About Me and my Williams Pinball Games

My Pinball Machines

My current Pinball Collection (click on the name to see details) - Firepower links to my own pages, others link to the IPDB listings:

Ø Silverball Mania ( Bally 1978 / Sound / 4 Players / 10,350 units made) Not yet restored

Bought from Nick at Pinballers Anonymous in Chesham, UK see below

Ø Flash ( Williams 1979 / Sys 4 /Sound / 4 Players / 19,505 units made )

Ø FirePower ( Williams 1980 / Sys 6 / Sound and Speech / 4 Players / 17,410 units made ) Playfield scan here

Ø Alien Poker ( Williams 1980 / Sys 6a with 7 Digit Displays / Sound and Speech / 4 Players / 6,000 units made )

Ø Blackout Williams 1980 / Sys 6 / Sound and Speech / 4 Players / 7,050 units made )

Ø Black Knight ( Williams 1980 / First Sys 7 / Sound and Speech / 4 Players / 13,075 units made )

Ø Eight Ball Deluxe Ltd. Ed. ( Bally 1982 / Sound and Speech / 4 Players / 2,388 units made)

I also have an Original EBD 1981 version which I’m restoring.

Ø Star Light ( Williams 1984 / Last Sys 7 (First Sys 9) / Sound / 4 Players / Very Rare as only 100 units made )

Ø Twilight Zone ( Midway / Bally 1993 / WPC (Fliptonics2) / 4 Players / 15,235 units made)

Ø Attack from Mars ( Midway / Bally 1995 / Williams WPC-95 / 4 Players / 3,450 units made)

Excellent example with original playfield and unfaded cabinet. I probably paid too much for this popular title.

Ø Lord of the Rings ( Stern 2003-2009 / Stern Whitestar / 4 Players / about 5,500 units made)

My first NIB (New In Box) game was LOTR LE. A Limited Edition run of up to 500 games, with gold trim and a real backglass.

Ø F-14 Tomcat (now sold) Williams 1987 / Sys 11a 4 Players / 14,502 units made ) )

All board serial numbers match the game number. Came from “Pauls 50’s” in Löhne-Obernbeck, Germany

Ø Black Knight 2000 (now sold) ( Williams 1989 / Sys 11b / 4 Players / 5,703 units made ) Playfield scan here

Ø Aztec (now sold) ( Williams 1976 / EM / 4 Players / 10,150 units made) 10 only were made with early WMS digital displays and scoring!

Now sold, but not forgotten. This one was a fast player, one of the later EM games that Williams made. It made old fashioned pinball sounds froma real chime unit, and I got everything to work. The only game I still regret selling.

About me: I am from the USA originally, and grew up playing the silver ball. I played the Gottlieb wedge heads with my allowance (pocket money) when I was very young and games cost 10 cents / 3 for a quarter. I moved on through to early EM’s like Wizard! and on to Solid State games in my teens.

I also own Ironman, RFM, Harlem Globetrotters, and probably some other games since my last edit. I live in Fresno, California, USA although I lived in London, UK for 34 years. I am interested primarily in Williams Pinball machines. I prefer games made around 1980, but do own some made later which are “must have” exceptions to this rule. AFM, TZ, LoTR and Ironman are all great games to own and play and these are examples where I bought a game for the deeper rule sets, the last two NIB. I actually didn’t like some games (BK2K especially) in the arcades when the replay scores increased exponentially and 1 million points didn’t mean anything. For me, you “turned a game over” at a million. Operators raised prices to at least 50 cents (or even $1 a game), even for just 3 balls. Shocking!

As you may have noticed, my collection contains quite a few games designed by Steve Ritchie a "pinball design God and master of flow". Just click on Steve Ritchie’s game list from IPB if you are in any doubt that he has designed some great titles.

I collect pinball machines that are working or not. Depending on condition, I return them to working life or once in a while I have to use them for parts to keep other games running.

I try to create products and ideas needed to get machines up and running quickly, to make them more reliable and look nice.
I repair and sell Williams System 3-7 system boards, 100% working.
For advice on repairing Williams/Bally PSU, CPU , Driver / Solenoid and Sound boards for pinball games, check out:; Pinwiki.com

You can find me on the FirePowerPinball.com site, or message AlienPoker on pinside.
The Spam Man says, "I hate spam"! He’s a self-loathing kinda guy.

Powerful eBay sniping.

The Only Free Auction Tools for eBay Sellers

The usual suspects:

WEB SITES

Click on the Links above for Auction Sniper, and Auctiva - These are tools that actually work, and I've used them to Buy (Auction Sniper) and Sell (Auctiva) Pinball games.

WMS Gaming The Williams Gaming Site - Sadly they make only Casino games now. So that's Bad :(

The Pinball Factory Kind of what's left over from Williams. Sadly now run out of Australia (and not Chicago, IL) as "The PB Factory" by Wayne G. Times change. Some official parts have been prodcued, and they may still offer technical info and a source for free ROM image downloads. So that's good. One day they may actually release a new game, as they claim to have been working on Medieval Madness for 2+ years now. Oh wait, that's not a NEW game :)

Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum is a great source of pinball repair info. Start at Clay's site if you want to attempt your own repairs. Also check out the TOP (This Old Pinball) videos and TOPCast online radio show about pinball. Links are on the site.

Firepower Pinball Resources Firepower site in the UK maintained by Phil Butcher. I do technical consulting for this site, and help out people who write in with problems and questions. Great graphics, PDFs of game manuals (these are not scanned images) and all the cabinet graphics. Excellent and respect to Phil.

Firepower 7 digit Display Mod Can you score over 1,000,000 on FirePower ? If so, your high score isn't registered and maybe you need this mod. *Warning* this is an advanced modification and will require 7 digit display hardware (such as from a Black Knight or Alien Poker) and also a Rom change! Clever guy Oliver Okaegi.

If you can't find a sys 7 display card, try- Kohout Enterprises Replacement Display Driver James Kohout also does replacement 7 digit displays. And sound cards, too.

Also see my master display area on the udn7180 display driver ICs.

Another solution involves no hardware mods and you just replace one ROM to divide all scores /10. So 1,000,000 becomes 100,000 !
See my ROM area for more info.

UK PINBALL PARTS

For pinball auctions, cleaning products and parts I may be selling on eBay, and to see my feedback from buyers check out my seller id: dewdogman

You can also contact me by email with questions or parts queries- see above for details on editing the email address so it doesn't bounce back.

Here are some good UK suppliers I have dealt with and who supply excellent pinball parts and products:

Pinball Mania (.co.uk) is a reliable source for pinball parts, games and service. Speak to Andy.

Pinball Heaven (.co.uk) is a reliable source for pinball parts, and games including New in Box Sterns. Speak to Phil.

Swallow Amusement Machines is a reliable source for pinball and arcade spare parts.

Pinballers Anonymous (.com) is a reliable source for pinball parts, and games. (Sadly, Nick has been out of the pinball loop as of Sept. 2009)

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