Jed Yingst's Story
JY: "Black Hole came about through a brainstorming session with a group of single guys that got together once or twice a week to hang out in the bar and play pinball. We usually met at a friend's house before going out, and one night were discussing the lack of new ideas in pinball, and if videos were going to capture the game market. After running through several other wild ideas, I suggested the reverse slope playfield below a conventionally sloped main playfield. At that point my friend John said "and you could call it the Black Hole". The idea of going through the event horizon of a black hole and being in an anti-matter/anti-gravity universe seemed like a great idea for a pinball with a second, reverse playfield. At that point, I decided to build and try to sell the machine. No one in the room thought there was any chance of selling it, but one person, a graphic artist named Joe [Cicak] who was an occasional participant, agreed to help construct and illustrate the machine for an hourly fee. Since I was working on a very limited budget, the hourly fee agreement with Joe later turned into his receiving a percentage of the profit if I was successful in selling the machine."
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