A highlight of Pinball Expo '88 was the tour of the Williams Electronics pinball machine factory. We watched metal parts fabrication, playfield construction, component wiring, cabinet assembly, final testing, and crating for shipment. The two dozen photos that accompany this story show how raw materials were transformed into Williams Taxi pinball machines.

In the shipping section, we watched the final step in the birth of a Taxi pinball machine. Packers folded the backboxes down onto the lower cabinet and tipped each game into a waiting cardboard carton. Legs, coin boxes, manuals, and other loose items were packed in the cartons before they were sealed.

We rode back to back to Rosemont in charter buses for afternoon sessions and dinner. When the exhibition hall opened at 7 PM, we found a half dozen Taxi pinball machines ready for us to play.

In the testing section, we saw dozens of completed, legless Taxi pinball machines powered on and ready to play. Testing technicians ran through self test sequences and briefly played each machine. The games were left on to stress any faulty electronic components into early failure.

Defective games were repaired in place or pulled aside to the troubleshooting area. Here technicians had more sophisticated testing tools to diagnose and correct problems. As we saw in the playfield wiring section, some playfields were returned for rework.

Williams purchased plywood game cabinets constructed and painted by Churchhill Cabinets. We saw custom, reusable wooden crates filled with scores of backboxes ready for final assembly.

In the cabinet assembly section, we watched installers add rails, doors, ball shooters, and other cabinet parts to empty cabinets.

We followed Taxi playfields as they advanced on conveyor belts and rollers along the playfield wiring assembly line. Technicians stood on both sides, ready to position stripped wire ends on lamp, switch, relay, or solenoid terminals, and solder the wires into place. Adjustable overhead vents sucked the dangerous solder fumes away from the area.

At the Williams factory playfield assembly line, we saw how the myriad metal and plastic parts came together for a specific game: Taxi.

Starting on the back side, assemblers positioned and installed T-nuts. The assemblers used pneumatic tools hanging from ceiling trusses to quickly hammer the T-nuts' locking prongs into the playfield wood surrounding predrilled holes. The T-nuts provided secure, threaded mounting points for large playfield parts added later.

We watched operators combine parts from the metalworking section into assemblies ready to install on games. At one station an operator combined metal legs with adjustable feet to make leg assemblies. A power drill clamped to his workbench quickly spun the feet's bolts onto the legs.

The factory wall revealed some tricks of the trade. Two dozen jigs hung on a plywood sheet, ready to help operators postion components for assembly. Further along, a whiteboard displayed each day's production goals for various components used in Taxi, game 553.