Humpty Dumpty (pinball)

"Humpty Dumpty"
Manufacturer D. Gottlieb & Co. [1]
Release date October 25, 1947 [2]
Designer(s) Harry Mabs
Artwork Roy Parker
Production run 6,500 units[2]

Humpty Dumpty is a historically important pinball machine released by Gottlieb on October 25, 1947.[2] Named after Humpty Dumpty, the nursery rhyme character, it is considered to be the first pinball machine to include flippers — invented by Harry Mabs [3] — distinguishing it from earlier bagatelle game machines.[1][4] Humpty Dumpty had six of these flippers, referred to as "flipper bumpers" by the company.[5] However, unlike modern pinball tables, they faced outward instead of inward and were not placed at the bottom of the table near the main outhole.[6] Like all early pinball tables, Humpty Dumpty was constructed with wood and had backlit scoring in preset units of scoring rather than mechanical reel or electronic LED scoring.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Microsoft Pinball Arcade". Microsoft. Retrieved 5 September 2010.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Gottlieb "Humpty Dumpty". The Internet Pinball Database.
  3. ↑ Brack, Ray (December 30, 1967). "Vendors-into-music rated as biggest story of 1967". Billboard 79 (52): 49, 54. ISSN 0006-2510.
  4. ↑ Boland, Ed (2 June 2002). "F.Y.I - Question". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 September 2010.
  5. ↑ Cumming, Terry. "50th Anniversary of the Flipper - The Modern Game is Born". Pinnovations. Retrieved 5 September 2010.
  6. ↑ Porges, Seth. "Top 8 Most Innovative Pinball Machines of All Time". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 5 September 2010.