Saturday, December 23, 2023

映像が語る パチンコの歴史 (The history of pachinko through video) [with English subtitles]

I am very happy to present another pachinko documentary! 

  

映像が語る パチンコの歴史 (The history of pachinko through video) [with English subtitles] from Caitlyn Pascal on Vimeo.

This video is also available with JUST the annotations, done in Japanese.


I purchased 2 pachinko documentaries on VHS tape from Japan.  I had originally planned to prepare both to release at the same time, but life got very busy.  While I was working on them, I acquired a 1992 pachino documentary that featured my friend Nic Costas, and that redirected my attention for a while.  1992-01 TVムック故郷は欧州 意外なパチンコ進化論 / TV Mook Mystery Journey: Surprising theory of pachinko evolution

I would like to apologize for the delay in releasing this video.  I will begin working on the 2nd video in 2024, probably in February.



It was a long process to make this happen, and involved the help of many people across the globe.  First, there was the seller who had saved these tapes.  Then they went to Jason Scott of the Internet Archive, who does the long and hard work of digitizing analogue media.

Jason Scott on his livestream, with the pachinko tapes visible in the background.

The automated transcript was then edited by 佐藤 裕治 (Yuji Sato) of GPS.  He did wonderful work, but unfortunately this is when I was distracted by the 1992 video project.  Many apologies, and thank you!

Pachinko historian Kazuo Sugiyama provided annotations to correct the factual errors.

I used translation software to give an initial translation of the transcript.  This required massive editing of course, and thank you to Ladios of Gaming Alexandria for assisting this project.


The National Diet Library has an entry for this video, guessing it as from 2000. (archive)  The company that produced it 日本アミューズメント放送 (Japan Amusement Broadcasting) only formed in 1999.


Thursday, December 14, 2023

exploring the arcade in... まむしの兄弟 懲役十三回 (1972) aka Mamushi no kyôdai: Chôeki jûsankai (The Viper Brothers: Prison Gang 13)

Small scene in this movie that I found thanks to TOO_yoshikawa...

まむしの兄弟 懲役十三回 (1972)




1966 Periscope - ペリスコープ by 中村製作所 (Nakamura Seisakusho)


another shot, this shows the side of the machine



Next machine...

Thursday, December 7, 2023

exploring the arcade in 湯の町 夜のひとで (1970) aka Maruhi yu no machi: Yoru no hito de aka Secret Hot Spring Resort: Starfish at Night

This one is quick:

1970 - 湯の町 夜のひとで / Maruhi yu no machi: Yoru no hito de (Secret Hot Spring Resort: Starfish at Night)








If this crane looks familiar it's because it's listed in the 駄菓子屋ゲーム博物館 (Dakashiya game museum) book: 日本懐かし10円ゲーム大全 (highly recommended!)

日本懐かし10円ゲーム大全 (published 2015)

They do not know the year but say it is from around 1976

Now we know it is from 1970 or earlier!  That is one reason these arcade explorations are important.


Next we see a boxy machine for viewing photographs of naked women.  I have seen many viewer machines, but none that look like this.  Why does it only have a single hole for looking in?  Why is the front plate like that?  It almost looks like it a different machine, they put a circle on one side, taped up 2 photos on the front, and used it as a prop.


this is the best shot I could find of the whole chasis

this snapshot illustrates the monocular peep hole

There is no coin slot visible.  There are side vents which imply something is running hot, like an incandescent lightbulb.

Update: thanks to EM好きおじさん for the help, my instincts were correct: this is not a slider viewer machine, it is an electric furnace.  The propmaster taped some nude photos on to it to make it seem like a viewer.

Not the exact model, but a very similar example





I love these cork shooting galleries





A look at the tchotchkes you shoot at:
On the top-left you can see a pack of Hope cigarettes.

Wednesday, December 6, 2023

new arrivals: Rollygame & Japanese rolldown

There are still a few goodies from my last trip sitting in my back room.  I haven't had the time and energy to properly affix them to the wall.  Doing so will require moving a bunch of my machines so I can have proper access to rehang a bunch of things.  That will hopefully happen over the holiday break, and in the meantime I want to show off a few new arrivals.


