The list of Williams pinball machines is quite long and is divided into generations according to the main board each one used. These generations are:
- System 1 / 1976 / Grand Prix (prototype)
- System 2 / 1976 / Aztec (prototype)
- System 3 / 1977-1978 / Hot Tip, Disco Fever
- System 4 / 1978-1979 / Phoenix, Flash, Stellar Wars
- System 6 / 1979-1980 / Gorgar, Firepower, Blackout, Algar
- System 7 / 1980-1984 / Black Knight, Firepower II, Star Light
- System 8 / 1984
- System 9 / 1984-1985 / Space Shuttle, Comet
- System 11 / 1986-1988 / High Speed, Gold Mine
- System 11A / 1986-1987 / F-14 Tomcat, Pin Bot
- System 11B / 1987-1990 / Big Guns, Black Knight 2000, Taxi
- System 11C / 1990-1991 / Diner, Riverboat Gambler
- WPC, all editions
The generations that interest us are 3, 4, 6 and 7, because they are the most compatible with Firepower.
A big problem you will run into when you decide to restore a pinball machine in Greece is that there are no shops selling parts. I do not know whether any pinball parts companies exist here; if someone does know of one, please send me an e-mail so I can publish it in the links. I ordered all the parts for Firepower from abroad. There are quite a few online shops in the USA, England, the Netherlands, Germany and Australia. Of course it is better to order from shops inside the European Union, since there are no customs charges, but on the other hand they are more expensive. My approach was to order from the USA, where prices are half those in Europe. That makes sense, since most parts are made in the USA, and above all because of the exchange rate between the euro and the dollar. What I always took care of was never to exceed 100 euros per order, and so I never had a problem with customs.
This site lists the addresses of every online shop I have discovered around the world after exhaustive searching on the internet. Speaking of the internet, I have to stress that without it, restoring any pinball machine is impossible: there is no other way to order parts or to look for solutions to technical problems. There is a huge community of people who have pinball as a hobby, and through it you can ask anything, exchange ideas and solutions to problems you have run into that you could not possibly work out otherwise. There are also a great many sites like mine, focusing either on specific machines or on pinball in general.
Some of the best pinball sites are these:
- www.firepowerpinball.com, the best-known site about Firepower. Technical diagrams, photos, stencils and artwork for reproducing plastics are all there. The work they have done is simply amazing.
- www.ipdb.org, the database of every pinball machine ever made. It contains literally everything.