Pipeline

Pipeline was a surfing-themed pinball machine designed by Atari but never put into production. Only scattered prototype parts and a handful of backglasses are known to have survived - reportedly as few as three backglasses were ever made.

According to former Atari employee Dan Kramer, who owns one of the surviving backglasses, a pilot run of around 50 units was reportedly planned and parts allocated, but the game appears to have gone no further than the prototype stage. Surviving pieces include drop targets (one bearing the imprint of a bare foot, reading "Hang Five"), MPU boards marked "Pipeline," wiring harnesses, and engineering drawings crediting C. Fernandez as artist and Slater as engineer - likely Gary Slater, who is credited as designer of Atari's 1978 'Space Riders,' whose playfield layout is nearly identical to Pipeline's.

Because no complete machine is known to have been assembled, Pipeline's gameplay was never finalized in a shipped product, though surviving design elements suggest a widebody solid-state layout featuring dual inlanes, star rollovers, drop targets, messenger balls, and spinning targets consistent with Atari's style of the period. It remains one of the more tantalizing "lost" prototypes in Atari's pinball history, known today only through a scattering of surviving parts and the memories of former employees.