Help needed to ID a mystery machine...

K9Hexe

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Mystery coin op machine…

I hate to sound like Princess Lea but, Help me KLOV, you are my only hope. I have done every kind of internet Googlfu I could think of as well as checking with game distributors for years to find a small and unique coin op machine from my youth. As a kid, my parents would take me to the Orange (CA) Drive-In Theater. My mom would send me and my dad to the snack bar and they had a small coin op game hanging on the wall of the snack bar. My dad and I shoveled gobs of dimes in this thing and had the best time a dad and 6 year old could have in 1979.

I have no idea what it was called but here is the best description of the mystery machine that I can give. It hung on a wall and was approximately 18 inches long, 8 inches wide, sitting about 3 or 4 inches off of the wall with metallic edges and a black face. It accepted only dimes which were placed flat in a circular hole on the upper left side of the face. It plugged in to an outlet but I believe the power was only for the back light.

On the left side of the face was a clear straight line to the bottom that the dime would fall through once you hit the rectangular green GO button. After hitting the GO button it would take a random amount of time before dropping the dime. As it dropped you would have to hit a red rectangular STOP button which would stop the dime as it fell in a test of your reaction time. The clear slot that the dime fell through had numbers on it that corresponded with the amount of feet a vehicle would need to stop at 55 mph. As I recall it had some kind of traffic safety statistics or information on the back lit display. It may have been produced by the Department of Transportation or CalTrans (California Transportation Authority).

If somehow I managed to stay up till the end of the first movie, my Dad and I would go back and shovel more dimes in this machine during the intermission. Just a really good memory and I would love to find one of these machines somewhere. Ive tried for years with no luck.

If you have any idea what this was called or where I could find one, I would be seriously in your debt. Thank you in advance for reading this long post and helping me on my quest to find one of these.
 
Sound like a coin operated reflex tester.

I did a quick google search and have attached the photo.

I'm pretty sure that I've seen a "newer" (say 70's-ish) electronic model offered on eBay at some point too.
 

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billyseven, you are awesome! Thank you! Yes the one I am looking for is very similar and would be a 70s model.
 
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