Difference between revisions of "Data East/Sega/Stern Pinball Repair Guides"
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Data East was formed in 1976 as a company that designed a system to allow arcade operators to easily switch their games by utilizing magnetic tapes. They began publishing arcade games in 1978 and were very successful. The Data East pinball division was formed in 1985. Although Data East pinball was led by Gary Stern and employed many former Stern employees it was an [http://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.games.pinball/JSlgPA13cQI/5NcnjDe7JS0J independently formed division] and was never a part of Stern Electronics. The first pinball machine released under the Data East name was Laser War in March 1987. Although Data East hardware is very derivative of Williams System 11 they pioneered some technologies such as the dot matrix display and stereo sound. | Data East was formed in 1976 as a company that designed a system to allow arcade operators to easily switch their games by utilizing magnetic tapes. They began publishing arcade games in 1978 and were very successful. The Data East pinball division was formed in 1985. Although Data East pinball was led by Gary Stern and employed many former Stern employees it was an [http://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.games.pinball/JSlgPA13cQI/5NcnjDe7JS0J independently formed division] and was never a part of Stern Electronics. The first pinball machine released under the Data East name was Laser War in March 1987. Although Data East hardware is very derivative of Williams System 11 they pioneered some technologies such as the dot matrix display and stereo sound. | ||
Revision as of 22:41, 9 June 2011
A Brief History of Data East Pinball
Data East was formed in 1976 as a company that designed a system to allow arcade operators to easily switch their games by utilizing magnetic tapes. They began publishing arcade games in 1978 and were very successful. The Data East pinball division was formed in 1985. Although Data East pinball was led by Gary Stern and employed many former Stern employees it was an independently formed division and was never a part of Stern Electronics. The first pinball machine released under the Data East name was Laser War in March 1987. Although Data East hardware is very derivative of Williams System 11 they pioneered some technologies such as the dot matrix display and stereo sound.
Machines were manufactured under the Data East name until late 1995. Sega Electronics bought Data East pinball and released its first game, Apollo 13, in October 1995. Sega continued to manufacture machines for several years until Gary Stern repurchased the pinball division of Sega and formed Stern Pinball in the fall of 1999.
Data East/Sega/Stern hardware has three major revisions that more or less correspond to the branding at the time.
Official ROM updates can be found at Stern Pinball or can be purchased from many pinball parts suppliers.