A history question

[OldReno]

I've got the 1116th 742A that was manufactured.
Was the 742A Bally's first slot machine????
Thanks.

[Neonkiss]

You need to ask that question to Op-Bell. 

He IS the history guru around here.

[Amachanic]

I've got the 1116th 742A that was manufactured.
Was the 742A Bally's first slot machine????
Thanks.

No it was not... It was 1936 and was called Bally Baby. A small machine that measured on 5x7" and weighed only 8lbs.

Gary

[OldReno]

Let me revise that to first Electromechanical machine....
Thanks tho' for info...that's cool to know.

[Amachanic]

They produced the large Oak cabinet slot machine in the late 1940's? The had two or three coin mech's, 5,10,25 cents. Almost bought one a few years back. It looked a lot like a EM inside, but at that time I was not sure if I could make it work again or even find parts if needed. It looked to have been complete. I know Money Honey came out in 1963, didn't they have an earlier version refered to as White Sides that was all 120V, but the gaming commission or someone make Bally convert it to lower voltages with the transformer?

Gary

[Op-Bell]

It was not their first EM machine. Bally was a pinball company, they knew EM better than anyone else in the world. They brought out a 3 reel EM floor console using more or less the "Money Honey" mechanism in 1947, but the Johnson Act put an end to that and it became illegal to manufacture slots in Illinois. Through the late 1950s and early 1960s they survived on flasher floor consoles and bingo pinballs but they were virtually bankrupt in 1962. Then they were approached by Phonomatic in Britain, who brought them the basic idea for the Money Honey, but their bankers had an attack of morality and wouldn't advance them the credit to develop it. So Bill O'Donnell, then the sales manager, rounded up some backers. They let the company go bankrupt to get out from under the bank and the Moloney family trust, then O'Donnell bought the remains, petitioned the Illinois legislature to get the law changed, and started up again with a large Phonomatic contract.

The first of the new design was the 742. No examples are known to have survived. It was so unbelievably ugly that Phonomatic refused to accept it and insisted that it be redesigned. The new one, the 742A, had the classic Bally look. The 110V, the white sides and the fake jackpots were all on early model 742A and eliminated in the first couple of months. I will never understand why they tried 110V, since without exception their pinball games were 50V. It can't have been to avoid having a transformer, since their entire production was purchased for a 240V country.

[CVslots]

Are there any pictures of the original 742? The one that is now extinct?

[mark the spark]

op -bell do you know where most of the british market machines were made i was wondering what they produced in dublin

[Op-Bell]

op -bell do you know where most of the british market machines were made i was wondering what they produced in dublin

Most of them were produced in Chicago and air-freighted on chartered Jumbo Jets, such was the demand. The Dublin factory wasn't opened until around 1970 and only operated for a few years, because by that time there was a strong and growing British industry competing with them. The pub-owning brewers started buying and operating their own machines and favored the simpler and much cheaper domestic machines. Bally Chicago, meanwhile, was stretched to the limit supplying the US casino market, so they opened a place in Dublin taking advantage of very favorable Irish tax incentives, but the market had shrunk so much that it was never profitable. Courage Breweries had always operated Ballys and stayed with the brand into the mid-1970s, and some splendid floor-standing machines were made in Dublin, but very few locations wanted uprights. Around 1974 ACE produced a microprocessor-based machine*, and that was that. Nothing could compete with the features and flashing lights.

* I once owned that early ACE microprocessor machine. It was based on the Intel 4004, the very first microprocessor. If I'd known how historic it was, I would have taken better care of it.

[Op-Bell]

Are there any pictures of the original 742? The one that is now extinct?

I've never seen a picture of it, but have been told it was a hulking rounded cabinet looking like something from the 1940s.