Brilliant or Basket-cases?
If one searches through the rec.games.pinball newsgroup or speaks to any old dealer or operator, it seems to me at least, that no other pinballs polarise opinions greater than Gottlieb's System 80 Series. By and large the opinion is not positive but is this fair? Why are these games not only ignored but often downright despised by many, whilst highly revered by others? And if they're really so bad, why are Haunted House and Black Hole two of the most collectable electronic games? It doesn't add up! Let's look into the history books a little. During the electromechanical pinball age, Gottlieb were the undisputed king of the Chicago pinball industry. In the mid-70s, solid-state electronic technology crackled into existence and the pinball manufacturers saw the potential of integrated circuits and microprocessors, but didn't have the know-how to use it. Gottlieb teamed up with Rockwell, whose achievements were exceptional. Nice idea but Rockwell designed special integrated circuits for Gottlieb's first electronic pinballs: the 16 System 1 games, that were neither standard nor readily available. Throw in a few design errors that, for example, helped ensure that failed solenoid driver transistors would also blow the special chips on the CPU and before you know it and can redesign, your name is mud and your pinball games don't sell that well anymore because a dead game doesn't earn any money. By the time Gottlieb sorted out the problems with the System 1 driver board, the technology was already a backwards step. It's for this reason that so many System 1 games can still be found in pristine condition. They look great but unless one buys a replacement CPU board or enjoys removing the irreplaceable "spider" chips from other boards, it's unlikely that they're going to work. Ok, so Gottlieb's first try with electronics was not a huge success, their name was sullied and, to make matters even worse, video-games are in and earning big bucks at the expense of pinball. So for the next attempt, Gottlieb had better come up with a great electronics system and some innovations to attract back both the operators and the players. Fanfare please for the System 80 Series. Oooops-ah! Gottlieb and Rockwell switched to standard components but they served up some more glitches in the electronics and compared to their rivals, they were harder to troubleshoot, slow in using speech and some of the games were uninspiring. Worse, dealers and operators still hadn't forgiven Gottlieb for their System 1 games but, there must be something positive to say in their defence? Firstly, let's address the biggest legend: that the games simply don't work reliably and are all basket-cases. Well, as anyone who has played pinball in an arcade knows, the owners and operators rarely invested much time or money in maintaining games. Perhaps it's a cynical viewpoint, but it seems that the goal was to do the bare minimum to keep enough of the game working to make some money. Hardly likely therefore that many of these people would invest the time and resources necessary to correct the design errors and make System 80 games as reliable as they actually can be. If one is going to own a System 80 or any other pinball game, then you'd better be ready to invest time in this, either by doing it yourself or having someone else do it for you. It is no coincidence that the part of Clay Harrel's well known Pinball Repair Website that deals with the System 80 games is actually more to do with making modifications to prevent problems than it is with fixing problems, and that it includes "bullet-proofing" in its title. The reality is that making these modifications does indeed make Gottlieb System 80 games very reliable, and certainly no less so than either Bally or Williams games. So what are the other selling points? Well this always comes down to personal preference, but the key factors for me are build quality: Gottlieb games seem to have higher quality parts than other makes - and playability, especially because of the large playfields and the innovative designs. Gottlieb opted for mid-size cabinets for all but 2 of the series, which were even larger wide-bodied games: Circus and Star Race. The mid-sized cabinet's playfield is some 30% larger than that of a standard sized game, and Gottlieb's designers, having got to grips with the possibilities offered by electronics, filled these expansive playfields with all kinds of novel features to try and attract players' interest. In Black Hole and Haunted House, Gottlieb created 2 phenomenally good games which still can hold their own today. With the lower playfields on these games, the player has about twice as much playfield to enjoy as a standard sized game. A ball whizzing endlessly around wireforms on modern games is hardly the same. Love them or hate them, the innovations in these System 80 games helped to shape and change the direction of the pinball industry in years to come.  System 80 / 80A Game List  System 2.5? Who's Who? Designers & Artists
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