Past Times Pinball History Ep 20: The Atarians
The first of seven games to reach full production by Atari, The Atarians is the first solid-state (digital) widebody pinball machine. It also features a very unique and innovative playfield sensor layour that tracks the ball on the playfield.
#atari #pinball #PinballHistory #ArcadeGames #RetroGaming #atarigames
Install Tubelator On Chrome
Video Summary & Chapters
No chapters for this video generated yet.
Video Transcript
[Music]
for this week's episode of pastimes
pinball history we're going to feature
1976 Atari the
atarian this is historically significant
because this is the very first solid
state widebody it is one of seven full
production games that Atari released
this being the first one the last one
being 1979 Atari Superman which we have
right next to it a really unique feature
about this game if you look at the
Playfield you may notice there are no
rollover switches which are common in
the out lanes or the in Lanes or in the
middle of the Playfield instead we have
these stars on here those are inductive
Playfield sensors also magnetic sensors
so if we hit start
here what we can see is it can actually
track the ball without actually hitting
a sensor so for
instance when it rolls over these Stars
so score points here's example you can
see if we roll over this it's going to
open the left gate so if you watch right
here we'll hit that it'll roll over it
if we hit this star right here it'll
close the gate this is something that
only existed on this game Atari went to
a more traditional way if you come on
down
here Airborne Avenger right here for
instance their rollovers are made out of
plastic next to it here we have space
Riders and they went back to a more
traditional wire for the rollover gun so
like I said there were seven games that
hit full production all of them being
wide bodies so we have six of them here
if you pan over to the right we also
have Hercules also a full production
game so Atari only produced pinballs for
three years 1976 their last one being
Superman 1979 one of the most historic
as you can see right here is Airborne
Avenger the very first game that was
designed by Steve
Richie Steve designed this game also
designed Superman left before the full
