Friday, June 6, 2025

Ontario Pinfest 2025 report

Last weekend we loaded up for Pinfest!  2 days of pinball in Wasaga Beach, Ontario.  I was asked to setup and run a pinball history booth, like last year's editiopn.

loading up the trailer.  My friend brought Elektra and Bali.

 Here is the history booth setup, just before opening:

full booth

this was the stuff I brought to sell







 

There are two walkthrough videos that pinball channels posted, but unfortunately neither cover the history booth.

 



 

 

I picked up a few things.  Most notably, this Ski-Doo (formally, Ski-Doo 23) pinball machine from 1932.


an extra copy of Terry Cumming's wonderful Pinball Ad Catalog vol 3.  


 a 1000 piece pinball puzzle, via the charity auction

 

Bought this Sky Kings for a friend of mine that grew up with this game.


I was given a few lovely prints of restored backglasses.



 

And some items for scanning... 

Marketplace vol 13 no 12, 1974-06-30

Canadian Coin Box 1983-07

they are all quite brittle, but I was passed a stack of Billboard issues from before WW2


schematics for Gottlieb's Around The World (1959)
I don't own this game, I just want to expand my collection of digitized Gottlieb schematics



I was passed these interesting light sockets.  Does anyone know what they are from, or clues to the manufacturer or era that might have used them? 2 have a jeweled dome.


 I was also given this project Contact, and have already found someone to take it.


 

View from the corner


 

Highlights from the show ...

These two played like a dream.  Counterforce and Asteroid Annie

 
2 brand new releases, raising money for the local food bank.  Evil Dead was great but I have a hard time finding my shots on Spooky pins since I barely get to play them.  The ramps felt wide and the other shots felt tight.
King Kong was the LE and it was a delight to play.  Absolutely loved it and I think it's going to be a hit.  Elwin has done it again.  With how much the upper flippers get used, I think this might be one of those games that plays extremely long in tournaments, like Godzilla.  But for players that aren't the worlds' greatest, it's perfection. :)



The Simpsons homebrew debuted here and it was AMAZING.  Highly recommended.  In fact, here's a video from Pinball Shenanigans going through it.  I was lucky enough to get a similar extended tour through the machine with the creator.


 


Tempest's vector output was also running through that oscilloscope for part of the show!  And what a beautiful Mappy.

 

Some decent scores on these next 3.  All super fun.




the ideal pitch-and-bat game. You need that handle for batting satisfaction.

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This blog stands in protest against the USA's horrific policies to try and eliminate trans people from society.  Trans people have always existed, in every society, but this fascist administration has declared a war against reality and says that trans people can no longer be allowed to exist.  Trump's executive orders say that trans children cannot be safe at school, in their home, in public, or at hospitals.  Trump officially declared transness existing as a primary source of CHILD ABUSE.  Trump's orders are a decree to destroy all traces of trans existence from society, to punish every trans person and those that love them, and declares that all trans people are subhuman threats and liars who should not be allowed to exist publicly.  He is attacking children, he is attacking families, and he is delighting in his sadism.

This blog stands in solidarity with all of the youth who are being terrorized by a fascist president who has declared them to be threats that must be eliminated.



Please read:  Utah Republicans ignore study supporting gender-affirming care for trans youth. It's research they demanded

Please read: The New York Times’ Inaccurate Coverage of Transgender People is Being Weaponized Against the Transgender Community


Thursday, June 5, 2025

Gorgar vinyl record FLAC - 1979 Williams Electronics

Here's a link to the FLAC of the promotional flexi 7" for Gorgar that I uploaded to the internet archive.  This is a promotional flexi that would have been inside a Play Meter magazine.

Download at the Internet Archive.  (link removed at Blogger's request, you'll have to go to IA yourself)

 

Gorgar flexi side A

Gorgar flex reverse (track only on side A)

 

lineage info included:

Grade: VG+
Turntable: Pro-Ject Debut Carbon EVO
Cartridge: Sumiko Rainier
Phono: Cambridge Audio Alva Duo
Interface: Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 2nd Gen
Software: Adobe Audition 2024
Format: FLAC 24/192
Processing: noise reduction (50%/100dB) > click removal (manual) > normalize (-0.1 dB) 


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This blog stands in protest against the USA's horrific policies to try and eliminate trans people from society.  Trans people have always existed, in every society, but this fascist administration has declared a war against reality and says that trans people can no longer be allowed to exist.  Trump's executive orders say that trans children cannot be safe at school, in their home, in public, or at hospitals.  Trump officially declared transness existing as a primary source of CHILD ABUSE.  Trump's orders are a decree to destroy all traces of trans existence from society, to punish every trans person and those that love them, and declares that all trans people are subhuman threats and liars who should not be allowed to exist publicly.  He is attacking children, he is attacking families, and he is delighting in his sadism.

This blog stands in solidarity with all of the youth who are being terrorized by a fascist president who has declared them to be threats that must be eliminated.



Please read:  Utah Republicans ignore study supporting gender-affirming care for trans youth. It's research they demanded

Please read: The New York Times’ Inaccurate Coverage of Transgender People is Being Weaponized Against the Transgender Community

Sunday, June 1, 2025

scans: flyers from Japan

7 more flyers of Japanese machines. Some of these are incredibly rare, and I am happy to have had a chance to acquire and share them.

These first two are scans courtesy of Mike Minchew.  The Turkey Bowl flyer is an amazing find.  I have a print ad of this machine that says "Turkey Bool", so this ad must be the correction.

1972 Turkey Bowl - ターキーボール by 関東電機 (Kanto Electric) flyer

2019 Space Invaders Pinball Jam & Super Chexx Pro flyer

 

I purchased these next ones and they were all scanned by Detchibe.

