Weird old machine that paid tokens

[The13bats]

In the late 70's a game room had 6 or 8 weird Pachinko type machines that I have never seen before or since and I wonder were they common

They cost a token to play and gave you about 25 balls the tray was covered so you couldn't touch the balls
The play field had like a checker board lighted thing in the center no theme and I don't recall any other traps but the bottom rather than round was flat across and was numbered across it and the ball would go down and score a number that would light on the checker board if you got the right set up like a tic tac toe.

The game paid you in a different token that you traded for the little cheesy prizes,

That's the basic idea as I recall but its been a few years.

Anyone seen these games I wouldn't mind to own one.

[owennewton]

A member here "Eddie" has one and there is a video of it on the home page on the right.

I want one of these someday

[MrGneiss]

Yes, Eddie is obsessed with that type of game!!

[The13bats]

Tunnel vision made me miss that clip ...duh
So are those hard to find?

[compirate]

So are those hard to find?

As long as Eddie's around, YES!

[dattia]

Hi Jim Welcome to PachiTalk!!!

[birdbrain]

welcome aboard Jim!! where are you located?

[johntofva]

Yes indeed... Welcome to Pachitalk.

[The13bats]

I have been trying to track down the 8 or 10 of these machines that were at the game room,
they were retired many years before the gameroom shut down and were super nice
I have a few leads,
I might get lucky and find all of them...again,
See about 12-15 years back when I called the owner looking for Pachinko balls he said I could have all the machines and balls for 500.00
At the time I didnt want them

Cheers,
P.

[PinJim]

(Long)

This is Jim Sousae. I apologize for any confusion. I'm a newbie to this forum and accidentally created a username with all CAPs (way too loud). So I re-registered and cancelled the previous username. Unfortunately that also removed any posts under the old name. Anyway, here is my original post with a few corrections after finding Eddie's great posts on Arepachi.

Wow! I just registered yesterday looking for information on a machine just as you describe, that I have, and here is this recent post! I haven't been able to find any information on it on the web. It looks like what you are describing is an Arepachi. The one I have says JANBALL and Shinko on the front, if I remember correctly (I haven't seen it for a while).

It works on coins and pays out coins. As The13bats described there is a 4x4 matrix of numbered lights in the middle of the field that looks sort of like a bingo card. The order and number of lights collected determines the number of coins. Unlike bingo it seems to pay out in circles rather than lines (the center four numbers pays out one coin, the outer ring minus the corners pays out 2 coins, add the center four and the payout is 3 coins etc.. to a maximum of 7 coins on mine (though I'm not sure if it's paying out correctly since I don't read Japanese).

The bottom of the field is made up of a series of chutes of varying heights (to vary the difficulty) formed by nails. Each chute leads to a number on the matrix and the highest chute in the very center leads to a crown (joker). The chutes can hold a number of balls, so the easy chutes tend to fill up, though I've never filled one to overflowing.

There are also five pockets, two to the right, two to the left and one above the matrix. The ones to the right and left collect four of the most difficult numbers. The one above acts as a joker. After you've finished all 22 balls, if you've collected this joker, there are four buttons representing the hardest to get numbers (the same ones that are on the pockets). If you need one of them to get a payout you can press the appropriate button. There is also a payout button that you press when you are finished that causes the machine to check for and payout any wins (inserting another coin does the same thing).

When a coin is inserted, the balls drop from the chutes and roll down to a holding area behind a clear window (reminds me of skeeball). You can also change the number of balls to increase or decrease the difficulty.

The coin mechanism is pretty simple. When a coin is inserted it goes into the tube that is used to payout. When this tube is full, following coins just skim over the top and drop into a metal box. So at least for this machine the coins used to play are the same ones payed out.

I also made a couple of reversible modifications. One, I added a lighted power switch to the right side of the machine. Two, I added a free play circuit that starts a game but disables the coin payout when a switch that was added to the left side is pressed. The circuit also turns off the front panel power-on light when you are playing for free and turn's it back on when you insert a coin.

I don't have access to the machine at the moment, but when I get a chance perhaps I'll start a new thread and post some pictures.

Jim

[dattia]

Thanks Jim Welcome to PachiTalk...again

[MrGneiss]

Wow, welcome and I hope we get to see your machine some day, sound really cool!!

[hanabi]

Welcome to PachiTalk Jim!!

[eastside]

Good to have you here!

[Supersaiyan]

In the late 70's a game room had 6 or 8 weird Pachinko type machines that I have never seen before or since and I wonder were they common

Very interesting. I didn't knew there was that kind of type games also in Japan in 60's-70's. Arepachis had quite same idea than English allwins or German bowling games.

Allwin:




Bowling game:



This is bowling game simulation I made with my friends:
http://nostalgiapelit.servut.us/keilapeli.html
(It is in Finnish but you will get the idea)

And here's one arepachi video I found from YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlUpKnAckX0

[Eddie]

Welcome to the Show!!!
Supersayian Great machines thx for showing. Are they yours?

Your sim looks like its really good only it doesnt seem to work to well with my computer. It has great graphics.

[MrGneiss]

Very cool sim!!

and nice video find too!!

[hanabi]

I see quite a few Allwyns come up on eBay,
and they usually fetch good prices...

[Supersaiyan]

Pictures are not mine. The allwin picture is from Melvyn Wright's page. Sorry I forgot to mention that.

My friend had bowling game in his collection and other fried has somekind of allwin repro. They do repros in UK because they are quite rare. Am I right?

If you click the links under the simulation, you will find more games. All are free and made by me and my friends. They're in Finnish but easy to play. Just click everything. All were very popular in 60's to late 80's. They don't exist anymore (they were demolished or sold outside Finland after the use) because the strict gambling laws and we thought that it would be nice to let people play those after many years and refresh the nostalgic memories. There's one Bell Fruit look a like for UK people too.