What a great bingo weekend! I had a friend who flew over from across the US and we enjoyed playing the bingos at two different homes.
I got his feedback on the multi and showed him the screen games I have been adding. His help and feedback have been invaluable thus far, and will continue to be (I'm sure) until this project is complete.

One thing that was very helpful, he went through the code with me to understand how I was emulating various functions. I took him through an entire Magic Screen game, and he noted that my mixer routines may need adjustment. I may allow for travel that is more than can be accomplished in the mechanical units. I'll film some mixers running and see if I can figure out an average after analysis.

I really had a ton of fun and got to hear some great stories about playing, and even observed his playing technique first-hand.
You'll hear a brief interview in a couple weeks on the show. Thanks again, Phil!

I'll see what I can do. I may be able to start on that this weekend.

I plan to mark each mixer and review how it moves. Mixer #1 in multi-mixer games always moves 1 position.

Mixer #2-3-4-5 all move in random amounts (as does the spotting disc). But it's really pseudo-random since the mixers do not travel more than X number of positions in a single spin cycle.

There are mechanical items which impede or allow the movement, and clutches that engage to control the spin. When the cycle is finished, the mechanical items fall back into place, halting further movement. At that time, the game will award you feature or odds advances.

My prior method was to take a random number between 1 and the maximum number of positions of the mixer with each spin - so the mixer has 24 positions - it could theoretically move and land in the exact same place with a single spin. In reality, it was much more likely to land somewhere in the 5-8 positions range. I've hard-set my mixers to move 8 and I get a fairly reliable advance. At lower odds, it is very unlikely that you won't have some kind of advance, at least for every other coin input.

As you might gather, this is fairly complex stuff. It was the one area which I knew very little about before starting this project - I knew the basics, the mixers allow or prevent things from lighting through the spotting disc, but I didn't know exactly how they interacted.

Explaining it is a bit complex too - there are relays which are engaged based on the type of game to allow/ignore input from the various mixers based on mixer position or relays engaged for pic-a-play. It also varies from game to game, though I have found that spotting is fairly consistent between games.

Too much detail with no video. I'll work on it! I have to take the video anyway to analyze. Just be ready for long boring shots of the back of a mixer, with me mumbling behind it.

Game #50 is complete! The Twist is a really unusual game. There are guaranteed advances per coin. Meaning: when you put in a coin, the machine will light one of four panels, telling you what the /next/ coin will accomplish.

This game also has a unique feature. The Magic Cards are similar to magic screen, but instead of changing the scoring layout of the card, it changes the physical layout - kind of like moving all five magic lines on a Miss America at once - up to 11 times!

Incredibly difficult to coordinate scoring and lighting the appropriate numbers. With a six card, all six cards are visible at once for me to work from. With this, I had to end up working on the graphics first, so that I ensured the scoring was accurate. It's really easy to confuse yourself when you're working with 9x11 sets of 5 numbers...

For example, here's a sample of the red winners in one of the cards:

#Red Winners
self.pos[1] = {3, 14:2, 8:3, 12:4, 3:5}
self.pos[2] = {14, 5:2, 16:3, 7:4, 2:5}
self.pos[3] = {3, 14:2, 22:3, 16:4, 8:5}
self.pos[4] = {22, 7:2, 18:3, 4:4, 16:5}

Well, you can imagine.

*Whew*!

Now, one other interesting tidbit - there are mixers in this game... but they're fairly useless. The spotting disc controls everything, and the mixers only limit multiple steps on the extra ball unit.

Everything else is guaranteed. Including single steps on the EB Unit.

There is no mechanism for extra steps on the odds, and the odds steppers are 10 steps instead of only 8.

What a weird game.

I really am looking forward to playing it. Unfortunately, time is an issue for the next week or so.

I will be making an absolutely massive upload to the public repo. I'll post it here when that's done.

Next, I'll work on... some other game. I'm really at a crossroads, since I have run out of games with limited buttons, except for the beautiful United games that don't have many good backglass images publicly available. I can develop all the games, but I cannot test them until Steve and I work together to build the button drawer to house the button overflow.

Source code has been pushed to the public repo for the first 50 games. Only 82(?) more... https://github.com/bingopodcast/bingos

Mixer analysis:

I used Bounty as my sample, as most of the games with multiple mixers are Magic Screen.

