PA Pinball.com:
When did you initially become exposed to pinball?

Allen Edwall:
As a young boy growing up, my parents bought us kids a cheap toy pinball machine.  We loved it and played it all the time. Later, after graduating from college and working in the Houston, TX area in 1973, I saw an ad from a vending machine company advertising that they were selling older pinball machines.  So, I went to check it out, and bought my first real machine, Sing-Along by Gottlieb. It was interesting that I was never attracted to any pinball machines other than Gottlieb machines.

PAPB:
How did you end up working for Gottlieb and Premier?

AE:
My job with Philco-Ford in Clear Lake City, TX was leading to nowhere I figured, as about 7 people had to leave before I was going to rise in the ranks. One day a small local arcade opened within walking distance of my house in Seabrook, TX, and I decided to stop by. I had already owned a couple of Gottlieb pinballs by then, and I guess I was feeling confident. I walked in and asked them if they had a service contract to fix their machines, and they said they didn't. So I offered to do their servicing for $25 a week. They had a few pinballs (not all Gottliebs) and an air hockey machine. After doing this for a while and after thinking about my future prospects working at Philco-Ford, I decided to write all 4 pinball manufacturers in Chicago, asking them all if they needed someone with my electronic digital design experience. The only company I heard back from was Gottlieb. We shortly arranged for an interview in Chicago, they made me an offer, and I accepted and went to work for them around October 14, 1974.

After working for Gottlieb for about 7 years, I left the industry and worked in several small companies up until 1988. While still working for a small appliance design company, Gil Pollock and Adolf Seitz at Premier asked me if I was interested in doing some part-time sub-contracting work for Premier. I arranged an interview for Friday, September 23, 1988, to go over the details. As it turned out, I was laid off my job on my birthday, the day before, so I was free to work for them full-time, if they wanted me. They did, and I started working at Premier on September 26, 1988. Quite a series of events.

PAPB:
Exactly what years did you work for Gottlieb and Premier?

AE:
Gottlieb – October, 1974 – early 1982.

Premier – September 26, 1988 to August 25, 1995

PAPB:
What was your initial job when you started working for Gottlieb?

AE:
I was responsible for developing Gottlieb’s first solid-state pinball machine.

PAPB:
How did you become a game designer at Gottlieb?

AE:
It just sort of happened. When you are around games all the time—and working in the engineering department—it is only natural that at some point you would become involved in developing your own ideas into one or more games. When I owned my personal mechanical pinball machines, I would always redesign certain game features to make the games more interesting to me. Design is in my blood, so my natural attributes just came out in an environment that allowed it to happen.

PAPB:
Did you have to pitch your idea of becoming a designer to a particular person?

AE:
Not really. It sort of just happened. I started doing and trying different things – my job was very open-ended as far as what I could do. I apparently had Wayne Neyen’s blessing because there was never a big deal made about anything. I pretty much did what I felt like doing and what needed doing. I don’t really know if any others had the same sort of latitude that I seemed to have. I just accepted that as part of the job – to me that was what professional engineering and design were all about.

PAPB:
Did you have the option to choose the artist who would work on your games, or was one assigned to the project?

AE:
Artists and themes were chosen by Wayne, the Director of Engineering, and by those higher, like Judd Weinberg, the President. I had no choice on art or artists and I didn't care one way or another. The front office basically handled all that.

AE:
I was responsible for either designing or overseeing the design of all the electronics used in Gottlieb solid-state pinball machines. Then I became involved in the software programming of the games as well as in game design. I pretty much had my hands in everything, to more or less an extent.

PAPB:
As the programmer of a specific game which you didn't design, did you have any input regarding the game's rules, or the triggering of specific features (ie. lamps, flashers, sounds, animations, etc.)?

AE:
Yes, I was always giving my suggestions. Many times we would have arguments over game rules, etc. We would argue over sound effects, light shows, everything. But it was always in order to make a better game. We had a great group of people – we could yell and scream at each other, throw our testosterone around, and not take things personal when the dust cleared. We all had the same objective – make the game as good as we could. Everyone could voice (or shout) their opinion.

PAPB:
What is your favorite game designed by you, and designed by others?

AE:
My game—Charlie’s Angels. That game evolved from a test design that helped verify the solid-state electronics, then to trying out all kinds of features, like dumping final scores to a teletype machine, allowing players in a multi-player game to tilt out or subtract score from other players, as well as many other “innovations, most of which did not make it to the final commercial games because of the fact that customers paid to play.  Tilting out another player probably would not have worked for the paying public. Many hours were spent with Gil Pollock, Adolf Seitz, Roger Andersen, and myself playing game after game, testing concepts, keeping track of all our scores, having fun, etc. Those were great days.

