see. If there are different bulbs with different voltages, that means the number of lights in the strong is not the same.
I too spent many hours using burnishing tools on relay contacts, but then they changed the relays to reed types. No more burnishing was required.
Re: Not A Windows Server
Almost everything in modern pinball machines, either used Cherry Switches or Infrared Switches. The only time the latter ones stop working is if they get something in them opaque, or the lamp or receiver burns out.
But when you get a bunch of kids in an arcade. You know they are going to try and break the machines, on purpose, hi hi.
But when you get a bunch of kids in an arcade. You know they are going to try and break the machines, on purpose, hi hi.