Rollygame

Rollygame
I am very excited about this game!  It simulates playing baseball, in a manner.  The Corinthian craze began in Japan in the early 1930s.  Rock-Ola's World's Series came out in 1934 and it and a few other games had copies made in Japan circa 1934 onward.  We know that 最新式野球ゲーム (state-of-the-art baseball game) came out sometime between 1934 and 1938, that game bearing the closest World's Series resemblance.

It is fair to estimate Rollygame as being "late 1930s", but currently we do not know the maker.  It could have come earlier, as baseball has been popular in Japan for over a century and Rock-Ola was not the only company to create table games with this layout, but we know they were the most famous.

The game simulates innings in baseball.  Using a stick or flicking the ball with your finger, you fire the ball up the right channel onto the playfield.  The board has carved wooden teeter-totters that help advance the balls around the bases automatically.  
Rules I am using: If there is ever an "overrun", where 2 balls end up on a single base, one ball placed on the preceding base.  If an overrun does not double up a base, I am allowing it. (think of errors that allow a runner to grab an extra base!)  This doesn't happen too often.  
Let's look at the writing on the board:
left side: ボール (ball)
フライ (fly)
ゴロ (grounder) 
center: D.P. (double play)
ヒット (hit) 
right: 空振 (swing and miss)
ファウル (foul)
見送 (strike but no swing) 
upper: ギダ (sacrifice bunt/fly balls) 
note: this is written ダギ on the playfield.  Before WW2 text was written right-to-left.
When 3 balls accumulate on the left channel, the 4th "ball" results in a walk: the ball advances on base.
When 2 balls accumulate on the right, the 3rd "strike" results in an out.
When D.P. is hit (double play) I count that as an 2 outs: the ball that landed there, and I remove the batter on 1st base, or the next person on base if none are on first. (If there are no balls on base, I count it as a single out.)
When you get a run or an out, clear the balls from the playfield for the next batter.  After 3 outs, your competitor gets an inning at bat.




Japanese Rolldown

Japanese Rolldown table

Despite the name, the "Japanese Rolldown" was a twist on Japanese rolling ball that was invented in the USA.  It took a game of skill and turned it into a game of chance: instead of rolling the balls by hand, the player would simply lift the hinged bucket at the end, sending all 8 balls down the playfield simultaneously.

The holes on the playfield are approximately 1.5" in diameter, though wider on the holes with cracks.  I have a set of 1 7/8" aramith billiard balls that I had bought from the Alouette warehouse in Montreal a few years ago.  Eventually I might want to try bouncier 1 3/4" balls, so just 1/8" smaller diameter, though it ostensibly plays fine with the balls I am using.

I am unsure what year it's from, but the the "50c to play for 3rd coupon" written on it suggests it was being used later than the 1920s. (When the Japanese rolldown arrived in the early 20th century, carnival games seemed to be 10 cents in the USA. We see this in the early 1920s too.)  I assume that the "50c" price is a discount to entice a player with 2 coupons to continue rolling for a 3rd one to get a prize.  Carnival games would be exposed to the moisture of the air and sunshine, so I am not too surprised to see the cracking there.  
This is hand-painted and could have had the pricing updated.  The writing about coupons looks like it had been added at a later date, though the green numbers look original.  The upper green numbers say "coupon", and the bottom ones have what looks like "MP" on them, probably meaning "Medium Prize", but for the current iteration of the game it probably just awarded a coupon, as per the text on the left-hand side.

the scoring instructions section
Note how there is a fanciful yellow decoration at the center, top.  There is also one at the bottom, center, but it was covered by the "50c to play for 3rd coupon" banner.
This also leads me to believe that perhaps a 29 might have had a conciliatory prize, like maybe free game.  Not any more!
Perhaps the green numbers are all original and there was a Medium Prize and a coupon system?  I am not sure, I will have to find other examples to check against.


From the Bunco Games To Beware Of compilation article, here is a 1924 newspaper article on how the operator can scam people on the Japanese Rolldown: (note: the author refers to the legitimate game of rolling ball as 'Japanola' and 'Japanese ping-pong', two alternate names)

1924-11-16 Dayton Daily News

The alternating arrangement of numbers on the grid (1-6, 6-1) makes it super easy for an operator to deliberately move a ball from one row to the next while counting, immediately adding or subtracting 5 points to the total in a single move.