Designed by others – I came to like Sinbad a lot, Countdown too, as well as many of the games I programmed. I liked certain older games too, like my Sing-Along, and Kings and Queens.

PAPB:
With Charlie's Angels, what was necessary when designing a game which was released as an electro-mechanical (EM) and a solid state (SS)? Was twice the work involved?

AE:
Not really, the playboards were basically the same. I had to whittle down all the fancy features in the SS game because you can’t “program” an electro-mechanical game to do the same sorts of things a solid-state game could do. I was able to cut down the rule set on the solid-state game so that it basically matched what could be done in the EM game and still keep it a very fun game.

PAPB:
Is there a particular reason why Gottlieb was last in the race to produce its first solid state game?

AE:
The marketplace that Gottlieb serviced was in no hurry for solid-state games - until they wanted them. And there was no reason to rush a product out the door before it was as good as we could make it. It is a big switch to go from electro-mechanical to solid-state, especially when you consider all the ramifications with the factory, tooling, etc. Going too fast would have been ill-advised. I had and still have every confidence that management knew exactly what they were doing and that things were carefully planned, as well as humanly possible.

PAPB:
Do you know why Gottlieb continued to produce so many EM titles well after solid state games were being produced?

AE:
Because France, their largest customer, still wanted them and they were buying them. If you can still sell something, you keep making it.

PAPB:
Did you prefer designing EM or SS pinball machines?

AE:
Solid-state – that is where my heart and soul was at the time (and I really loved programming—so much easier to implement new features and fancy stuff versus electro-mechanical). But I still love some of the old classics—in fact, I play them on my computer, (using PinMame and Visual Pinball), and they really feel real when playing them. I still love Sing-Along, King of Diamonds (I owned this game once), and Kings & Queens, (I played this game many, many times at a local bowling alley when I was a boy).

PAPB:
What was entailed while developing an EM game from start to finish?

AE:
Think of a possible design, draw it up on paper (a rough sketch), then make changes to the sketch. At some point, when it was felt like paper sketches could not do any more, then a prototype game was built from scratch according to the standards for the various components, playfield, etc. Once all the drilling was done and the components mounted, then the game was hand-wired, usually by the designer, then assembled into a cabinet. At that point it was ready to play. As it was played, the kinks were ironed out, and any changes that would make for a better game were instituted. This process continued until the game either failed to be fun enough, at which point it was scrapped, or until management liked the game well enough to put it into production. At that point, the game was turned over to Bob Moravec, who made all the cable layouts, and the tool room, who made all the jigs, etc. that were required for production. Artists were “brought in” to do the backglass and playfield artwork. Once the artwork was done, then several samples were made with finished artwork and the game was played over and over (again) to percentage it (find out where to set the high score payouts, etc.). This was done over and over until everyone was satisfied that the game was complete. Then the game was released to production and away it went. I suppose there was also a sample stage where some game samples were sent out to distributors to get their feedback and players’ feedback.

PAPB:
How many prototype games were typically produced? How many sample games were typically produced?

AE:
One prototype to start, then maybe a few with finished artwork. I don’t remember how big any sample runs might have been. I was never really in that end of things. After one game was taken out of my hands, I would go on to the next and other departments took the game forward from there.

PAPB:
How was it decided whether or not a game went into production or was scrapped?

AE:
Management made the final decision based on various factors such as cost, appeal, playability, market conditions, and who knows what else. They ran the company and made the decisions. No problem for me.

PAPB:
After a sample game was developed, what was the next part of the process for that particular title?

AE:
I’m sure there were some, but if they never got to the stage where a name was assigned, then you can’t very well remember what it might have been referenced as or associated with.

AE:
No, I never worried about that or cared about that. And it’s been way too long—my memory is blank.

PAPB:
The last couple of EM and System 1 games produced by Gottlieb were in the 400 – 450 range, while the first System 80 games started at 652 (Panthera). Do you know why the games' model numbers were numbered as such? Also, why was the model # 500 chosen for the Hulk System 80 prototype?

AE:
Wasn't Spiderman the first System 80 game? I’m afraid I just don’t remember. I doubt there was really all that much significance in any of this, though.

PAPB:
Yes, Spiderman was the first System 80 game to be released. However, I have always assumed that Panthera was the first System 80 because of its earlier model number, (Panthera was game number 652, while Spiderman's model number 653). Did the before-mentioned bug found in Panthera hold up its release over Spiderman?

