Cosmic Princess
According to The Complete Pinball Book, the optional photo unit mounted on the top of the backbox would take instant pictures of players whenever the high score was beaten. We don't know if any of these units have survived. This game was manufactured in Australia by Leisure & Allied Industries (LAI) under license from Stern Electronics. Of the several pinball machines that Stern licensed to LAI, it was the only one that Stern did not also make themselves. It used the same game ROMs as Stern's 1979 'Magic'. Stern's documentation indicates they shipped 336 knock-down games. While each manufacturer may have done it differently, such "kits" would typically consist of everything except the cabinet and playfield glass, items that would be procured locally by the receiving party. Pictured here are two versions of backglasses, one with licensing information and one without. We don�t know the reason for this difference. Also pictured here are playfields with two different compositions of plywood. One version shows all plies to be a lighter-colored wood. A checklist is stapled on its underside and dated 8-24-79 by "Joe Vega". The other version is of a stripped playfield and shows an alternating light and dark wood, identified by a local woodworker as maple (light) and probably poplar (dark). Its checklist is undated and carries the initials "LSO". We don't know the reason for the two compositions. If Joe Vega can be identified as a Stern employee in Chicago at that time, this would confirm that the playfield was part of the shipped knock-down game. It is a theory that the maple-poplar playfield was made in Australia. We also don't know how much of the internal mechanisms were produced locally, if any, but the cabling to include the Australian 240V 3-pin service outlet was likely made in Australia. The LAI factory was located in the city of Perth, in the state of Western Australia. Stern's manufacturer data for Cosmic Princess: Production Start Date: 8/20/79 Production End Date: 9/19/79 Quantity produced - full games: none Quantity produced - knock-down games: 336 Total Quantity Produced: 336
