Bumpers

Bumpers on a Pinball Machine are an item that defines what a Pinball is. They have a special place in Pinball History.

There is nothing like a Pinball that has a good bumper action, that is where the ball bounces between them quite rapidly. This makes the Pinball more exciting and enjoyable for the player - you never know where the ball will finally be propelled to!

Bumpers haven't always been a part of Pinball, but they did come out as the main feature of the first Pinball to use them...

 

Bumper

Bally's "Bumper" was the fitting title for the first Pinball to feature bumpers. Released in 1936, only 5 years after "Ballyhoo".

Very primative by today's standard, these bumpers did not propell the ball deliberatly away from them. Instead, they registered that they had been hit, and advanced the players score.

Incidently, "Bumper" was the first Pinball to have automated scoring, removing the need for the player to do it themselves. And the first Pinball to have the balls exit the playfield after the end of play.

This primitive version of the bumper took a while to be updated, and Williams had the answer...

 

Thumper Bumper

With "Saratoga", Williams introduced the "Thumper Bumper" in 1948.

The new bumper would now propell the ball away from it, and register a score for hitting it. This added a new level of excitement for the player.

The Thumper Bumper operates once the ball touches it. It has a "skirt" around the base of the bumper which senses the ball touching it. The skirt then activates a switch, which tells the bumper to operate. This in turn causes the bumper solenoid (coil) to energise, which makes the "Popper Ring" come down rapidly. When the popper ring comes down, it hits the ball and propells it away from the bumper.

The Thumper Bumper is called by different names by the various manufacturers. This leads us to...

 

Naming

Surprisingly, the Thumper Bumper hasn't really evolved! But it has had some name changes:

Williams re-named it "Jet Bumper"... Bally used "Thumper Bumper"... And Gottlieb called it "Pop Bumper".

But all these variations in name essentially meant the same thing.

Bally did use a "Mushroom Bumper" on at least one machine, and it operated in almost the reverse of the standard Thumper Bumper - the ring lifted up to propell the ball away, after the ball hit the centre post.

 

Even though Bumpers haven't changed much over time, they are still part of Pinball History.