AE:
I don’t think so. Spiderman was the first game, and the bug was not apparent in that game, as far as we knew. The bug first showed up in Panthera. Spiderman was a big enough deal that we went to New Orleans to promote the game in a local bar by having a pinball contest using the game. What was “sad” was that the winner of the contest, instead of getting a Spiderman T-shirt, got a Roller Disco T-shirt, (I think it was). Talk about a let down. My memory says that Spiderman was always before Panthera, right from the start. The numbers were sometimes meaningless as far as time frames or anything else was concerned.

PAPB:
Approximately how many people were involved with a design team besides yourself, and what were their responsibilities?

AE:
It was usually a team of one. Sometimes Ed Krynski would have John Buras (in the beginning) or Adolf or Roger help him build a playfield, but most of the time the designer did everything until the game was good enough in his mind to show Wayne and then the other executives. Drafting and the tool room mostly did work AFTER a game was designed and finalized and approved for production. The engineering staff at Gottlieb and Premier were rather small so we all wore lots of different hats and were very self-reliant. I never considered artists or anyone else to really be the “design team”. Everyone gave comments and played the games. In that regard it was as if there were no design team, yet everyone was on the design team sooner or later.

PAPB:
There were several other designers besides yourself (Ed Krynski, John Osborne, John Buras, John Trudeau, Tom Szafransky, and Jeff Brenner), at Gottlieb during your employment. How was it determined who would design the next game? Were you all in a queue of sorts?

AE:
I don’t remember Jeff Brenner. I think we all did what we wanted to do so Wayne and the other executives could pick and choose from several designs. I suppose some people were actually given specific assignments, but I don’t think I ever was. Probably Eddie was because he was in charge of all the designers, basically. Eddie did whatever he had to do and I don’t know how all that worked. I had my work and he had his.

PAPB:
Were you more comfortable designing a game based on the System 1 or the System 80 platform?

AE:
System 80 had so much more capability than System 1 so it was much more fun to work with that platform. Tom DeFotis, then later, John Buras, did so many good things with the “background code” (the foundational code used by all games) that it was easy to come up with new ideas, etc. to keep the excitement of design very high. The System 1 games only had 16 code instructions available to us and it is amazing we could do so much with that few instructions. But System 80 was virtually unlimited, so the sky was the limit.

PAPB:
Were there any other titles that you worked on besides the ones accredited to you (Centigrade 37, Panthera, Charlie's Angels, Time Line, James Bond)?

AE:
I don’t remember Panthera being my game. I think it was an Eddie Krynski / John Buras game, and I had a little bit to do with the programming. If my memory is correct, (and it may not be because this was a long time ago), I was mainly involved in Panthera because of a nasty bug in one of the hardware timer chips made by Rockwell. It was the sort of bug that was driving the people crazy in the outside world because I think it was so random and would cause the game to reset right in the middle of playing it. Tom DeFotis and I spent a lot of time and effort trying to reproduce the problem, then find out what was causing it. We eventually succeeded in finding and fixing it, and even getting Rockwell, who was supplying our electronic chips at the time, to fix their design in their R6522 integrated circuit chips.

The games above (except for Panthera) were completely my designs – I did the layout and the software in the solid-state games). There were many, many other games designed by others on which I did the software programming.

PAPB:
Did the System 80 architecture initially use R6522 chips instead of the R6532 chips until a bug was found?

AE:
When the bug was found, if I remember correctly, Rockwell eventually changed the internal design of the chip so we wouldn't keep having to implement a less-than-ideal software fix. I think we switched from one chip to the other because eventually the cost was lower, because Rockwell’s demand for the chip made it possible for them to manufacture in greater quantities and they passed the cost savings to us. As I recall, the 6532 chip was more powerful and more widely appreciated than the 6522. But maybe I have it backwards – maybe we didn't need all the capability of the one chip, so we went with the cheaper one, the one with less features that we didn't need at the time. It’s been too long to remember all the details.

PAPB:
What prompted you to make a time-based pinball machine, James Bond 007, versus a standard 3 or 5 ball game?

AE:
I thought it was an innovative concept and required a level of strategy not ordinarily found in 3-ball / 5-ball games. It was prompted by my own design nature to find something different and new, yet fun. I liked James Bond because if you played it properly—and well—you could actually get more than your money’s worth (more playing time for your quarter) than by playing 3-ball or 5-ball. Plus, if a ball drained on you right away, it didn't cost you as much because you had unlimited balls left, if you could keep your time up. I figured people playing for hours on one quarter on a video game didn't seem to hurt a video game’s ability to accumulate a full cashbox, so why couldn't the same concept be applied to pinball?

