I broke 3 pinball machines

Pin-Bot

Okay, I've got a story to tell about this one.

I seriously never thought I would ever see another Pin-Bot machine again in my life. But at this pinball festival, there was not one but three of these machines.

One was totally broken, inoperable and for sale as a fixer-upper:

Then at another part of the festival there were two (yes, two!) more side-by-side, both working. One was available for play, and oh yeah, I played it:

The table for this machine is absolutely gorgeous:

This machine worked for about 10 minutes and I was playing well, but then a ball got stuck in a popper on the upper part of the table and couldn't be ejected. Game over...

...but I was still so happy I finally got to play this again.

The story of my Pin-Bot

Many moons ago in the '80s when I was just a kid, my family went on vacation to Florida. We stayed at a hotel and next to the laundry room they had a space for a couple of arcade games.

One of them was Pin-Bot.

Being this machine was in a hotel in a place where absolutely nobody would ever find it, I got to play this game totally alone (who hangs out in the laundry room at a hotel?) with absolutely no distractions and none of the typical loud noises of an arcade. I heard every single noise this game made. Every click, clack, bleep, bloop, the ominous robot voice it makes, all of it.

If I remember right, my dad gave me two dollars in quarters, then let me be since he knew where I was since our hotel room was only a few doors away, and oh yeah, I made that two dollars last a long time.

The game difficultly is, in all honesty, a little too easy. But that was fine by me because I absolutely got my money's worth.

Before the family left to go back home to New England, I got to play this game again before heading to the airport. And that was the last time I played it. I was probably 11 years old at the time which is right when this machine was brand spanking new. And the one I played had never seen an arcade so it was in absolutely mint condition. Not a scratch on it.

So here I am now, much later. And I finally got to play Pin-Bot again after all this time.

It was awesome, but bittersweet.

The machine I played appeared to be original and maintained, but unrestored. She was old and felt old. I played this machine for about 10 minutes before it failed and the ball got caught up in a popper.

But for that 10 minutes, I was 11 again. Something happened while playing it. I zoned. Everything around me fell silent again. It was just me and the game. And it was wonderful.

It's been a very long time since I zoned on a game that hard. Definitely a feeling I had forgotten about. It was good to feel it again.

The game was for sale in as-is condition for about $2,500. But it probably needed at least two grand worth of work done to make it new again. No, I never thought about buying it...

...but if I had the cash to burn, this is the only pinball machine I would ever buy. Professionally restored, of course. To me, it would be worth dropping 5 grand on one that was perfect.

Pin-Bot was my holy grail pinball machine

As I said a moment ago, I sincerely believed I would never see another Pin-Bot ever again in my life. Actually seeing one of these and playing it was nothing short of surreal.

Before I went to the festival, one of my goals was to find this game, because if there was any place it would be, it was there. However, I didn't get my hopes up too high just in case it wasn't there.

But I found it. It was there. And played it. And it was great.

Published 2019 Mar 25

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