This was before flippers were introduced to the game, so the plunger was the only intended control.
Pinball would not use flippers until 1947.
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2025
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Nope. Fucking no sir.
More info is required, are we talking like duel plungers for the pit or does it all come back to the start and you just have to be quick enough?
Heeeelp
They had a plunger, ball goes up and hits targets (or not) and falls down. Your score is however many targets it hit while it was up.
Your controls were bumping and rocking the game case to try to make the ball bounce better off of things.
Games have .. improved since then.
Your controls were bumping and rocking the game case to try to make the ball bounce better off of things.
The original Pro Gamer move.
It’s important to point out that at this point in time, pinball wasn’t seen as gaming the way you would think of it today, it was almost exclusively for gambling. Like a way cooler slot machine.
Photo taken 10 seconds before that one of the cop smashing up pinball machines with a sledgehammer because they had been banned under anti-gambling laws. Pinball makers would eventually successfully argue that they were a game of skill, rather than chance. 
Germany had those laws until so late that video arcades were never a thing here. Now there're shitty little casinos everywhere and slot machines in bars
Looks like Christo facisim police states are more american then baseball.
I really hope at least one of those authoritarian fucks took a piece of flying debris to the eye.
Those are some crisp photographs!
And those aren't even the highest quality available from LoC.
i love early twitch
An era where everyone looked hot AF for some reason. Perhaps it's the clothes. Or the grooming.
Cutting edge tech!