A patron at a modern bowling alley, where a mechanical device called a pinsetter or pinspotter sets the pins back into their original positions, returns bowling balls to the front of the alley, and clears fallen pins, might need to be reminded that these devices perform tasks that in a former era were performed manually by “pinboys.” Gottfried Schmidt was awarded a patent for the first mechanical pinsetter in 1940; he sold the patent to American Machine and Foundry (AMF) in 1941, and AMF “pinspotters” were first marketed in 1952.