[HN Gopher] Pacific Pinball Museum
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Pacific Pinball Museum
Author : CalChris
Score : 119 points
Date : 2023-03-20 05:15 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pacificpinball.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pacificpinball.org)
| sys32768 wrote:
| I believe PinBallz in Texas has ~80 pinball machines at their
| main location. I was there a few years ago and the place is
| massive with a friendly vibe:
|
| https://pinballz.com/original/original-classic-games/
| jnovek wrote:
| I was a regular at Pinballz for 5 or 6 years. I love it and
| it's one of the number one things I miss from Austin. They
| maintain a great selection of games and they route a lot of
| games around town as well. Pins at Pinballz get a lot of play
| and can be in rough shape or out of service at times.
| buzzert wrote:
| The best part about Pinballz is that it's _just an arcade_. Not
| mixed with a bar, venue, or borderline gambling. Really great
| place!
| icelancer wrote:
| For those hoping that Pacific = Pacific Northwest, fear not,
| there's one here too!
|
| https://www.seattlepinballmuseum.com/
| kstrauser wrote:
| In this post: Alameda represents.
| EricE wrote:
| We need more arcade museums! If you are in Vegas, there is the
| Pinball Hall of Fame: http://www.pinballmuseum.org
| flounder3 wrote:
| This place is amazing for hosting events. They have a side room
| that's perfect for a birthday party.
| system16 wrote:
| I'm glad this exists but at $22 admission I don't think you're
| going to attract anyone but hardcore pinball lovers and maybe the
| odd person trying it out as a novelty once and then never
| returning. Pinball for most people is not an all day activity so
| an hourly rate seems like it would be a better fit.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| They have a two for Tuesday special. I have gone a bunch of
| times, I took a friend and we played for 5 hours. Much cheaper
| than feeding quarters, and a LOT better variety. Yes, they
| could do both half days, and an hourly rate...
|
| But its a Museum, and there is a bunch of overhead.
| giaour wrote:
| Yeah, I used to live a couple blocks from the museum and only
| went there once. The admission's a bit steep if you only want
| to play a couple of games and then leave.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Hey, I still live a couple blocks from there! Hi, ex-
| neighbor.
|
| We took a group of Cub Scouts there one night and turns out a
| bunch of skeptical little kids can become instant fans.
| callalex wrote:
| 1) They have a row of coin-op machines by the front door if you
| just want to swing by for a quick round or two. 2) That is how
| much an activity costs in Alameda. A game of bowling for two or
| a round of mini golf for two costs the same at nearby
| facilities. 3) Before I visited I thought it would only be
| interesting f for like an hour. I ended up staying for hours of
| entertainment and learning.
| TylerE wrote:
| Silverball in Asbury park is $25/day and always packed out. If
| you play for even an hour or two you'll be well ahead of where
| you'd be paying a buck or game or whatever pinball in the wild
| goes for these days.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| I went there maybe ten years ago and it was pretty full of
| people, not jam-packed but enough that you had to maneuver
| around them. (Only went there once because when we lived in the
| Bay Area it was an hour-plus drive)
| mikepavone wrote:
| I've been there recently and can confirm it still draws a
| healthy crowd.
| mrbrownt wrote:
| Playing for an hour at an arcade can easily drain a roll of
| quarters. $22 for a day is a pretty reasonable deal imo.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| There is also Next Level Pinball Museum >
| https://www.nextlevelpinballmuseum.com/ in Hillsboro, OR (30m
| outside Portland) and it boasts "One of the World's Largest
| Arcades with over 475+ pinball and arcade games on free play!".
| itake wrote:
| Are there any open source pinball machines?
|
| I have the Indiana Jones Pinball adventure and there are a few
| minor game design decisions that need modifying (partially due to
| the physical condition of my machine).
| relwin wrote:
| a) Convert your game to run the P-ROC system:
| https://pinballmakers.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
|
| Then run this code (or modify it per your needs):
| https://github.com/mypinballs/indianajones
|
| b) or repair your game.
| itake wrote:
| There are software-only bugs (game design decisions?) that
| I'd like to modify.
|
| I found that source code, but they also have made
| modifications from the original and don't include the
| original assets. I emailed the creator asking for what
| hardware they are running for this.
| jydftshdrga wrote:
| both the poster above you and the repo tell you what it
| runs on -- a p-roc controller (which hooks up to a pc)
|
| if you want to modify the original game, you're going to
| need to get into 6809E disassembly and manual rom hacking.
| itake wrote:
| Ah, I missed that.
|
| > into 6809E disassembly and manual rom hacking
|
| darn. I was hoping someone had a c/cpp code dump
| somewhere :-/. the repo doesn't have assets.