1972 Hit & Run - ヒットアンド・ラン & Pachin Seven - パチンセブン by 昭和遊園機械 (Showa Amusement Park Machinery) Flyer (600DPI)

1968 三冠王 (triple crown) by 児童遊園設備 (Children's Amusement Park Facilities)

1983 Lucky Strike - ラッキー ストライク by 関西精機 (Kansai Seiki) Flyer (600DPI)

1985 Mogy & Moglin - モギー&モグリン & 1987 対抗もぐら (Opposition Mole) by トーゴ (Togo) Flyer (600DPI)

1981 777 Fever - 777フィーバー by エイコク (Ikoku)

 

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This blog stands in protest against the USA's horrific policies to try and eliminate trans people from society.  Trans people have always existed, in every society, but this fascist administration has declared a war against reality and says that trans people can no longer be allowed to exist.  Trump's executive orders say that trans children cannot be safe at school, in their home, in public, or at hospitals.  Trump officially declared transness existing as a primary source of CHILD ABUSE.  Trump's orders are a decree to destroy all traces of trans existence from society, to punish every trans person and those that love them, and declares that all trans people are subhuman threats and liars who should not be allowed to exist publicly.  He is attacking children, he is attacking families, and he is delighting in his sadism.

This blog stands in solidarity with all of the youth who are being terrorized by a fascist president who has declared them to be threats that must be eliminated.

Tuesday, May 27, 2025

Coin Journals received!!

The Monthly Coin Journals (月刊コインジャーナル) have hit Canadian soil.

The boxes were 68.6 kg total!  Monstrously huge.  They are now in possession of Detchibe, who has graciously taken some photos for us:


 

Coin Journal issues we received:

1982-12
1983-01
1983-06
1984 5 issues
1985 10 issues
1986 full run
1987 full run
1988 full run
1989 full run
1990 full run
1991 full run
1994 1-6, 8-12

Thank you so much to everyone who donated, with a special thanks to the International Arcade Museum Library Inc and D. Yu who both stepped up with remarkable donations. 18 donors total contributed to make this happen.  Thank you to Sudden_Desu who handled everything on the Japan side and put up with us being many many timezones away.

As I'm buried in the paperwork and planning of this project, I will leave it to other historians to further opine on the importance of these magazines and the impact they might have.  I am incredibly excited to start working through them as they are scanned. I think there will be a wonderful cascade of revelations, insights, and wiki corrections as the arcade and videogame communities start digesting them.

Thank you for trusting us on this.  I'm relieved this has worked out, and I'm grateful for everyone who contributed.  Please feel free to get involved with more projects at Gaming Alexandria! And here's a link to our Discord.  My username is cait001.

 

Scanning plan

Scanning will take a minimum 300+ hours, so best be patient.  This will be an extended project for sure.  If you want to get updates I recommend following Detchibe on BlueSky, or follow their Internet Archive account. (you can also reach them via their Ko-fi account. They will certainly need beverages and encouragement over the next year of work.)

The current plan is to receive a loan of a new scanner with a 2mm edge, one that is made for scanning books.  Hopefully this will come in by the end of June.  Normally with mass preservation it is the time of the people scanning that is the limiting factor, and so scanning is done destructively. But these Coin Journal issues will end up in the archives of the International Arcade Museum Library and so need to be scanned one page at a time.  This vastly increases the time and work required to scan each, so please be patient.

 

Financials:

The total cost on the Japan side was ¥640,837.  Total bids of ¥535,387 plus overseas shipping of
¥105,450.  My original estimates were just north of ¥800,000.

There is a lot of messy conversion between JPY, CAD, and USD funds with each financial product taking their service charges and skimming a few points on any conversion, as they all tend to do.  Converting to USD though, here's a quickie summary:

$4,734.60 USD total cost
$5,163.08 USD net donations received (with our matching donor providing $2,367.30 of that)
$428.48 USD remains to get rolled into the next batch of arcade magazines

We don't have any final bill for duty charges, but I called UPS today and they said the 3 boxes would only incur charges of under $14 CAD each, or $30.66 USD total.  That's pretty great, especially considering I was just hit with a $250 CAD import/duty bill for a package from the USA with a declared value of $300 USD. (mind you, it's never safe to entirely trust UPS...)


Sunday, May 25, 2025

scans: Play Meter 1998

Not only 1997, Hubz has scanned nearly the entire run of 1998 as well!  The only issue missing is Vol 24 Num 2, which is the Directory issue that comes in between the January and February issues.














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This blog stands in opposition to USA's attempted cultural genocide of trans people.  Everyone needs to check their principles and find their red line where fascism can no longer be tolerated.  If this war against trans people does not cross your line, you are supporting nazism and are not welcome.

This blog stands in protest against the USA's horrific policies to try and eliminate trans people from society.  Trans people have always existed, in every society, but this fascist administration has declared a war against reality and says that trans people can no longer be allowed to exist.  Trump's executive orders say that trans children cannot be safe at school, in their home, in public, or at hospitals.  Trump officially declared transness existing as a primary source of CHILD ABUSE.  Trump's orders are a decree to destroy all traces of trans existence from society, to punish every trans person and those that love them, and declares that all trans people are subhuman threats and liars who should not be allowed to exist publicly.  He is attacking children, he is attacking families, and he is delighting in his sadism.

This blog stands in solidarity with all of the youth who are being terrorized by a fascist president who has declared them to be threats that must be eliminated.


Please read: House Spending Bill Now Bans Medicaid For Transition Care For Adults by Erin Reed

Please read: Republicans pass ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ banning federally funded gender-affirming care for trans people by Christopher Wiggins

Please read: These Trans People And Their Families Can't Afford To Flee To A Friendlier State (Aug 2024) by Nico Lang