The Biggest Pinball Machine Ever - Complete In Box
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ธ.ค. 2024
- In 1979, Atari released Hercules, which to this day is still the biggest pinball machine ever mass-produced. 7 feet tall and 8 feet deep, Hercules used a pool cue ball and other similarly supersized parts. Today, you can only play it in 20 places around the world, and one of them is at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.
Join us on Complete In Box as we try out the biggest pinball machine ever made.
I actually worked on an Atari Hercules machine. A client of mine had an odd request, could I fix his Atari Hercules machine? I had played one as a kid at Walt Disney Orlando. There used to be an arcade in the Main Street full of odd and classical games and machines. So I took a look at it, saw that is uses a cue ball for a ball and I worked on it.
Had to find a way to recondition the flipper solenoids, had to repair many of the pop bumpers and try to actually make a rubber set for the playfield. Had an guy at an old electric motor rewiring shop respool the solenoids with new wire. We stretched the rubbers from a Bally Embryon widebody to sub for some of the rubbers. Fortunately the electronics and lights only needed cleaning and solder reflow. Repolished the cue ball and replaced some of the old wiring to something more reliable. Fired it up, and it works. This machine is a b**ch to work on, as all the pop bumpers and flippers have to stand the shock of a cue ball hitting them. It was never a popular machine, as it was so large.
It had similar size quality to a Bally Discs of Tron Environmental game. The 80s were such a great time to experiment and if you Google it a little, Atari made mostly large, widebody pinball machines.
Edit: For anyone interested, the flipper solenoids were so powerful, they actually used to spark when you engaged them with the flipper buttons. It got so bad that arcade owners would frequently warn patrons NOT to play with the clippers too much because they broke down frequently and the sparks could lead to a fire with enough play.
Holy moly! I played this locally not quite a decade ago. I had no idea of its rarity. Too bad I came to the exact same conclusion that you mentioned, Chirs. Novel, but slooooww play.
I actually had a chance to play a couple balls on Hercules at Magfest 2020. Let me tell you, it is an experience to play; the ball (while definitely slow as mentioned) is incredibly smooth in how it rolls, and the way it almost always rolled in the perfect center of the upper lanes had me convinced the thing was somehow magnetized. While it's not as intense to the senses as its siblings, I'd say it's worth a play just to watch that ball float across the board
Wow this deserves more views.
I played this machine at Canobie Lake Park. They had this in the food court of a pinball museum. The damn thing was a beast.
I had the chance to try out this pinball in the Hungarian Museum of Pinball in Budapest. The fist-sized MARBLE ball was absolutely INSANE.
I played this at Lyons Classic Pinball in Lyons Colorado, iirc.
This video deserves 10x more views.
I first played this in an arcade called The Gold Mine, in Latham Circle Mall (New York) in 1980. I wonder if the machine at the Strong Museum in NY could be the same machine that I played way back then.
I was only 8 and needed my brother to work the other flipped since I could reach both. I do still recall it being very slow and a bit boring, but I was still glad to have been able to try one for myself.
Still had this and Flintstones one at Olympic park arcade in Rochester NY on Scottsville Rd . Olympic amusement park was destroyed circa 1987, the arcade was right next door, now a parts retail store
I've been to that museum a few times and that machine was working only once in all those trips, and it was even more boring than this video makes it look.
Shortest CIB yet. Made me yearn for more arcade content.
Very interesting, thank you for the video.
I played this back in the early to mid 80's at the arcade in Ft. Wayne, IN Glenbrook Mall.
Sure glad I grew up as an 80's kid.
Thanks for the video
This really makes the time i got to play it at magfest so much more amazing
It was 50cents not a quarter. I used to play this when it first came out. On the boardwalk in Wildwood New Jersey. Could barely get my arms around it. I enjoyed the Flash machine much much better
Great video. Thanks for posting this. Have a nice day.
i looked forward to playing this everytime at "playland" in redondo beach ca.
I recently had the chance to play this at the Silverball arcade in Asbury Park, NJ. I'd never seen a unit before, so it was a real treat to play, even moreso now that I've learned how rare it is. That said, I'd agree that it doesn't quite have the same quick action as a standard pinball machine because of how huge the playfield is - I only played one round on it before moving on. Still a cool piece of arcade history, and I'm glad to have come across it and played it.
I recalled playing this as a kid in some small amusement park. Perhaps Coney Island or Rockaway Playland. Not many memories of it except of it being boring and (almost) wishing I had played some other game. I mean after all, 25 cents was a small fortune back then!
