Tim Arnold of the Pinball Hall of Fame services one of the many vintage pinball machines that can be found at the museum. Photos by Ruben D. Luevano/Review-Journal. One of the attractions of the museum is the period artwork adorning the machines.

Nostalgia-seekers can get their fix of music and movies. But when it comes to old pinball machines, there aren't a lot of options, other than buying one.

Except for the not-for-profit Pinball Hall of Fame, a combination pinball museum and arcade created by Tim Arnold and Mike Clark.

"People come in here and remember playing these games and where they were when they played them," says Arnold, who owns the 200 machines in the Hall of Fame and another 800 in a warehouse in his backyard.

To pick the right ones to put in the museum, which opened two months ago, Arnold says he "concentrated on the weirdest or most popular games."

The games range from the 1948 Rondeevoo and 1952 Hayburners to Doctor Dude and Vegas from 1990. The newest machines date from 1994. The museum also features a few old video games such as Pac-Man.

Because of the popularity of video games, pinballs have taken a hit in recent years. Today there is only one company, Stern of Chicago, making games, and only three new ones per year.

"It's just barely hanging on," Arnold says.

Before retiring and moving to Las Vegas from Michigan in 1990, Arnold worked in the arcade business, but he says he got out of it because he would go home every day and feel like taking a shower. "I couldn't stand the people in the arcades and the violent, misogynistic games that I abhor. The most violent thing here is Pac-Man eating dots."

No tokens are used to play the games, just quarters. Half of the machines, the vintage models, cost 25 cents a game and the more recent games are 50 cents.

"Our customers are adult males reliving their youth and discovering new machines," Arnold says.

"Pinball is a game of skill, unlike video poker or video games. Here you have control of the outcome because you control the ball. Kids just don't get it. But once they try it, a lot of them get into it. They consider this 'Dad's game.' "

All of the money made at the museum after paying rent and utilities goes to charity, such as the Salvation Army, St. Jude's Ranch or Catholic Social Services, Arnold says. "We only do the most efficient charity, none that has an expensive board of directors. It's a 100 percent labor of love, the belief that at the end of the week some money will go to the homeless" or another group that needs help.

"We are capitalists, but a lot of the time we act like socialists," Arnold says. "It's all about the games."

Arnold and Clark, who have worked together since 1978, take split shifts during the museum's hours of operation. Part of the time is spent fixing machines, which isn't as easy as it looks. Each machine is different, and there are no replacement parts to buy because the companies that made them are no longer in business.

"It's a real challenge to keep something like this running," Arnold says. "We're using scrapped-out machines. One day there will be no spare parts."

Some parts are made by Arnold and Clark, and some take a bit of creativity -- some parts were adapted from a vacuum cleaner.

"Our goal here is to have fun," Arnold says, "and hopefully raise a lot of money for charity."