That's really cool!
You should pop over to Desert Island Fruits and share some details - there's a bunch of people on there (like me) who would love to hear any stories from your at time ACE.
https://www.desertislandfruits.com/forum/ (if not then I'd really like to share your reel image, I can't find any info about Thru the Roof except this blank entry:
https://www.arcade-history.com/?n=thru-the-roof&page=detail&id=41142... so you might have the only surviving piece).
There's a guy called Degsy who makes some really good videos about the history of some machines, talks (pretty well) about the holes in some roms that got patched later, top secret emptier techniques that only a select few knew about - recently seeing the light of day, rare games that no longer exist or only 1 is left (like Electrocoin's Street Fighter 2, or Dungeon Master), general chat chat. It's not about making money, all these games are long gone (although few retro arcades do remain), it's just about reminiscing and appreciating the art/design and general era of it all.
I played Pot Of Gold fairly often, they were common games - also had the red light 'guaranteed Jackpot' built in, although it could also do the cheeky noise without the red bulbs coming on, so it had player secrets layered with deeper secrets. They made a clone called Robin Hood with different art, sound and alpha programming - same game underneath - which didn't prove successful, still a few around though.
The 2 cabinets you mention are likely the Vogue rear opener - see pic of one of mine. Quite sought after machines nowadays. Started out with coin tubes, then a few later games had a hopper. They also did a front opening version towards the end of its life. Here's 1 of mine:
View attachment 254791
Then there's the front opening Electra cabinet - coin hopper as standard.
All run Impact v1 or v3 tech. (I prefer v1, the battery is on its own board). I prefer the 80's style Vogue, but the Electra is miles easier to work on.
Do you have all 3 reels from Thru the Roof?? You should get them scanned and uploaded to DiF.
There's a JPM Pinball Wizard for sale on Marketplace right now:
https://www.facebook.com/share/nHYL7cVhiqqpSuuB/ (link will only work while it's for sale). Sadly I don't rate the game very highly - something changed in the programming between the mid to late 90's that took a lot of the fun out of the games. The games became more sterile as jackpots increased and safety nets for 'unconventional playing techniques' got added. Shame really, as it's the perfect theme for a Pinball room! Not a bad game, some decent features in there, just not one for me.
You can download the MFME emulator off DiF and play all the games. Sadly the creator Chris Wren died a few years ago, so his work is lost and no longer maintained, but there's a big community who like to create layouts and keep it going as much as they can.
Whoever worked in the JPM/ACE music department - I'd like to personally thank them for some inspired choices of music in the mid-90's games.
