{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "I love the way so much pre-90s pinball art clearly comes from this unlettered notebook paper-airbrushed van tradition where...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/184124922568/", "html": "<p><a href=\"/post/184023931678/\" class=\"tumblr_blog\" target=\"_blank\">kontextmaschine</a>:</p><blockquote>\n<figure class=\"tmblr-full\" data-orig-height=\"1707\" data-orig-width=\"1280\"><img src=\"/media/tumblr_ppmc3bGfsH1qdlop9_1280_fc7ae95bd855.jpg\" data-orig-height=\"1707\" data-orig-width=\"1280\"/></figure><p>I love the way so much pre-90s pinball art clearly comes from this unlettered notebook paper-airbrushed van tradition where eventually they <i>kinda</i> got the tits right, but they <i>definitely</i> got the tits</p>\n<p><i>Gottleib \u201c<a href=\"https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=367\" target=\"_blank\">Bowling Queen</a>\u201d 1964</i></p>\n</blockquote><p>Oh let\u2019s spawn a different thread off this to point out pinball design</p><p>If you look at the bottom 1/3 of this table it looks fairly modern - outlanes, slingshots, flippers - but there are some important differences from the now-standard \u201cItalian Bottom\u201d design</p><p>The first thing - there are two different outlanes on each side, and which one it goes through matters, as there are two possibly lit feature lights on each lane. At the same time w/o wire lane guides which one it goes through is unclear until it does, but there are no flippers or activated features past the point of no return.</p><p>This reflects the higher importance in EM (\u201celectromechanical\u201d, thought of as one era of pinball based on its mechanics, followed by \u201csolid state\u201d and \u201cDMD\u201d) tables of bonus and other collect-on-drain features AND of \u201cnudging\u201d, manipulating the outcome by imparting force to the cabinet directly</p><p>Second, you see the slings, running diagonally separating the \u201cdead\u201d outlanes from the live space in the middle of the playfield? Notice that they\u2019re a straight line, thick rubber bands. More modern slings are wedge-shaped so that when a ball contacts the diagonal edge an induction-powered \u201ckicker\u201d behind the rubber has more space to add force to the rebound.</p><p>Third, notice there are no inlanes - wireframe aisles delivering balls behind and under the slings to the flipper without extraneous horizontal momentum (but <i>with</i> spin). As a result there\u2019s little possibility of aimed shots, and if you\u2019ll notice there\u2019s basically no long shots to target, and that the best/trickiest long shot there is (on either sides of the bumpers up to the top) just feeds it up high against gravity to get more points falling back down</p>", "thumbnail_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/media/tumblr_ppmc3bGfsH1qdlop9_1280_fc7ae95bd855.jpg", "thumbnail_width": 1280, "thumbnail_height": 1707}