| mulmen wrote:
| Just fix the game. This title specifically is too valuable to
| modify just because of poor condition.
| toast0 wrote:
| OP wants to change the software. That's probably easier if
| you do it with a different CPU board intended for you to
| mess with things, than with the original board.
| mulmen wrote:
| I'm not so sure. There are lots of modded roms for older
| machines, typically to make them suitable for
| competition. Converting the boards to a new system is
| major surgery. It might be easier to write the software
| for a newer system but I'm not sure you save effort
| overall.
| djbusby wrote:
| Back in the 90s this space was the best record store in Alameda.
| starkparker wrote:
| Record Gallery kept going into the late 2010s; it moved across
| the street to 1451 Webster in 2008, though it had declined
| pretty steeply toward the end, and I think didn't make it out
| of the pandemic fully intact. 1451's now a vintage boutique (I
| think) with a few records left in it.
|
| They started auctioning a bunch of stuff from the old store in
| December, including wall art and promo posters:
| https://www.facebook.com/RecordGallery/,
| https://www.ebay.com/str/alamedamusiccompany
| starkparker wrote:
| There are a bunch of murals related to PPM:
| https://danfontesmurals.com/pacific-pinball-murals
| duxup wrote:
| As a web dev I am as excited at the idea of going there as I am
| by their website. What a fun website, it's just a happy site. The
| site just looks fun.
| callalex wrote:
| My partner who works in UI/UX was really fascinated by this
| place because it offers a neat timeline view of how people have
| interacted with machines through the decades.
| chriscjcj wrote:
| I've been here numerous times. There's a lot to like. When you
| walk to the left side, there are some very old machines going
| back to the very beginning of pinball. They're interesting from a
| historical perspective, but not so entertaining to play. Still,
| it's neat to see how the art evolved and the fact that you CAN
| play the really old machines is really cool.
|
| I do have a few complaints about the place.
|
| 1. The place is loud. And I guess that's not really their fault.
| If you get a bunch of machines that make noise all in the same
| room together, it's just going to be loud. However, one of the
| most wonderful things about these machines was the strange,
| unique, and beautiful noises they made. I was excited to find a
| couple of my favorites, but just couldn't hear them over the din
| of all the other machines. :-( It would be amazing if they could
| install a headphone jack on at least the digital machines so that
| if you wanted to play and really listen to the sounds, you could
| bring a pair of cans and immerse yourself. At the very least,
| they should disable attract mode on everything so that it only
| makes noise if someone's actually playing it. That might help a
| bit. 2. Weak coils. It's so frustrating to play a pinball machine
| knowing that you should be able to maneuver the ball to certain
| places but can't because the coil that's actuating the flipper is
| just shot. Williams' Black Knight was one of my favorites back in
| the early 80's and they have it. But once the ball falls to the
| lower field, it's pert-near impossible to get it back up there
| because the coil has just lost its oomph. 3. They purportedly
| have many more machines in storage and will swap certain ones out
| periodically, but I haven't seen that all the times I've gone
| over the last few years. It seems to be the same selection. I'm
| always hoping to see Xenon when I go, but I never do. When I ask
| about it, they tell me they have one in storage and that it may
| show up soon when they rotate machines, but it always seems like
| the same ones every time.
|
| Anyway... I don't want it to seem like I'm bad-mouthing the
| place. It's great and a lot of fun. I would go more often if they
| could fix the annoyances. That's all.
| uranium wrote:
| Have you spoken to Michael about the coils on Black Knight? I
| took a pinball repair class from him once at the Crucible [it
| was awesome--highly recommended if it's ever offered again!]
| and he specifically covered how to juice up flipper solenoids.
| He cares a lot about play experience, but I'm sure he's also
| pretty busy with that many machines to maintain.
| crtified wrote:
| Good work, Thing! You're really on the ball...
| gxqoz wrote:
| Relatedly, there's a new drama out about the history of pinball:
| https://pinballfilm.com/
|
| It's good!
| sheepybloke wrote:
| The coin operated machine museum on Fisherman's Warf is also
| quite cool! They also have free admission, but you can play all
| of the games.
| jer0me wrote:
| Le Musee Mecanique
| snide wrote:
| If you're nearby, I highly recommend going to California Extreme
| at least once in your life. There's a great collection of old
| Pinball and Arcade games you can play for a nominal weekend
| charge. It's always filled with knowledgeable folks that are
| excited to see their games in play. You'll find a larger
| selection from a variety of local hobbyists.
|
| Sadly, I've since moved from the area, but always think back on
| some great times there.
