Williams Black Knight 1980: Playfield Question

[lothian]

It appears some things were removed from each of the four target banks on my machine.
But these same affects appear on images of BK80 playfields other than mine!

Anyone familiar with the artifacts circled in blue, and what purpose they serve(d)?

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

I'm guessing you got a PF with some remnant of the following feature:

Three of the four slots cut into this playfield for the drop target banks also have a cutout to support a vertical rebound switch. The switch can be seen in the flyer game if one looks carefully at the center drop bank. We do not know how many production games had these switches. Games that do not have switches might still have the playfield cutouts. Other games might not even have the cut outs. Steve Ritchie explains:

The switch was removed because it never really got a chance to be hit much. The timers would reset the banks, so they weren't exposed often enough to justify the cost of keeping them.

Internet Pinball Machine Database: Williams 'Black Knight'

www.ipdb.org

On the stripped PF pic (beat to hell of course) you can see the fuller cutouts.

 

[lothian]

wow... their purpose is explained right.. there.. on the BK80 IPMD page. Thanks for pasting that reference.

The mention within the article of a vertical rebound switch behind the drop targets is particularly salient; I intuited similarly when I noticed these suspiciously identical artifacts among the drop target banks around the playfield.

Over the past four weeks of ownership I've become more familiar with BK80 gameplay. And as I play this game, I have a niggling sense that some target/skill shot opportunities are absent (and perhaps missed) in various places around the playfield—among them, the area behind each drop targets bank.

Presuming the quote attributed to Steve Richie (the BK80 designer) is accurate, that he originally designed a scoring opportunity behind the drop targets suggests my intuition in this regard was spot on.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Over the past four weeks of ownership I've become more familiar with BK80 gameplay. And as I play this game, I have a niggling sense that some target/skill shot opportunities are absent (and perhaps missed) in various places around the playfield—among them, the area behind each drop targets bank.

Presuming the quote attributed to Steve Richie (the BK80 designer) is accurate, that he originally designed a scoring opportunity behind the drop targets suggests my intuition in this regard was spot on.

Hmm, interesting hypothesis.

Based on the size of the cutouts on the prototype PF, I'm thinking what those "rebound switches" did was to: 1) sense the hit and 2) catapult the ball in the return direction. I'm not 100% on that though, as the term doesn't seem to be used very often.

Something else to remember about BK80 is that it was groundbreaking in a lot of ways, which could sort of cut both ways in terms of missing features. That is-- one could argue that the machine was already loaded with target / skill shots for its era, meaning that expecting more doesn't make much sense. But one might also argue that Steve Ritchie was so ambitious with this game that it would be natural to expect his original design to be even more loaded than what was finally produced.

Then again, that last part's true about hundreds of machines, so go figure.

Any book that gives the full backstory on BK80 (including an interview with Ritchie) would probably be a real good read. Maybe there's even something online?

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Btw, what the hell's up with the tags on this thread?

effusiometer foliate nugatory quillaia

Just someone having a larf, or is a bot maybe leaking through..?

 

[StevOz]

Btw, what the hell's up with the tags on this thread?

effusiometer foliate nugatory quillaia

Just someone having a larf, or is a bot maybe leaking through..?

Maybe a rogue bot or just a rogue, either way tags edited.

 

[Pop Bumper Pete]

Based on the size of the cutouts on the prototype PF, I'm thinking what those "rebound switches" did was to: 1) sense the hit and 2) catapult the ball in the return direction. I'm not 100% on that though, as the term doesn't seem to be used very often.

2) catapult the ball
like a slingshot? there is not the space for a slingshot mechanism under there, usually the slingshot magnets are in front of the area, not behind. but the drop target mech is already there
most slingshots push the ball up the playfield, there were some targets that Gottlieb used (Haunted House) that pushed down

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

2) catapult the ball
like a slingshot? there is not the space for a slingshot mechanism under there, usually the slingshot magnets are in front of the area, not behind. but the drop target mech is already there
most slingshots push the ball up the playfield, there were some targets that Gottlieb used (Haunted House) that pushed down

Good question and points.

I've rarely seen the expression before, so not really sure what it means. Clearly more than just a switch-end based on the size of the PF cutouts, right?

 

[Pop Bumper Pete]

Good question and points.

I've rarely seen the expression before, so not really sure what it means. Clearly more than just a switch-end based on the size of the PF cutouts, right?

no, i expect there was only a contact switch planned there
take a look at a slingshot, not only do you have a cut out for the hammer, but two more holes for the switches either side

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

no, i expect there was only a contact switch planned there
take a look at a slingshot, not only do you have a cut out for the hammer, but two more holes for the switches either side

I guess I'm not quite understanding why you'd only put a contact switch between two full posts, such that it would be such a rarely-hit shot. Then again, I guess that's why the IPDB text is saying they nixed it.

But more than anything, it's the term "vertical rebound switch" that's throwing me. Any idea why they might be calling it that instead of a more traditional name?

 

[StevOz]

My guess is the switch may have been intented as a reset switch after dropping the target bank, to increase difficulty.