Era

Early solid state (1977 to 1990) pinball machines

Bally's Freedom, built in December 1976, was the first mainstream solid-state pinball machine, and by November 1977 Williams made nothing else. Circuit boards replaced relays and score reels, and scores moved to numeric, then alphanumeric, displays. Most are orange neon plasma segments, but Gottlieb also used blue-glowing tubes, tinted green on Haunted House. Many keep settings on batteries, and leaked alkalines corrode the boards, so look at the CPU board before anything else. Older games also have painted glass backglasses, which can flake. The era ends as dot-matrix displays take over in 1991.

7 machines we cover.