|
| https://caextreme.org/
| adrianparsons wrote:
| Further afield, but may I also recommend the Pinball Hall of
| Fame in Las Vegas and the smaller but also great Silverball
| Museum in Asbury Park, NJ.
|
| http://www.pinballmuseum.org/
|
| https://www.silverballmuseum.com/asbury-park/
| vgeek wrote:
| https://www.pinballmap.com/
|
| As already mentioned, The Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas is
| probably the most well known collection on a national level.
| Pittsburgh has two good collections-- Pinball PA, with various
| solid states up to modern machines, and Pinball Perfection, with
| more old (wood rail) tables and rarer tables like Banzai Run and
| the often-broken Circus Voltaire.
|
| There is a growing number of public collections of modern
| Stern/Jersey Jack/CGC/American/etc. typically in barcade or
| enthusiast collections made public environments-- like The
| Pinball Garage outside of Cincinnati (the owner builds/built vpin
| cabinets), The Pinball Museum of Corbin in rural KY (50 or so
| modern tables, mostly Stern) or The Asheville Pinball Museum.
| They will all vary in quantity and quality (both in games and
| maintenance)-- so use Pinball Map and see where your favorites
| (or rare tables) are actually at.
|
| Visual Pinball X and Zen Pinball are probably the two most
| prominent emulators.
|
| If anyone likes other coin operated esoterica, Marvin's Marvelous
| Mechanical Museum outside of Detroit is worth a visit. Lots of
| 19th-early 20th century _rare_ mechanical attractions and maybe
| 10 new pinballs.
| jnovek wrote:
| I had a Visual Pinball cab in my living room for a few years
| and I would tweak the emulated machines to get close to
| gameplay on real games that I could play nearby. I could get it
| pretty close -- certainly enough to learn the ruleset and flow
| of a game. After a certain point every copy of a particular
| table plays differently and V-pins were sort of another
| variation of a table that you could find in the wild.
|
| The big thing that was missing (at the time) was good nudge
| support. I did have an accelerometer in my cabinet but nudging
| never felt very realistic.
| TylerE wrote:
| No mention of maybe the best of all of them, Silverball in
| Asbury Park? They own over 600 machines, of which they'll have
| a few hundred on the floor at any given time. Games run the
| gamut from the latest licensed stuff to purely mechanical games
| from the 50s.
| mhink wrote:
| > As already mentioned, The Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas
| is probably the most well known collection on a national level.
|
| I've heard that a lot of their games have various maintenance
| issues, is this true? On the other hand, I've wanted to get
| over there and play the only remaining copy of The Pinball
| Circus!
| popctrl wrote:
| I went there around 8 years ago at their old location, then
| last year at their new location. Many more machines were
| disabled last year. I get the impression that the guy running
| it is very old and maybe is unable to keep up on maintenance.
|
| It's a shame, the place has many old games beyond pinball and
| is truly a museum of gaming. If you get the chance, support
| them. I hope someone takes up the torch.
| vgeek wrote:
| Any routed machine will require maintenance, but I believe
| they have 2 or 3 part time techs based on what I have seen in
| my few visits. I don't recall experiencing any blatantly
| broken machines, but there were a number with weak flippers
| and worn/unwaxed playfields. Maybe <5 machines unplugged each
| visit?
| ryantgtg wrote:
| Since people are posting about big locations here. I help
| maintain Pinball Map. Here's a query of locations in the US,
| sorted by number of machines. Limited to places with 60+. Not
| sure how well this will be formatted...
