First Look: “Waterworld” pinball by Gottlieb – pulled from a Casino

Here is a first look at a new pinball machine to enter the PinballHelp.com studio. This came out of a casino on the Gulf Coast, then found its way into the back room of a laser tag place and sat for quite awhile before the owners needed room and made me a deal on it. I don’t believe the previous owner did any work on the game so we have the original, largely un-maintained condition it was received from after being operated at a casino.

Follow along with me and let’s see what we notice about this game? How “hacked” is it? How much of it will actually work? What’s it going to take to get this game fully operational?

Diagnosing weird game issues with Gottlieb System 80B (Raven)

Just when I thought I had my Raven running beautifully, it just started acting up. I would press the start button and the game would begin to start, but then not kick out a ball, the sound would stop, and none of the coils would fire. It was very odd. I knew from experience that Gottlieb games can get a bit wonky with irregular power or switch inputs, so here’s a short, 2-part video series of the “rabbit hole” I went down trying to figure out what was wrong? (As always, Ockham’s Razor tends to prevail)

Along the way, we learn a few things about the switch matrix on these System 80 games and how they differ from other manufacturers like Bally/Williams when it comes to trying to trace switch matrix issues. Here’s part one:

And here is part two, where we figure things out…