This seems to be a far too devious move once we consider the math: At the start of the game we have 48 holes (6x8) and we roll a ball and assume there is an equal chance the ball will land in ANY available hole.  All numbers 1-6 are represented equally.
After that first roll, there are then 47 holes available for the next ball, and there is a lesser chance you will hit a pocket of the same value as the first roll, since there is one less of those numbers available.  And so on.  I did not know how to represent this mathematically, so I wrote a program to do this for me and ran is 10 million times.

distribution of totals when 8 balls are tossed with equal odds to hit any available hole

Playing 10,000,000 games we had the following results:
  • Red numbers: 4838, ~0.05%
  • Green numbers: 156095, ~1.56%
  • the yellow number 29: 856894, 8.57
Some jurisdictions had laws against the Japanese Rolldown since it was considered gambling.  In those territories, players would be asked to roll the balls one at a time instead of releasing all 6 at once, thus turning it more into a game of skill.  As the Bunco article above explains, in cases like that a good showman can use the tension to distract a player and alter the ball layouts.
That probably would not have occurred on this table, since many carnival tables are 15"-20" longer.  This version is way more portable, but the balls are closed to the eyes of a suspicious player.

You would not need to manually cheat the player though, the odds are thoroughly stacked against them.  Since the math is simpler with constrained numbers, the odds of shooting an 8, 9, 47, or 48 is about 0.000603% so there's a solid chance you'd never see those numbers come up in an entire lifetime of operating this game at a carnival.

The 6-ball board we see in the Bunco Games To Beware of article would be far more statistically sane.  This board, with 8 balls, is even more of a sinister con.



I also picked up this marquee for 1978 The Driver - ザドライバー by 関西精機 (Kansai Seiki — Kasco).  What it lacks in graphic design it makes up for in "being by Kasco", which just makes me happy.
marquee from The Driver


Thursday, November 30, 2023

Sunday, November 19, 2023

[admin] comments on this blog

I recently learned that I had not been receiving notification of any comments on this blog.  At some point, the contact email disappeared from all 3 of my blogs and comments were sitting in "Moderation Approval" limbo for over 2 years!

I apologize to everyone for the frustration.  Please do comment and I will do my best to respond.  I can also be reached at thetastates@gmail.com.  Please put 'pinballnovice' in the subject of the email so it does not get missed.  :)

Monday, November 13, 2023

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

Building a Tivoli board from "A Big Book Of Hobbies", circa 1920s?



Hobbies catalogue : for the man who likes to make things
PDF download courtesy WorldRadioHistory.com


WorldCat list this book as being first published in the 1920s.


Examples of games like the design above, often labeled "Tivoli Game of Chinese  Billiard", but these use a cue to push the balls and not a springed plunger.



Saturday, November 4, 2023

scans: The Canadian Coin Box and Vending 1948-02 & 1948-05

Thank you to Brad Merchant for scanning these two beautiful historical treasures of the Canadian coinop industry.

The Canadian Coin Box and Vending 1948-02
2 half pages missing, so if you have a complete copy of this issue, please do scan it!





The Canadian Coin Box and Vending 1948-05




View or download PDFs at the Internet Archive: 1948-02, 1948-05.

Monday, October 30, 2023

scan: ヨーロッパに生まれ日本で育ったパチンコ百年史 [A Centennial History of Pachinko Born in Europe and Raised in Japan] (2002)

A perfect companion to the episode TVムック故郷は欧州 意外なパチンコ進化論 (TV Mook Mystery Journey: Surprising theory of pachinko evolution) that I posted, and also did an arcade exploratin for.  This book explores the history of pachinko in the context of European machines!

ヨーロッパに生まれ日本で育ったパチンコ百年史

I am very grateful to my friend who digitized this for me.  I seldom buy books twice, but I really needed a scanned copy of this to translate the text.  Without a digital copy, it because extremely difficult to read.  So an extra copy was purchased, debound, and properly scanned.

A visit to the Hastings ' pier


We even get to see Nic Costa again!