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| A beehive shooter housing and a proper manual ball lift! |
Now that's a mouthful, maybe I should unpack that...
The name of the game is First Race. The manufacturer is unknown.
It's a One ball horse racing game: One balls are a type of flipperless gambling pin game that were popular from 1936 up until 1950 when they were outlawed. They can be considered as being the ancestor to the bingo machine.
I have a few older posts about fixing a 1949 Bally Champion One ball: here and some Champion pictures here.
First Race is a Solid State game. It's history is unknown but it's well traveled:
I picked up the game in Montreal. It was sitting in the warehouse of a pinball reseller. I remember seeing it there when I first visited the place in 2013. Who knows how long it's been there before that.
It's a "container pin" that was shipped from Dubai. Before that it spent some time in Oman. As explained by the seller.
It looks like it was last operated in South Africa, due to the presence of a South-African 2c coin and a English / Afrikaans sticker on the side of the head.
What's really exciting about this game is that it has a payout tube! Meaning is spits out coins. Fortunately, Canadian nickels seem to work in the payout mechanism.
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| Payout tube |
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| payout chute |
The main board was produced by Getronics Micro-System. It's powered by a videogame arcade power supply.
The board is top quality with a thick printed circuit board, all the integrated circuits are mounted on sockets and the microprocessor is a tmp8085ap. There's an eprom chip labeled 11-1-93 so I believe the machine is from the early 90's. There's a rudimentary lamp driver connected to the main board.
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| Main board |
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| Lamp driver |
Some aspects of the game do look "Home Brew", but the backglass and playfield art looks professional.
There are no information cards on the apron. The ball used is 1 inch like in the older One balls.
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| One ball size playfield |
Looks like a two player One Ball game? I am confused...
Purse, Show, Place and Win odds.
7 Selections.
Digital "Multiplier" and "Credits" displays for Player 1 and Player 2.
The backbox insert is very well made. The displays are LED 7 segment but all the lamps are 12V, rather than the industry standard 6.3V #44/#47 bulbs. The leg Bolts are also non standard 1/2 inch head.
By the looks of it. The machine was operated for awhile judging by the wear by the top arch rebound rubber.
Is this game a prototype, a one off game, a homemade game, or maybe it's the last of it's kind?
I'm also intrigued by the "raison d'être" of this machine. Laws shape the gambling machines in any given country. What was the legal context that allowed this game to exist. Why a "One Ball" when they were outlawed pretty much everywhere else in the world!
Any information about this game would be appreciated.
So far I've managed to power up the main board. There's an attract mode on the credits displays when machine sits idle, reminiscent of the old Skeeball games. The multiplier display goes up by one every time the game is coined up. Shutter opens up when first coined up. Then machine emits a "Bri-Bri" sound and the credit displays spell "Play". I have to find a 120V to 240V converter to further test the game.
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| Backglass art |
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| Home made or a prototype? |
By the looks of it. The machine was operated for awhile judging by the wear by the top arch rebound rubber.
Is this game a prototype, a one off game, a homemade game, or maybe it's the last of it's kind?
I'm also intrigued by the "raison d'être" of this machine. Laws shape the gambling machines in any given country. What was the legal context that allowed this game to exist. Why a "One Ball" when they were outlawed pretty much everywhere else in the world!
Any information about this game would be appreciated.
So far I've managed to power up the main board. There's an attract mode on the credits displays when machine sits idle, reminiscent of the old Skeeball games. The multiplier display goes up by one every time the game is coined up. Shutter opens up when first coined up. Then machine emits a "Bri-Bri" sound and the credit displays spell "Play". I have to find a 120V to 240V converter to further test the game.
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| Under playfield Shutter |
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| When I first got the game in the arcade |
What an incredible find! Only like once or twice a year does the pinball community get to find a machine that was previously unearthed. (last I saw was the 2-player head-to-head Gottlieb One on One basketball prototype, or the Lazer Lord saga) There is nothing online at all about this machine, that I can find.
ReplyDeleteGetronic are a Netherlands technology and so maybe that means it was made for a European market? Dutch solid-state bingos were still being made at that time. a prototype would seem like a good guess.
Mind you it could have been made for South Africa, as the apartheid-era gambling prohibitions ended in 1994.
Thanks Cait, Great information to start with
DeleteVery interesting! Looks like it might be a conversion game? I'd start looking at serials to see if there's a story the cabinet might tell you. And markings within head/cabinet (if any).
ReplyDeleteThere were a number of conversion kits made to convert, for example, Dixieland bingos to solid state. I wonder if this is a similar phenomenon?
There's what looks like a serial number on the inside of the cabinet: 1006. Back of the backbox also has a "6" written in felt pen. Cabinet is 23 3/4" wide, making it wider than a bingo machine cabinet. Also there are no traces of holes for flipper buttons. Backbox looks like it might be from a Gottlieb solid state game?
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