''"300"'' (the exact machine name includes the quotation marks) is a

pinball machine Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

Ed Krynski Edward Paul Krynski (September 12, 1927 – November 15, 2004) was a pinball game designer and innovator who worked for D. Gottlieb & Co between 1965 and 1984. During this time Krynski designed more than 200 games and innovated new pinball standa ...

and produced by

Gottlieb Gottlieb (formerly D. Gottlieb & Co.) was an American arcade game corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. History The main office and plant was located at 1140-50 N. Kostner Avenue until the early 1970s when a new modern plant and office was lo ...

with a

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), thou ...

theme. The title is a reference to a

perfect game Perfect game may refer to: Sports * Perfect game (baseball), a complete-game win by a pitcher allowing no baserunners * Perfect game (bowling), a 300 game, 12 consecutive strikes in the same game * Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League, New York ...

in the sport, in which a bowler scores 300 points. A two-player version of this four-player game was released as ''Top Score''.

Description

Gottlieb sold this game design in the two varieties, though they are essentially exactly the same game (with slight artwork differences). The two-player version (''Top Score'') had a lower price than the four-player (''"300"''), and was targeted to game operators with a smaller budget. This game used animated backbox red (bowling) balls for the bonus unit. Two kickout holes, two pop bumpers, one spinner, one slingshots, and two 3" flippers. It has the same right side lane scoring as Gottlieb ''Sheriff'' pinball (1971), and similar left side score as Gottlieb ''Super Soccer''. Only a couple Gottlieb pinball games made during the 1970s used a backbox animation. The game has the same mechanical backbox animation as ''Super Soccer'' pinball. They made 7925 Gottlieb ''"300"'' pinball machines, and 3200 Gottlieb ''Top Score'' pinball machines.

Current Projects

At the Institute of Control Engineering of the Helmut-Schmidt-University / University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, a Gottlieb 300 has been modified such that it can played by a computer. The ball is detected by a motion capture system and the flippers are operated by servo motors. The aim of the project is to investigate various strategies and algorithms for controlling the flippers with regard to the playing time and the point gain. A high repeat accuracy, with which the ball is shot up by the flippers, is thereby of central importance and at the same time the biggest challenge, since there are big tolerances with respect to the dynamic behavior due to the old electro-mechanical system.

References

External links

Internet Pinball Database entry for ''"300"''

Internet Pinball Database entry for ''Top Score''

Webpage of the Institute of Control Engineering of the Helmut-Schmidt-University
1975 pinball machines Gottlieb pinball machines {{pinball-stub