Keeping Score | How to add high score keepers to vintage pinball machines

Before solid-state components and memory chips, pinball machines had no way of keeping high scores.

Often you’ll find high scores scratched into the side of old pinball machines alike on the backbox of this vintage electro-mechanical Gottlieb World Series from the early 1970s.

Old machines didn’t keep high scores so players scratched them into the backbox with their keys.

The score reels on these old pinball machines would display the scores only from the last game played and only up to the time the next quarter feed into the coin slot.

The last game played is only reset when the next game is started.

There are several solutions for keeping high scores that are better than defacing a pinball machine. Some vintage single-player games even had a spot on the backglass for high scores or a score to beat written with a grease pen.

Score to Beat spot in the lower-left next to the score reel windows.

How to keep high scores on a vintage pinball machine

Here are some ways to keep high scores on a pinball machine.

Grease pencil on the backglass
Paper and pen
A chalkboard
Old diner style sign
Digital score keepers that replace paper cards on the apron.
iScore – an Internet browser based score database.

Let’s look closer at some of the high-tech ways to keep track of scores.

A “diner menu board” used to keep scores – the problem is limited space. Why keep scores for modern games? Because your twenty-something son hogs all of the top scores on the machine.

EM Score Keeper

The EM Score Keeper is a little digital display that fits on one of the card slots of a vintage pinball machine. Some old pinball machines have two of these slots – one for rules and one for scores to beat for replays or extra balls. Older machines might only have one of these spots. The EM Score Keeper costs about $100.

I did not go with this solution for a number of reasons. One is the cost. It’s $100 per game. (An electrical engineer friend of mine says the parts are about $15 if you want to figure out how to make one yourself. It’s not a complicated device.)

That’s fine if you have one game perhaps but not for a collection of games especially since I’ve picked up a few sub $300 games.

It’s also kind of aesthetically displeasing to see digital displays on a vintage machine. Also, some of my 1960s machines only have a single card, I’d have to give up the instructions for a top score. And you have to do some installation, hooking up switches and such.

iScored

iScored is a high score tracker for your game room that lets you and your pals track your personal best scores on the pinball machines and arcade games in your game room.

It’s browser-based so you can display it on just about any TV or touch screen device. Basically anything with a browser.

Here is my game room set up if you want to see the results:

https://www.iscored.info/?mode=public&user=EMF

One of the best things about iScored is the price – $20 for lifetime use and you are not limited to the number of games or players. You could have one machine or thousands. Your individual score or scores for everyone who comes over to play.

You can even set up different pages for arcades, pinballs, or even the game at the local pizza place.