Iconic Australian-made pinball machines preserved for generations to come

A full working set of Australian-made pinball machines will enter the collection of the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA), including designs featuring cricket legend Dennis Lillee, the FJ Holden and the first Star Wars pinball machine ever made. 

In the late 1970s David Hankin and his brother Peter created their own pinball machines after Australian trade protections made it too pricey to import and assemble arcade machines made overseas. 

Because the Hankin pinball machines were developed for a domestic market, they could cater directly to an Australian audience and captured a moment in Australian culture and history.

David Hankin says the proximity to Newcastle University meant there were talented engineers in their backyard, but the company was quite naive to the challenges.

"We had no idea what we were starting, had no idea how complicated it was and we were very lucky in that Newcastle University produced some pretty smart young guys and we were able to look at American pinball machines, how they worked and what they did, and then design our own electronics," Hankin tells ABC News.

"We had to create a joinery shop, we had to create metalwork; there were a few things we bought from American companies that sold pinball parts, but primarily we made it all."

A team of 50 in the Newcastle workshop created 1,150 pinball machines for Hankin between 1978 and 1980, around 200 for each of the five different models.

Pinball collectors Stephen and Cassandra Smith had five working Hankin pinball machines that were acquired into the NFSA collection.

Stephen Smith says there are only around 150 still in existence, with even fewer in a working state. 

"When they started bringing out video games like Space Invaders that very rarely broke down and took up a tenth of the space, a lot of [pinball machines] were then just destroyed because nobody wanted them."

The world's first Star Wars pinball machine

Star Wars and its sequel The Empire Strikes Back were cultural behemoths during the 1970s and 1980s and good timing meant that the first ever licensed Star Wars pinball machine was made by Hankin in Australia.

David Hankin says themed pinball machines weren't that common at the time and the company was able to secure an incredible deal to secure The Empire Strikes Back for one of their pinball designs. 

The cost of the licence? One finished machine.

"Here we are, this pint-sized pinball manufacturer in Australia, with competitors that were making so many more pinball machines than we were, but [George Lucas] was happy to do it and happy that payment was a pinball machine," Hankin says.

"For the princely sum of one pinball."

It was another lucky connection that secured fast bowler Dennis Lillee's likeness for a pinball machine: the Western Australian test cricketer shared an accountant with David Hankin. 

"Our accountant Kim Butler in Newcastle at the time also happened to be Dennis Lillee's accountant, which is quite bizarre because he's based in Newcastle and Dennis Lillee was based in Perth," Hankin says.

"He spoke to Dennis Lillee and he was quite enthusiastic about the whole thing, and we thought well what are we going to pay Dennis Lillee for the rights?

"And he too was happy with the pinball, so we gave him a Howzat."

Chris Arneil is Digital Games Curator at the National Film and Sound Archive and says because these machines were meant to be played only in Australian venues they ended up as good representations of the time. 

"Hankin was making these machines with no intention for overseas distribution, so they could really harness Australiana in the designs which we see in Dennis Lillee and FJ Holden and Shark too, to an extent, because that's so Newcastle, that one," Arneil says.

"At the National Film and Sound Archive, we look after Australia's audiovisual heritage and when you see pinball machines that are just so Australian, it's really exciting."

Pinball panic

Despite, or perhaps because of their popularity, pinball machines started to attract local opposition as communities saw their kids drawn to the lights and sounds. 

In 1979 ABC reporter Bob Hill and the Four Corners program investigated the pinball craze after opponents accused the industry of leading young people to drugs and alcohol use or even sexual exploitation. 

David Hankin appeared on the program as a representative of the industry to defend arcade operators. 

Arneil says like many other moral panics of the era, there was general opposition to 'third spaces' like arcades for working class youth, even if cash businesses like arcades did have a bad reputation.

"There was a lot of stigma from some potentially dodgy operators, because there's a long history of money laundering through coin-op machines," Arneil says.

Arneil says the pinball machine itself became the target, even though the distaste was actually towards a particular class of young person at the time. 

"I think a lot of the stigma might just be not only is it teenagers hanging out [in arcades], it's the wrong type of teenager hanging out there, So I think some of that has had flowed back onto the machine," he says. 

Cassandra Smith remembers the time well and says while there were some rough elements, it was these arcades where her husband fell in love with pinball. 

"I think at the time a lot of them were young kids, they were going to very darkly dimmed places, with a much older crowd could have been there drinking in some parts of the venues that they were attending," Smith says.

"Would there have been a bad part of that industry? Of course.

"But for some of these kids, they were just playing games at the end of the day, my husband being one of them, who would go there before and after school."

Games for the next generation

Chris Arneil says the NFSA had made the effort to acquire these machines because they are an important part of Australian culture.

Until now, he has mostly collected video games for the archive, so says it was a new challenge for him. 

"Pinball machines are digital games, so they will record and retain the high score, they will translate a ball hitting a certain part as this many points; they're actually quite complex," he says.

"When we become the custodian of collection material, that means taking care of it but for digital games, we want to keep these in playable form."

Arneil says the traditional conservators keep objects clean, free of insects and in a climate-controlled environment, but engineers at the NFSA also needed to keep them working for years to come.

"We have to have engineers who know how these things work, so if something goes wrong, if a ball gets stuck somewhere, they have to know how to be able to fix it  just as pinball operators did back in the day," he says.

The pinball collection will go on public display later this year, where they can be played by enthusiasts.

Video games killed the pinball machine

In addition to designing pinball machines, David Hankin and his brother also operated amusement centres.

However, the introduction of Space Invaders in 1980 meant pinball machines quickly fell out of favour. 

"We got some Space Invaders when they first came out and the effect on pinball machines was staggering," Hankin says.

"These things took 10 times what a pinball machine took and the writing was on the wall: pinball machines literally died overnight.

At the peak of manufacturing the company employed around 50 people, mostly women, in their Newcastle factory but that dropped to around 10 staff when video games became popular.

While they still built video game arcade machines at the factory it wasn't nearly as labour intensive as a new pinball machine. 

The company still operates today, specialising in pool tables with up to 500 tables around the country in operation.

Chris Arneil says while the Australian pinball manufacturing industry had a short history, it was one worthy of preserving.

"People might not think of pinball machines as cultural heritage, but it's nice to kind of look at the legacy that these pinball machines have had," he says.

"It's been a long time coming until they've been in a national collection, it's great to be a part of that story."