The cultural history is interesting: For decades, pinball, which gained its electrified and coin-operated shape in the 1930s, was banned as gambling, and it was outlawed outside of amusement arcades in New York City from 1948 to 1976. On one bank of older machines, the backs have been pried off and are protected by plexiglass covers. The artifacts are often artful - not in the movie-image re-creations on machines from the 1990s, Di Bella contends, but in something like the cartoon images of the rock band Kiss, painted on glass and replicated for the 1979 game. 'When I saw the Seattle Pinball Museum website and read the article when they opened, and how the owner explained it, I was like, 'Yeah - it's a display of technology and art. 'It was never about making it sound more sophisticated than it is,' Di Bella says, sitting in a back room where old machines are repaired and new ones are prepped for action. Di Bella, Asheville Pinball Museum owner and former middle school teacher, says with a shrug, even as he adds that insisting it's not a museum rubs him 'the wrong way.' 'We can call it an emporium if you want,' T.C.

It's as if instead of walking through the Baseball Hall of Fame, you get to take batting practice at Ebbets Field. But this playable collection and others like it across the country are designed to be immersive and experiential. You can walk around and just look for free, if you want, and the machines are clustered together era by era so you can track the evolution. Tuned up and ready to go are the 'Elton John-Captain Fantastic' game from 1975, 'Cherry Bell' from 1978, and from 1979 the bigger 'Space Invaders,' with its widebody design and double flippers allowing for a greater range of shots. The jangling bells and blinking lights add to the tactile experience.Īt the Asheville Pinball Museum, you pay $15 and play all you want on 80 machines ranging from the 1950s to the latest games, because even though the Internet has all but killed arcades, the pinball industry has not entirely died. The ball clacks against the glass top as it jumps off the hair-trigger flippers, which flick electronically with a fingertip press of the buttons waist-high on the sides of the machine. You pull the steel plunger on the 1976 game 'Evel Knievel' and the tension is pleasurable.

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