Pinball tables have been around for a long time now, most might remember them from Arcades where one could spend time with friends and trying to beat eachothers highscores. The first tables, dating all the way back to 1850 where not coin operated or electricly powered and didnt have flippers like we see them today.
With the time of electromechanical chimes, bells, lights and buzzers in the mid/late 1930’s, the popularity of pinball machine grew dramatically.
Humpty Dumpty from 1947 was the fist table to have flippers, this was considered the golden age of pinball. From then on the tables expanded with ramps, multiballs and leds displays.
The pinballs are not so popular today as the golden age, Stern is the only company still producing tables and has become more of a rare sight to see a pinball but its however possible to play these tables on PC, even ones from 1930’s.
Irina Pinball is a pinball game created with Visual Pinball which tries to capture the charm of the older tables but also blending the modern features we know today, like extraballs, multiballs and highscores. The table has theme of a Russian skaterI and most the music in game is classical music.
The goal is to beat the highscore by winning an Olympic gold medal, scoring a perfect 6.0!
The same website also has a large collection of Ice Skating videos available to download for those who may be searching.
Another part of the Arcades has always been the classic video games. I’m sure many of you remember titles like Pacman, Super Sprint and Outrun.
These games are also playable on PCs by using the MAME emulator, over 3000 roms to this date are emulated. There is a growing community who build MAME Cabinets, looking close to the Original Arcade machines. This is one example of a MAME Arcade Cabinet.