I recall in the 70s electro-mechanical games were pretty common here (Italy), just a few years before Pong, Asteroids and later Space Invaders and Pacman change

I recall in the 70s electro-mechanical games were pretty common here (Italy), just a few years before Pong, Asteroids and later Space Invaders and Pacman changed it all. There was that shooting game with the base projecting beams shaped as flying birds on a big screen and real size rifles with photocells that would score a point when hitting a bird, or the bear hunting game, probably using IR as I don't recall any visible beams, then F1 racing games, naval warfare ones, and many others I don't recall atm. And of course pinball, the king of all mechanical games. If I invested 10% of what I spent there I would have some serious money by now:). Those games were mostly electro-mechanical, built to perform one function and of course not programmable, they likely had just the minimum electronics necessary to play sounds or drive actuators. Taking one apart would have an enormous instructional factor.