Era

Modern Stern (2000 to now) pinball machines

Gary Stern launched Stern Pinball in October 1999 from Sega's pinball assets, and for years it was the only company building new games. Its early games run Sega's Whitestar board, with a revised version from The Lord of the Rings in 2003. Whitestar holds memory on three AA batteries on the CPU board, so check it as you would an older game. S.A.M. took over from 2006 to 2014 with a lithium coin cell that rarely leaks, and AC/DC in 2012 brought LED dot-matrix displays to US models. This era also brought Pro, Premium and Limited Edition versions of one title, and Vault reruns of older ones.

4 machines we cover.