In the late 1970s the video game nearly buried pinball - and then, with a certain irony, set about imitating it. The machines in this list are video games that wandered into the pinball catalog: some because they simulate a playfield on a screen, some because they wear a pinball theme, some simply because a cataloguer wasn't sure where else to file them.
The standout is [[manufacturer:atari]]'s *[[title:video-pinball]]* (1978), which rendered flippers, bumpers and a bouncing ball entirely in light - no glass, no steel, no tilt. [[manufacturer:williams]] and [[manufacturer:midway]], both pillars of real pinball, also turn up here with screen-based games, a reminder that the same companies often had a foot in each world. These machines have no physical ball to nudge, but their presence marks the moment the silver ball met the cathode ray.
By Flipcommons Catalog·
display_order
6
name
Video Game
slug
video-game
By The Flip Museum·
description
reverted by The Flip Museum·
In the late 1970s the video game nearly buried pinball - and then, with a certain irony, set about imitating it. The machines in this list are video games that wandered into the pinball catalog: some because they simulate a playfield on a screen, some because they wear a pinball theme, some simply because a cataloguer wasn't sure where else to file them.
The standout is [[manufacturer:atari]]'s *[[title:video-pinball]]* (1978), which rendered flippers, bumpers and a bouncing ball entirely in light - no glass, no steel, no tilt. [[manufacturer:williams]] and [[manufacturer:midway]], both pillars of real pinball, also turn up here with screen-based games, a reminder that the same companies often had a foot in each world. These machines have no physical ball to nudge, but their presence marks the moment the silver ball met the cathode ray.