Internet Pinball Machine Database: Williams 'Gorgar'

Tom Cahill, former Service Manager for Williams, told us that Williams' 1978 'Disco Fever' was the first game Williams engineered to have speech and a talking prototype of that game was presented at the Chicago AMOA show. That must have been the 1978 AMOA Expo mentioned in Cash Box Nov-24-1979, page 53, where a Williams representative at the 1979 Expo stated, "last year we had a prototype model of a talking pinball machine on display."

Per Cash Box, Oct-13-1979, page 58, 'Gorgar' was being prototyped during production of Time Warp.

Williams unveiled 'Gorgar' to great attention at the 1979 AMOA Expo held November 8-11, 1979 in Chicago. The afore-mentioned Williams representative stated these were production models at this show. We note that Kordek's Production Start Date (shown below) is two weeks later but we have found that his Start Dates will exclude sample runs while his quantities include sample runs. It would make sense that Sample games were presented at this show.

'Gorgar' was their first talking pinball machine commercially released and the first one from any manufacturer. It had a vocabulary of seven words and had a heart beat sound that would speed up during longer game play.

According to an article in Amusement Review (Jan/Feb 1980, page 6), the talking feature was optional at an additional cost of $70 to the operator and was ordered on the great majority of the machines.

For several Williams games (especially before 1987), Speech Processing was a separate task than Software Programming and may have been done by a different person than whom we list as having done the Software. Paul Dussault did the Speech Processing for this game.

No Production Floor Records available for Gorgar.
From Steve Kordek Lists #3 and #11:
Production Start Date: Nov-28-1979
Production End Date: Mar-14-1980
Total quantity produced: 14,000

Product History Record for Hyperball:
Quantity produced for USA/Canada: 8924*
Quantity produced for export: 5394*
Total quantity produced: 14318*
Price to Distributor: $1449.00
*These quantities may be sales estimates.

Compare Gorgar's physical stance as depicted on the lower playfield with the 1978 artwork, In the Underworld, by Boris Vallejo.

Photos in:

Macleans 93, April 14, 1980, pp. 47,48.
The Complete Pinball Book External Link

, pages 93, 102, 103, and 177
Mike Pacak's Pinball Flyer Reference Book G-R
Arcade Treasures External Link

, page 96
Pinball Art External Link

, page 57
Pinball Machines (Eiden-Lukas) External Link

, page 145
Pinball The Lure of the Silverball, page 83
Pinball (Ciuffo)

, page 187

ROMs:

34 KB

ZIP

After-Factory Modified ROM - adds Lane Change (triggered by slam tilt switch)

[Francis NoLastName]

67 KB

ZIP

Game ROM L-1

[Williams Electronics]

Documentation:

73 MB

PDF

Schematics (paginated)

Service Bulletins:

2 MB

PDF

Service Bulletin SS20 (no date - special adjustments and wiring change)

[Williams Electronics, Inc.]

Files:

987 KB

PDF

Instruction Booklet

[Williams Electronics]

Images:
(click to zoom)

Backglass 488x412	Cabinet - Front View 540x1104 [Riffhard]	Cabinet - Left 330x328 [Mark Orthner]	Lower Playfield 528x396 [Mark Orthner]	Playfield - Upper Left 528x396 [Mark Orthner]
Playfield - Upper Right 528x396 [Mark Orthner]	Backglass - Detail 400x300 [Bruno Durand]	Coin Door Sticker* 742x340	Upper Playfield 1024x683 [Matt Hoy]	Middle Playfield 1024x683 [Matt Hoy]
Lower Playfield 1024x683 [Matt Hoy]	Cabinet - Left 1024x683 [Matt Hoy]	Cabinet - Right 1024x683 [Matt Hoy]	Backbox - Left 1024x1536 [Matt Hoy]	Backbox - Right 1024x1536 [Matt Hoy]
Cabinet - Front 1024x683 [Matt Hoy]	Under Playfield 1024x1536 [Matt Hoy]	Playfield - Ball View 1024x683 [Matt Hoy]	Playfield - Ball View 1024x683 [Matt Hoy]	Inside Backbox 1024x768 [Philippe Thibault]
Backlit Backglass 576x413	Backglass - Reverse 609x397	Illuminated Backglass 800x603	Light Shields 1024x1186 [Ian F. McKinnon]	Light Shield 1024x1408 [Ian F. McKinnon]
Light Shield 1024x1530 [Ian F. McKinnon]	Pop Bumper Cap 904x917 [Ian F. McKinnon]	Playfield 960x1280 [Steve Biroschik]	Backglass - Detail 400x300 [Bruno Durand]	Backglass - Top Right 1024x768 [Ian F. McKinnon]
Backglass - Bottom Right 1024x768 [Ian F. McKinnon]	Australian Coin Door 1024x768 [Ian F. McKinnon]	Backglass* 1200x1016 [Michael Nyberg]	Under Playfield 1200x1600 [Michael Nyberg]	Illuminated Backglass - Detail 1024x681 [Michael Nyberg]
Stripped Playfield 768x1024 [Mark Johnson]	Flyer - Promotional Record* 591x595 [Lenny Esposito]	Promotional Poster* 516x746 [Harold Balde]	Artist Signature on Backglass 538x723 [Marco Rossignoli]	Flyer - Front 1200x1561 [Duncan Brown]
Flyer - Inside Fold 1200x783 [Duncan Brown]	Flyer - Back* 1200x1558 [Duncan Brown]	Inside Coin Door 1152x864 [Hansjoerg Reiter]	Instruction Card 1200x900 [Jean-Louis Chevalier]

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