|
| name | city | state | country | count
|
| -----+------+-------+---------+-------
|
| Pinball Hall of Fame | Las Vegas | NV | US | 337
|
| Pinball Perfection | Westview | PA | US | 311
|
| Next Level Pinball Museum | Hillsboro | OR | US | 242
|
| Pinball PA | Aliquippa | PA | US | 176
|
| Game Galaxy | Smyrna | TN | US | 169
|
| Wizard's World | Fort Wayne | IN | US | 144
|
| District 82 Pinball | De Pere | WI | US | 114
|
| Pacific Pinball Museum | Alameda | CA | US | 106
|
| Game Terminal | Nashville | TN | US | 105
|
| Silverball Retro Arcade | Asbury Park | NJ | US | 100
|
| ElectroMagnetic Pinball Museum | Pawtucket | RI | US | 96
|
| The Pinball Palace | Brunswick | GA | US | 92
|
| Pocketeer Billiards and Bar | Buffalo | NY | US | 85
|
| Pinballz Arcade | Austin | TX | US | 83
|
| Recbar 812 | New Albany | IN | US | 80
|
| Pinball Gallery | Malvern | PA | US | 79
|
| Grumpy's Arcade | Glendale | AZ | US | 77
|
| Silverball Retro Arcade | Delray Beach | FL | US | 75
|
| CP Pinball | South Roxana | IL | US | 74
|
| Idaho Pinball Museum | Garden City | ID | US | 73
|
| Pinball Long Island | Patchogue | NY | US | 73
|
| Recbar | Louisville | KY | US | 71
|
| Clubhouse Arcade | Fremont | MI | US | 68
|
| Crazy Quarters Arcade | Bay City | MI | US | 67
|
| Lucky Snake Arcade & Sports Bar | Atlantic City | NJ | US | 67
|
| Flippers Arcade | Grandy | NC | US | 67
|
| Western Mass Pinball Club | Palmer | MA | US | 65
|
| Roanoke Pinball Museum | Roanoke | VA | US | 65
|
| Replay Museum | Tarpon Springs | FL | US | 65
|
| Captain's Arcade Showroom | Anaheim | CA | US | 65
|
| Pastime Pinball | Manchester Center | VT | US | 64
|
| The Pinball Palace (Dezerland Park) | Orlando | FL | US | 60
| anecdotal1 wrote:
| Galloping Ghost in Chicago has about 45 pins, but 800+ arcade
| games
| busterarm wrote:
| I wanted to add Modern Pinball, in NYC to the list, but sadly
| they closed due to COVID. While it was a small shop, they
| rotated machines frequently and had a number of historic
| machines available for play.
|
| Also the legendary Steve Epstein was involved in the business.
| Steve ran Broadway Arcade, which at its height in the 80s had
| over 144 pins. It was my local arcade growing up and sat where
| the Times Square Church and McDonalds on 51st st now occupy
| today.
|
| Palace Playland in Old Orchard Beach, Maine used to be a great
| location for pinball as well but has long since gone the Family
| Fun Center route instead. I think most of what they had moved
| to Maine Silverball Tavern in Saco.
|
| I also hit the PHoF in Vegas every time I go. Great collection.
| quartz wrote:
| I'm so sad about modern pinball closing. It was such a gem.
| pipnonsense wrote:
| I am going to the PHoF in Vegas this weekend and hopefully
| you (or anyone who is reading) can help me with some doubts I
| have. Do I need to bring cash, so I can change into coins
| there to play? Would they accept international credit cards
| to buy coins? (I am not from the US)
| busterarm wrote:
| Bring cash. ATMs are everywhere in Vegas though (but I
| don't think inside the PHoF), because gambling.
| beaugunderson wrote:
| Seattle has the Seattle Pinball Museum as well, with ~50
| machines: https://www.seattlepinballmuseum.com/
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| It didn't inlcude this one in Roanoke Virginia that a colleague
| runs: https://roanokepinball.org/
| ravenstine wrote:
| Oh dude, looks like they have Indiana Jones Pinball Adventure!
| _This_ is _the_ pinball machine! I 've wanted to play it again
| for a long time. It had really crisp sound effects for its time,
| the plunger is a pistol grip you pull the trigger on (with
| gunshot sound effect!), and intermission games where you punch
| people. Pretty friggin' awesome. I'm so glad someone still has
| one running, and I think I'll be visiting this place rather soon.
| mhink wrote:
| One of my local spots has it! One feature I think is especially
| cool is there's a small upper playfield which, when you manage
| to get the ball up there, has you controlling the tilt with the
| flipper buttons. Getting to the end without dropping the ball
| through various holes scores a bonus. I thought it was really
| inventive- although there are several games with similarly
| inventive features, it's always cool to see a new idea.
| mulmen wrote:
| In the Streets of Cairo mode you fight a man with a sword. You
| can just pull the trigger on the plunger to win the fight.
|
| These are somewhat rare but they are definitely still on route.
| Check pinball map to find one near you.
| Nition wrote:
| There's a working one at Musee Mecanique in San Francisco.
| itake wrote:
| My parents have one in their house, and it's going to be a huge
| problem when they die and my brother and I have to fight over
| who gets to keep it.
| [deleted]
| CharlesW wrote:
| It's not the same experience (although it might be close on a
| virtual pinball cabinet), but:
| https://zenstudios.com/games/indiana-jones-the-pinball-adven...
| Bud wrote:
| I lived a few blocks from here for years. So I can vouch. The
| museum is amazing. It's a time capsule.
| colanderman wrote:
| What serendipity; my wife and I are visiting the area and looking
| for things to do, and recently developed an interest in pinball
| (via AtGames virtual pinball). Thank you for posting!
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(page generated 2023-03-20 23:02 UTC)