1) technically you can run test scripts without touching the table
Just save script as table_name.vbs in same folder as table, vpx will load the external script
good for custom changes, or if most likely going to potentially ruin something experimenting
2) Just go change the brightness of the stack of glow lamps
It is a stack of table sized lamps in their own layer.
One could probably even make the brightness unstable, like pulsating/flickering etc
JP would be better to advise on that though.
5) I do not think a single table was even sold in the united states
1. Very cool. I had no idea.
2. I'll go take a look.
5. More good history about the scene, thanks.
5) 1970's 1980's trade tariffs prevented importing, and economy and other reasons made licensing very difficult.
So simply cannot import any of the big name US machines, and that is where everything of mass popularity was coming from.
And cannot afford to license from them for the most part.
I mean a few things were done under legit license, but very few, it was expensive and there was a big disparity in economics between Stern, Williams, Gottlieb etc in the US
and the reality of Rowamet Indúa Eletrometalúa LTDA and LTD do Brasil Diversões Eletrônicas Ltda etc in South America.
So yea, they cloned, copied, played Jack Sparrow etc.
Playfield designs, hell entire graphics just changed in color range and offset, with a different logo.
Sometimes they would try to mimic the gameplay rules, others they would just invent their own rules to apply to a popular table layout.
Sometimes they even made better rules than the table they stole the playfield from actually.
They used lots of surplus hardware imported from japan, price was right and they could not import anything from the US.
The 80's came and Video killed the Electromechanical star.
Williams/Bally already had their finger in the Video games market
Gottlieb too
Stern had the money to innovate and bring video into pinball and design very complex machines.
South America, not so much.
None of the pinball makers there had anything happening on the video game front.
They did not have the resources etc to go delving into that either.
Video machines could simply be gotten from Japanese manufacturers much cheaper.
So basically, they were all screwed, no way to move into the new era, mechanical game popularity rapidly fading, no means to innovate any of the gimmicks the big boys were employing
to keep solvent.
So the inevitable happened, and very quickly there.
They ceased to operate, closed and filed bankruptcy and nearly overnight, the entire SA pinball industry ceased to exist.
And then the bad part came.
Since the popularity of pinball died off, many places were not interested in the machines hanging about.
Into the trash they went.
And many machines did not live in a pristine environment anyways.
This is not the USA where any given shithole town has a sealed airconditioned building for arcades to live in.
A lot of these machines lived outside kind of on covered patios or open walk through areas that were simply open to the outside and had no climate control
so even if not trashed, with no interest and maintenance they simply fell apart.
At the time I guess no one was collecting unlike the US where you find old farts who have been collecting machines for 5 decades buying them as soon as they went out of arcade circulation to stick in some private basement or something.
So yea, as soon as the industry died the physical machines themselves began to rapidly die as well.
Pick any LTD or Rowamet machine and you will probably be lucky to find a couple still in existence.
Some there may only be 1 left in all the world.
Last I knew there was only 1 single example left of LTD's Haunted Hotel and it had become heavily damaged and no longer functional.
Europe's cottage builders all died too, but Europe also had Williams Stern Gottlieb etc
SA did not, all they had was their own so the death was more pronounced.
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