The Addams Family (1992), is the best selling pinball machine of all time. De-signed by Pat Lawlor and Larry DeMar and manufactured by Midway (under the Bally name), it is a solid state electronic pinball arcade game. It is based on the 1991 film of the same name, and features custom speech by the stars of the film, Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston. More than 20,000 games have been sold.

Game On and Off

The Addams Family machine was built when solid state pinball (transistors instead of relays) became robust. Elabo-rate programming with many ways to score appears in every corner of the game. Thing’s hand emerges to trap your ball, the bookcase opens to sink the ball in the vault, balls disappear and reemerge, and vir-tually every corner of the playfield can be lit and scored by hitting something else in sequence. The game is known for having good “game play”: the ramps and scoring features are placed so that they are challenging but not impossible. In addi-tion to the digital logic used to score the game, Addam’s features the first optical sensors to control pinball toys. Infrared (nonvisible) light shines from an LED photoemitter and is received by a photodiode/photodetector. When the ball rolls over or past detectors it breaks the beam, the switch turns off, and a different circuit is triggered.

Illuminating Play

Addams also houses the first computer controlled flipper. The machine enters the “Thing Flips” mode so the computer controls the top left flipper - this was known as “flip-o-matic”. It modifies the timing of the flip after the ball trips an optical switch and the force of the flip to sink the ball in the swamp. The mini-flipper learns by recalibrating after missed shots. This qualifies as an early form of artifi-cial intelligence. Stored values from previous plays are used to get the auto-flip to approximately 60% accuracy, far better than the typical human player.

Addams Light and Magic

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The Prof. Asks?

1. To futher improve the flip-o-matic, what other measurements could you use?

2. The bookcase counts the number of times a ball rolls over the optical sensors to determine when to turn around. What other kinds of sensors could you use to trigger a pinball toy?3. Addams has inspired many ‘mods’ over the years. What pinball prop

would you like to add to this game?

Laser

Emitting

Diode (LED)

Switch

turns off

when ball

breaks

beam

Optical Switch

Light Sensor

(Photodetector)

BOOKCASE