CGA Monitor

A small number of pinball machines used color CRT monitors — cathode-ray tubes capable of rendering full-color graphics and video-game sequences — as part of their display system. The term CGA, borrowed from IBM’s Color Graphics Adapter standard, is loosely applied to these machines in collector circles, though the earliest examples predated the IBM PC and used custom arcade video hardware rather than PC-compatible graphics cards.

Bally’s Baby Pac-Man (1982) was the first: a hybrid pinball/video game where the ball could leave the physical playfield and enter a color Pac-Man maze rendered on a 13-inch CRT driven by Bally’s custom Vidiot board. Granny and the Gators (1984) followed the same concept with upgraded hardware. Both machines were genuine hybrids — not pinball machines with a video screen bolted on, but designs where the two formats were mechanically integrated. Neither sold well enough to establish the format.

The idea resurfaced fifteen years later with Williams’ Pinball 2000 platform (1999), which used a 19-inch CGA-specification color monitor and a Pepper’s Ghost optical illusion to overlay video graphics directly onto the playfield. Only two titles shipped — Revenge from Mars and Star Wars Episode I — before Williams exited pinball manufacturing entirely. CRT-based pinball machines remain rare curiosities, their scarcity and hybrid ambition making them prized among collectors who appreciate the strange corners of the medium’s history.