1986 Williams PIN-BOT (Pinbot) pinball machine

[@Thalamus4]

This is one of the machines that I've played in Visual Pinball, but, so ... want to play in the wild. Looks great, once again - thanks for keeping these awesome machines in good shape !

[@dawson0610]

That was my favorite as a kid 😊

[@jayducharme]

“Whatever!” 😂 I feel your pain. Great table though!

[@karmatose]

Good on you for letting the high score music play out. Super fun game, one I regret letting go to this day.

[@ColinCologne]

This is my childhood game and it is still my top 1

[@jonathanbethards3689]

I like Bride of Pinbot’s art better, but this is my fave pinball game of all time.

[@Aqua.man045]

I remember this at the fish camp along with Outrun, After Burner II, and Mrs Pacman. I hate they closed

[@rickpontificates3406]

I used to work in the coin op field, doing design and repair. I knew the guys at Williams. Python was eccentric, he hit on my girlfriend at the AMOA hahaha. The programmer of Pinbot was Bill Pfutzenreuter "Pfutz", he's a super nice guy. He told me they burned out #455 flashers right and left when he first wrote the code. One of their biggest gripes was "score inflation"... trying to impress players with higher and higher scoring jackpots. Those were the good old days!!

[@davidlineweaver2263]

Funny you should mention the jackpot on this game. Most games from High Speed until Williams went to 8-digit scoring had a limit (2,000,000 for High Speed, 4,000,000 for Cyclone and Big Guns, etc.) Pin-Bot did not. I think I collected six and a half million once by "treading water", winning and playing free games and building the Solar Value until I felt it was time. I would later learn that the operator can set the Solar Value to reset to 100,000 at the start of each game once they caught on to my milking the game in this way. BTW, these games had only 7-digit scoring. Any score exceeding seven digits -- by ANY amount -- results in you getting an automatic first-place high score of 9,999,999.

[@rickpontificates3406]

@@davidlineweaver2263 Comet was the first million point shot and Bride Of Pinbot had the first billion shot. I guess, we'll never get to see WMS introduce a trillion point shot! Funny, I own a Funhouse pinball, which I love, but I would trade it for a Pin*Bot

[@londonpinball]

I wish it was true that there was an option to reset the solar value to 100k at the start of each game, but it isn't. There is now a rom hack that someone made that allows for the solar value to reset to 500k, but it's not a factory-released rom. It is necessary for tournament settings because otherwise Pinbot makes for a bad tournament game when someone can just crush the solar value and immediately make it impossible for anyone else to catch up.

[@rickpontificates3406]

@@londonpinball I own a Funhouse pinball and I hacked the ROM to say "Rick's hideout" instead of Rudy's. Wish I owned a Pin*Bot too hehehe. IMO, PB is the best pinball ever made

[@imnitguy]

@@davidlineweaver2263 This is incorrect. I own both Cyclone and High Speed. Both will score up to 9,999,999. I've gotten close to flipping High Speed but on Cyclone, the score goes back to 0 but will register 9,999,999 as the high score and will let you enter your initials.

[@101Osprey101]

That blue spiral ramp is the wrong color. It should be red. They are usually available. Nice machine other than that. :) Love mine.

[@londonpinball]

Yup. I needed a new spiral ramp and red wasn't available and I didn't care that much so I went with blue.

[@101Osprey101]

@@londonpinball hah! I get ya. BTW, I totally agree with your assessment of the game play. Even though I love the game, the left flipper is almost pointless. Of the sys11 games, Taxi and Millionaire are both better games but Pinbot has the best theme.

[@londonpinball]

@@101Osprey101 Millionaire. lol

[@101Osprey101]

@@londonpinball yep! Some of the worst art ever but once you get past that, Millionaire is really fun.

[@graphicalsolutions1899]

I own a Pin Bot with the original red ramp, but all my rubbers are black, including the flipper rubbers! I played this as a kid and remember the rubbers where white and the flipper rubbers were red. Did Willliams release it with different colors, or did someone along the way change the rubbers?