Texas Ranger (Prototype)

The Texas Ranger prototype, designed by Ed Krynski with art by Gordon Morison, is a rare non-commercial home-model prototype built by Gottlieb, sharing its backglass and playfield with the commercial Add-A-Ball version made for the Italian market, Gottlieb's 1972 'Texas Ranger'. Only one is known to have been built, and it never went into production.

The prototype's gameplay features two flippers, two pop bumpers, two slingshots, ten drop targets, and three standup targets, plus parallel lanes of serial rollovers on the right side of the playfield and an open-elbow inlane letting the ball pass between the inlane and outlane. An end-of-ball bonus rounds out scoring, while sound is provided by two bells and a knocker.

What sets this prototype apart mechanically is its home-oriented engineering: it has no coin door, a shallow lower cabinet (its motor, transformer, and relays are relocated into the hinged backbox rather than a motor board), and an externally mounted power switch. Gottlieb designer John Osborne, who joined the company in 1972, recalled the machine already sitting unused in the company playroom and believed it to be the only one built; no schematic for it was ever drawn up, as the project never left the engineering department.