Impulse Flippers

An early Flippers mechanism found on woodrail-era machines of the late 1940s and early 1950s, where the flipper quickly energizes and then immediately de-energizes regardless of how long the player holds the button. The player cannot cradle or trap the ball — the flipper fires a single, brief stroke and drops back to rest. Chicago Coin used impulse flippers as early as 1948, and the mechanism appeared on approximately 23 IPDB-cataloged machines. Impulse flippers represent a transitional technology between the pre-flipper era and the sustained-hold flippers that became standard, offering player control without the precision that holding the flipper up would later allow.