Interview with Paul Garber
July 19, 2008
Compiled from e-mails from December 2006

By Paul Thacker

In late 2006, I won an eBay auction for various Astrocade parts and cartridges.  
The item description stated, "Many years ago I worked at a company that had 
built the Bally systems, I purchased all the games and parts they had left 
over."  I was curious about this, and asked the seller a few questions by e-
mail, which I've compiled into this interview.

Paul T.:  Can you tell me anything about the manufacturing process?  I've 
contributed some information to the Astrocade website www.ballyalley.com, but 
most information there is about the games.  I don't think a lot is known about 
how the systems were actually made.  I'll have to ask around to see if anyone 
has specific questions.

Paul G.:   Hi Paul.  I need to contact one of the Techs that worked with me 
years ago, as he did most of the repair on the Bally machines. I worked at a 
company called North Iowa Electronics located in Garner, Iowa 1987-89.  This 
company was originally owned by EF Johnson and started out making crystals for 
CB/2 way radios, and then CB's and other Johnson products.  If you find Johnson 
radio equipment with the letter (G) in the actual model number it was made 
there at Garner.  And I might add they had a place at Clear Lake, Iowa also. 
Anyway, if memory serves me correctly, most of the Bally games were assembled 
at Garner, and I believe most warranty and repair work was done there also.  
When I worked there most of the Games sent to us were long out of warranty.  
One other tech and myself did most of the repairs on them (doing whatever to 
get them out the the door). We had Bally computers piled up everywhere, and 
parts were in short supply!  When I left the company in 1989 they had decided 
NO MORE BALLY repairs, so everything went out the door!  Most of the units were 
just dumped in a large dumpster.  I managed to latch on to several, including 
the white color machine. After that a small batch of parts arrived and were 
divided up and that is the last of the parts.  I suspect the other tech may 
still have some parts, and i will try to track him down.

Paul T.:  I've looked through the Bally parts now.  The Final Test cart is 
neat--it has options to test the sound, colors, keyboard, and controllers.  Did 
you use these to diagnose problems with machines, or do you think it was more 
for evaluation of machines after manufacturing?

Paul G.:  I will try to find out more on the Final Test Cart.  My friend, the 
other guy who sent the items to you, had worked there before i did. He thought 
that the Final was used as a last checkout before the games left the company. 
When i was there that was the cart used for checking the units out.  The games 
were used to check out the machines and play games during lunch, etc.
...
I just learned the Final cart was the only one they had at Garner, as Bally was 
real tight in giving out items like this.

Paul T.:  Did Bally contract with North Iowa Electronics to do repairs, or did 
they offer them independently?  Had they previously done manufacturing of 
systems?  Do you know when they stopped manufacturing systems and games?

Paul G.:  Bally had contracted with the company at Garner to actually build 
(assemble) the machines and do warranty and out of warranty repairs.  As I 
understand, the PC boards and misc. parts were delivered to them.  The boards 
were stuffed and solder-flowed.  Then to QC and burn-in.  And final test, as I 
recall a tech said "Almost half of them were duds."  Lots of problems, 
defective parts, etc.  I have asked others when they started building the games 
and when they quit, but can't really pin that time down.

Paul T.:  I'm actually surprised that repairs were still available in 1989, as 
new releases had stopped long ago.  It's kind of tragic that so much stuff got 
thrown away--working systems are fairly rare nowadays.  Let me know if you 
track down the other tech.  It would be interesting to see what he remembers.

Paul G.:  The tech I am trying to locate lived near Garner, has since moved, 
but still owns a farm where he used to live.  A source tells me when the 
company (North IA Electronics) sold out he loaded his barn with any and 
everything from there.  A lot of Bally items were tossed out.  I took what I 
could get, a few others also took items, and I am sure the rest ended up in the 
barn, and a friend says it most likely is still there.  This friend said there 
were over 100 stuffed Bally PC boards that had minor defects that were taken by 
him.  So i am going to take some time and travel to that area and try to locate 
people who might know where the tech is and see if indeed he has more Bally 
items.  Well got to go, getting late here, send any question you have and I 
will (over Christmas) try to run down people who might have info...

[So far as I know, Paul Garber never managed to contact the other tech.]