Random Thoughts & Pictures
I was previously familiar with Xenon, but I really got hooked at the 2006 Pinball Expo in Chicago. As I recall, there were two Xenons in the free play area, one in the vendor area and several UltraPins with virtual Xenons. I spent more time with the Xenons than with any other game.
I acquired my game on December 18, 2008 from Silverball Solutions near Richmond, Virginia. I bought this game in "un-shopped" condition. It wasn't quite plug-and-play, but after a few hours of tinkering I got it clunking along well enough to get a feel for the game. I think it's been a long time since the game was last played or serviced. But there appears to be nothing significantly wrong with the game, it just needs to be torn down and shopped.
The good news is that the cosmetics are stunning (which is why I bought it). As near as I can tell, the backglasses are perfect. The cabinet is smooth and sound. There's a little paint wear around the edges. The left side has a bit of fade and checking. The right side is really nice. The playfield is phenomenal with full Mylar. The Mylar is not original since there is an ever-so-slight bit of wear around some of the inserts. And there's a tiny bit of orange touchup around the insert before the tube shot. The Mylar is pretty ugly now, but was well applied and has served the game well. The Mylar is worn where the left flipper was dragging a bit, but there's no paint damage. Finally, there's some slight wear around the rollover switches. And that's about it. Even the area around the Exit Chamber looks great. Hopefully I'll get around to pulling off the Mylar someday. I think this game could be something special.
The game looks to have a new Transport Tube with a modern, blue LED light bar. Everything else looks original. The bumper caps, drop targets and plastics all look great (although I do have new targets and repro plastics for the game). The game does have the notorious faded-to-transparent-pink playfield posts. But fresh new blue posts are one the way.
The picture above shows the sound boards in the lower right corner of the head. The AS-2518-56 "Sound Plus" board (right) is a modified version of the previous AS-2518-51 board. The -56 board is adapted to interface with the -57 "Vocalizer" board (left). Following Xenon, both boards were replaced with the -61 "Squawk & Talk" board. What's important is that both of Xenon's sound boards are unique to Xenon. If you're buying a Xenon, the boards better be there and they better work. Note; the next game from Bally was Flash Gordon. Some early Flash Gordons were equipped with a Xenon-style Sound Plus/Vocalizer combo before switching to the new Squawk & Talk.
I believe Xenon was the first game to move the transformer and power supply board from the head to the bottom of the cabinet. This move cleared space in the head for larger sound boards.
Xenon also uses a -52 auxiliary lamp driver board, which is mostly for driving the insert lights and the infinity lights between the backglasses. The board is located on the back of the insert panel.
Xenon came out near the end of 1980 and closes the door on what I would call Bally's early solid state era. Xenon was something different. It was the first Bally game to innovatively combine features like an elevated ball path, multi-ball, continuous background sound and speech (the industry's first female voice). Xenon also has a mirrored double backglass with infinity lighting and great artwork. Xenon was also one of Bally's last big hits. By the middle of 1980 pinball production numbers were way down in the face of competition from video games. Xenon created a big production spike with about 11,000 units produced. Bally continued to release innovative games through out 1981, but production numbers remained low. Eventually innovation gave way to cost cutting. The industry hunkered down and hoped for better days to come. By the mid-1980s, Williams emerged as the new leader in pinball. Williams went on to absorb Bally's pinball assets and Bally seemed to loose its identity.
Sound and speech were developed by Suzanne Ciani. Below are three Xenon-related links from Suzanne Ciani's website (sevwave.com).
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Also, if you search "Bally Xenon" on YouTube or Google videos, you should come up with the documentary clip about Suzanne Ciani and the development of sound and speech for Xenon
A solid red playfield post was the covert signature of game designer Greg Kmiec. Xenon's red post is hidden under a playfield plastic near the left orbit ball gate (playfield plastic removed for picture).
Shown above is the four page promotional flyer for Xenon. Click for larger picture.
Shown above are patent drawings for Xenon's "Tube Shot". Click for larger image.