Joctronic S.A.

Joctronic S.A. was founded by José Daniel Cortijo in April 1979 in Tortosa, in Spain's Tarragona province, first as an arcade route and then as a maker of video-game cabinets such as Mister Jo, Road Fighter and Blue Bird, incorporating formally in December 1985.

The company entered pinball in 1986 at its arcade-operator customers' request, building the electronics and cabinets in-house: Punky Willy, whose soundtrack ran on variations of "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida," and Walkyria arrived that year, and a third machine, marketed simply as Pin Ball, followed in 1987 and won an award at that year's FER trade fair. Joctronic never returned to game manufacturing after the 1980s, though the company survives in Tortosa today as a gaming-machine operator run by Eugenia Cortijo, the founder's daughter.