Retronauts Episode 776: The Golden Age of Pinball
Tommy—yer a wizard
Here at Retronauts we embrace and celebrate old video games but you know what else is old? Pinball! Indeed, pinball as a physical medium predates video games thanks to its low-tech origins. You don't need a GPU to make a silver ball look cool in motion, it does that all by itself.
Host Bob Mackey welcomes Andreas Bernard onto the podcast to talk about his book Same Player Shoots Again: A Biography of the Pinball Machine and the golden age of pinball. Please do NOT shake your audio player to alter the course of this program; it won't help and we will not refund your quarter.
Description: Believe it or not, in nearly 20 years of Retronauts, we've never produced an episode dedicated to pinball. And the topic has barely been mentioned in passing! While pinball isn't necessarily a "video game," it shares the same spaces as arcade cabinets, and has incorporated screens with things happening on them for the past 35 years—so it's definitely within our wheelhouse. And, despite the supposed death of the silver ball, we're kind of in a mini-Renaissance right now?
This week on Retronauts, listen in and prepare to nudge the nearest machine gently as Bob Mackey and guest Andreas Bernard (author of Same Player Shoots Again: A Biography of the Pinball Machine) discuss 100 years of knockout holes, drop targets, and trying desperately not to tilt.
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MP3, 62 MB | 1:06:48 Direct download Retronauts on iTunes Retronauts at Audioboom
As with all of the episodes Bob produces, this week’s cover art is by Nick Daniel. Follow him on BlueSky, or patronize his Patreon!
