Identify arcade game?

October 20, 2005 3:34 PM

What arcade machine is this?

I remember playing a game about 1975. It was a standup unit, with a joystick on the left and a thrust control on the right. Inside was a sloping floor of wire mesh, a ping pong ball, and some gates. Under the mesh was a circle with an air pipe in the middle. The object was to pick up the ball with the air stream that came out of the pipe and "float" the ball through the gates. The joystick moved the ball front to back and side to side. The thrust controlled how high the ball floated. When the game was running, it sounded like there was a vacuum cleaner inside.

Sort of like this game here.

The gates were painted fluorescent, lit with a black light.

Anyone remember this? What was it called?

posted by Marky to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (5 answers total)

This has a floating ball and the right sound, but I don't think it's what you're after. Still looking...
posted by schoolgirl report at 5:02 PM on October 20, 2005

Booyah, it's Airball.
posted by schoolgirl report at 5:04 PM on October 20, 2005

Oh yeah, I played that one! Plus an Airplane one that you flew around through barns and bridges. Those were pre-pong games. I only played them because the new fangled electronic ones like Asteroids and Space Invaders were always crowded wiht long lines of quarters stacked on the screen.
posted by forforf at 6:21 PM on October 20, 2005

Thanks schoolgirl_report, that's the one!

Is there anything folks here don't know?
posted by Marky at 7:00 PM on October 20, 2005

Is there anything folks here don't know?
posted by Marky at 7:00 PM PST on October 20 [!]

Marky, please. One question per week.
posted by mzurer at 7:19 PM on October 20, 2005