Star Trek
Bally
1979

Star Trek is a pinball machine from April 1979, manufactured by Bally Manufacturing Co. A total of 16,842 units were built. It was the first officially licensed Star Trek pinball game which extended into many other machines later on. There were three significant versions of the backglass. It’s not known how many of each was produced on production machines. The earliest version had had the colorful TV series uniforms and a small character in the lower-left shooting a humanoid. The next version of the backglass removed the humanoid for a ball of energy but still had the color uniforms from the original Star Trek TV series. The final version was changed (along with two playfield plastics) early in the production to show them dressed in gray single-color clothing to fit with the Star Trek Hollywood movie that was coming out at the same time as the game. Sound was accomplished with the AS-2518-32 sound board. This is the first generation of electronic sound boards from Bally. It mimicked the sounds of the EMs in that most of the sounds were based around the 10, 100, and 1000 point chimes. The chime sounds could be replaced by simple electronic noises with MPU DIP switches s8 and s32. The designers strung together sounds to make tunes that played at the start of the game, saucer exit, bally bonus, and the end of the game. The sounds paid no homage to the theme. Gameplay include 2 flippers, 3 pop bumpers, 2 slingshots, a 4-bank drop targets, 5 standup targets, 2 star rollovers, a kick-out hole (saucer), and a free-ball return to the shooter lane.

thema | outer space

design | Gary Gayton
art | Kevin O’Connor

SS
4 player game
16.842 units produced
acquisitie | augustus 2022