PAPB:
You mentioned Gil Pollock, Adolf Seitz, and Roger Andersen. What were their positions at Gottlieb?

AE:
Gil was Personnel Director. Adolf and Roger were working in the Engineering Department at the time doing lots of the support work that was needed in conjunction with manufacturing. They would help troubleshoot problems on the manufacturing line, assemble and wire pre-production games, and anything else that was required to support manufacturing. Later, Adolf designed games and was eventually head of Engineering, I think – at Premier. I don’t think Roger ever did any game design. Both – and others – were involved with playing the games to percentage them and to look for bugs.

PAPB:
What inspired your playfield layout designs?

AE:
I don’t know – they just sort of happened. I would get an idea, then start to make some layouts to see if they went anywhere. If the playboard ended up being fun to play, the design kept going until it either became “un-fun” to play, or got accepted for production. Also, I suppose I tried to incorporate some kind of “strategy” into all my games. The player had to figure out a “best” methodology in order to accomplish the highest goals.

PAPB:
Did you have a favorite mechanical assembly which you included on your designed games?

AE:
Not really, although I really like the holes that throw the captured ball into other holes. Anything and everything was great to use if it “made sense”. I suppose everyone loved drop targets, so every game had to have those. I suppose I liked the concept of re-routing the ball, usually into a separate area on the playfield where the ball then would do something “different” (like in Time Line, for instance).

PAPB:
Did you have what you consider a signature design?

AE:
I don’t think so, at least in terms of hardware. With respect to software, I always wanted to have some strategy that if a player “found” it, then it would give him a better chance to score higher. But don’t all game designers try to do that?

PAPB:
You mentioned earlier that "you were never attracted to any pinball machines except Gottlieb”. Can you specifically identify the reason why?

AE:
Not really. I just liked the way Gottlieb did things, the way their machines looked, the way they felt, everything about them. Years later I decided that was the way it had to be, since I went to work for them. There just seemed to be a natural connection, like Gottlieb and I were one or that we were meant to be joined together. I felt the same way about my boss, Wayne Neyens. He was the best boss in the world and we got along as if we were meant to be together, too. Call it all fate – and that is how fate sometimes works.

AE:
I do not know – the thermometer thing was not part of my original design and someone else (the front office?) came up with that idea.

PAPB:
Was it common for others at Gottlieb to add ideas to a game other than the game designer?

AE:
Yes. The front office would make changes all the time. I think it was because France (and Mr. Fesjian) would want something because of that market and thus we would have to accommodate them. After all, France was our biggest market and we had to make them happy. We didn't always know the reasons behind changes, but games were generally community-designed. The executives were pinball players, too, and they had some good ideas sometimes, although I don’t remember anything specific.

AE:
I can’t remember – John Buras might be the one to ask.

AE:
Cost, availability, and the usual engineering reasons. Also, the Futaba did not require high voltage to run – I think that was a very big reason. And we all felt they looked better, were bigger, and it was a plus to be different from the others.

PAPB:
What was it like to pair up with John Trudeau to design Striker?

AE:
I don’t remember that game. Did I even work on it? No matter. No matter who the designer was I would always get into it with any designer over rules or anything else. No one was perfect and thus every design, including software, could be improved upon. The beauty was we could all rant and rave and eventually make a better game out of it. It’s part of the design process to play devil’s advocate and want to change something that someone else did.

PAPB:

AE:
Every once in a while I communicate with Ray Tanzer and John Buras. Craig Beierwaltes is still out there, so is Tom DeFotis. None of us get together or do anything personal these days. We just have lots of good memories, and all our lives have gone in different directions.

PAPB:
What do you foresee in the future of pinball?

AE:
I've been away from the industry for so long, I really have no idea where things stand, or where they might be going. Last I heard, pinball was all but dead. Industry people would be the ones to ask, I imagine.

PAPB:
Can we expect anything in the future from Allen Edwall regarding pinball?

AE:
It seems unlikely at this point, but life is funny sometimes. Currently I have no plans to move back to the Chicago area, so that probably precludes any involvement in pinball.

PAPB:
Allen, I really appreciate you taking the time from your schedule to do this interview.  Is there anything that you would like to add?

AE:
Can't think of anything right now. Thank you.