![]() The radio kept playing an ad for the "Pinball Wizard Arcade" all damn week just taunting me to go but I couldn't because I was so tired after work so I decided to go on that Saturday. I was at a really terrible welding job in '12 however I couldn't quit because I had been laid off for like a year. I still remember how I found Pin Wiz and really the whole retro arcade scene. Thanks Sarah, for giving my son and I an awesome place to have fun for the past 4 years. This has been a wonderful place for the two of us and I'm SOOOOO sad that he's away this weekend and won't be around to spend the last of his tokens that he got for X-mas. ![]() Four years later, he's now keeping up with my scores on some of the better games, has very decent flipper technique, and understands some of the games' rules. When I first took my son, he was only tall enough to play SMB Mushroom World. I live 20 min from PWA and it's been a weekly staple for the past 4 years. To think right now there are both JJP games, loads of Premium/LE Sterns, tons of early B/W, both P2Ks, and enough System 11 & WPC games to make your head spin all in one place. The place was at least 4x the size of Dream Machine, with the wildest collection of pins ever. I'm so glad I didn't bring my 4yr old that day because I got to be a kid again all by myself. One day I finally decided to say heck with it and go by myself to check it out and see if it was anything like my old birthday party joint when my friends and I were growing up - Dream Machine in the Methuen Mall. I'll never forget that same feeling after seeing that giant purple sign every time I took my son to Chunky's next door. Thanks for keeping it going so strong for as long as you did. Very few chances to ever get that opportunity in life and now one of them is gone. A lot of these gadgets are in man caves or small businesses or even family campgrounds.Walking through the doors for the first time reminded me of walking into Fenway my first time 40 years ago and seeing all that green grass. Jukeboxes are simpler to fix than a pinball in many ways, but it depends on the mechanism. I supplement my pinball repair by also fixing slot machines, air hockey games, and other novelty equipment including jukeboxes as well as Hammond organs. ![]() ![]() “A lot of old-timers who used to fix pinball machines are disappearing from the business. I’ve worked on hundreds of machines over the years and used to sell them on consignment. But properly serviced, a pinball machine can last for years, like Gottlieb’s Humpty Dumpty, the first pinball machine manufactured with electromechanical flippers. Pinballs always need a lot of preventative maintenance, especially as they get older, because parts break there are connector and wiring issues bulbs burn out and pieces get loose on the playfield. After I got my driver’s license, I had a small van and ran some machines commercially, putting them in establishments such as bowling alleys and making sure they kept operating. I had it upstairs in my bedroom later as a teenager, I had five to six pinball machines, including a Cyclone and Jokerz by Williams. It was a Gottlieb single-player and it sure made a lot of noise - dings and chimes. I got my first pinball machine when I was 13 years old I bought it with my bar mitzvah money from a local kiddy time operator. ![]() “I was always fascinated by mechanical things when I was a kid. ![]()
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