I’ve played a couple games of this, it’s honestly a lot more fun then people give it credit for. Yes it’s slow but it’s just so big and goofy that it’s hard not to have fun with it.
they had this at qmart in PA forever
Oh right! I remember that now...I had Q Mart mixed up with Zerns. Has Q Mart closed? I played Hercules there a number of times when I was a kid. (I’m 40 now:-)
I remember playing this at the Santa Monica peer!
My grandfather used to have an arcade with that big pinball machine a long time ago
🏍️ Those of us who were big enough to touch both flippers at the same time while that huge ball was coming down the table back in 1980 are part of an exclusive club. Yes exclusive, even in these times and prestigious.
We can play a kid's video game all we want, but the kid'll never know the thrill I felt upstairs at the Ridge Cinema back then. After a few weeks it was gone forever.
Hercules is a cool pinball machine.
Played a bit at the replay amusement museum in FL, they had a lot of cool and wacky pinball
Hey our local pinball museum in downtown Chattanooga TN has one of these.
I played this when I was a kid in Pittsburgh at century 3 mall.
There was a Hercules PB machine in the Carousel Arcade ( Seaside Heights NJ). Used to play it all the time back in day. Unfortunately, it and many more retro arcade game were victims of Hurricane Sandy AND the fire that destroyed parts of the boardwalk. :(
Saw one of these at the Asheville Pinball Museum in North Carolina, but it wasn't playable. :(
There's a Hercules Pinball machine in Replay down near the Sponge Docks
I love pinball! I want to play this at least once.
The ball in the machine we played had a wooden ball. But that was back in the early eighties.
Bit Bar in Salem Massachusetts has one.
I played on last week in Funspot Laconia NH!
This is not the largest. There was a old game show called "Magnificent Marble Machine" I remember running home from the pool to get home in time to watch that show. It was in the mid 70's.
I remember that show. I also recall it being canceled pretty quickly. Not a commercially available pinball like Hercules but it had to be 10 feet wide by 40 feet tall or something with a soccer ball sized “pinball”.
I'm sure theres something in Vegas bigger than the Hercules.
Cedar Point used to have one of those.
This is a great video series and I would like to see the uploads keep going
I played it today at this free play pinball arcade and it was pretty cool even tho it moved slow and all that
Just played this at asbury park and it it bigger than it looks. It was like the size of a car.
Cedar point has two of these
It did. Both gone
Oh wow I totally remember playing this with my dad at Hershey Park, maybe? We were like wow! And then both agreed it completely sucked.
They still have it!
I used to play that shit in wildwood NJ when I was a kid
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"The giant cue ball is really slow"
Physics doesn't work like that. The air resistance in this context is not significant so any size cue ball should move at about the same speed. Loot at the hercules and compare to the other machines in the background, the table angle is way too shallow so the ball accelerates very slowly, plus distances are greater everywhere so the ball takes even longer to traverse the field. Then they opted for a pretty standard layout instead of trying to work out a layout to better utilize it's size so the result is that it just feels like a regular machine only in slow motion.
I played this many times as a kid. was a lousy machine as the ball didnt behave like a little steel ball but it was a curiosity like the giant slots in Vegas.
Due to the video title, I thought in the thumbnail there was a car driving under the table 😅
it had a bigger machine back in the mid 80's with over 100 balls in it, I just can't remember the name
I saw one of those from Cedar Point Ohio before.
Think it's fun to play.. just wait until you have to work on one.!!😁
I feel like they could improve the speed if they improved and increased reinforcements and then added a coat of Teflon to most of the surfaces but I guess it's too late to bother with all that lol
i do not understand why nobody tried to make the Hercules ''ball' a 3rd of its normal weight. that would have resulted in faster game play along with tilting the machine down about 1/3 of an inch.
At the end I thought you were going to say "because it produced this massive piece.... of shit"
I was hoping for daddy's pinball.
No side-by-side comparison of the machine with a 'standard' size machine makes this entire video redundant. Why go on and on about how big it is if you're not going to show us in a meaningful way?
I have heard legends of how much this table sucks and now that I see it I understand why
Around 2.001, I played that game, but realised the game was rigged. I scored 1.632.360, which it shouldn't have.
Vote yes on 1, no on 2. Got it.
I own a Space Riders machine.
Not even close to correct, then largest pinball machine is 53ft long, 24ft wide and 35ft tall
He said the largest mass produced. I'm sure they didn't mass produce those semi trailer size pinball machines. 😂
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Footnotes
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