Mixer #1 - moves 1 position, every time. Already done.
Mixer #2 - moves an average of 9.4 positions each spin (depends on if Mixer latch is held while a feature steps). Min- 3 Max - 23
Mixer #3 - average of 5.15 positions each spin. Min - 2 Max - 22
Mixer #4 - average of 5.18 positions each spin. Min - 2 Max - 9
Spotting Disc - average of 18.83 positions. Min - 17 Max - 32

These averages were taken over a minimum of six cycles. Some mixers that had wildly different spins were tested over 15 spins.

My plan would be to implement spin methods that vary per mixer - for example, right now I can move anywhere from 1-8 positions on ANY mixer besides mixer #1. I will change it to introspect the name of the mixer and if mixer #2, move between 3 and 10 positions. The outliers are removed, since they are only moving that much due to outside circumstances and do not have an effect on the award of the feature.
Mixer #3 will move randomly between 2 and 7 positions
Mixer #4 will move between 2 and 9 positions.
Spotting disc will move between 15 and 30 positions.

It 'felt' pretty good on some of the Magic Screen games using my initial method. I'll see what happens when I put this in.

Couldn't resist: I loaded up The Twist on the Multi this morning. I will say that though the coining part of the game is unlike any other, the gameplay is actually fairly tough. Because the awards are guaranteed, Bally added two extra steps to the odds stepper and changed the payouts on maximum odds for three in line.

In theory, having all those repeating numbers is a great deal and makes the game really easy - in practice, well, you actually have to make the numbers in question.

I found a scoring bug on screen #10 - I have a feeling that there's more where that came from, so I'll need to go back through all of the positions and test scoring... see you in a year!

Added another new game - #51 is the next-to-last six card to add - Keeney's Rainbow. Not particularly notable, but they swiped the 'R' button registers replays from Bally.
I also modified the mixers and spotting disc as mentioned earlier. Looks good from my limited testing - I'll see how it is when I play actual games.

And another new game - Keeney's Venus was added - it was the first game with Double or Nothing play. Implemented about 6 years before Bally used it for the first time.

The footrail had three buttons right beside each other on the left - one was play regular, one was play 'feature' (double or nothing) and the third was search. I've implemented my game per the score and instruction cards, so you have to press red or green to play regular or feature.

And that's the last of the regular six cards.

I was wrong though, there's more! Shoot-a-line still needs to be written, and there are 6 'duplicates' - games where only the artwork was modified between releases. I also have a single Single Coin with a special glass that I will implement, since those have an interesting history.

I'm a little under the weather, so progress has been slow. I am working on a new United game, currently, but the portioning has been destroying my poor beleaguered brain.

I believe I have the extra ball portioning complete (this game has completely different portioning than the game(s) before it). It still uses the dual reflex and multiple mixer that only step when the flash motor is in a particular position, but it changed which mixers and which wires provide voltage.

Also, there are multiple paths to step up that go through 100% completely different units. Unusual, to say the least. I think that the previous extra ball logic was waaaaaay too tough on earlier United games, so this is probably a way for them to compensate.

They did mostly do away with the inner and outer rivets causing separate things to happen, which I am thankful for, but it means that all of the portioning must be rewritten.

Slowly, slowly. I will hopefully have a chance to work on the feature and odds portioning tonight?

I know I've mentioned previously, but these United games are so beautiful. The artwork is just incredible. I'm hoping that the portioning retains some similarity between this game and the next. It's just so different!

Lunchtime - all portioning written for the new game - I have to add the units I am stepping or relays I'm engaging, then handle the graphics positioning, and this game will be ready to test!

I think it's going to be a very fun game.

United's Cabana is the next game available in the Multi (#53)!

The portioning is actually quite different from the United games that came before.

Beautiful, fun game, and opens the doors for portioning many more United games.

I've finished the graphics for the next game - Tropics was the follow-on game to Cabana, and the designer must have lost his mind.

A feature granted at the top of the spotted number unit allows you to select jumps all the way to the top of the odds, top of the extra ball unit (all three extra balls guaranteed!), turn on corners, or light both super cards.

A couple of those are relatively useless, but advancing your scores all the way to the top? Craziness! United games take a bit longer to advance the odds, especially for the last two steps, on regular coin play.

I am curious to see how this one turns out... there are some other unique features coming up...!

And Tropics is done! Next up is Tahiti (from United). Oddly, United added tiny super cards along with regular super cards. These cards are 2x2.

They also modified the select-a-feature that was introduced with Tropics. Oddly, that jump to top odds was removed - who could've guessed?

None of the numbers can be spotted on the Special Cards, which makes them a bit challenging - but you only need two numbers to win 3!

Tahiti is done! Now on to Rio - the first production game with Lite-a-Name! The catch is that it won't be a carryover feature for some time. The good news is that ball return will light a letter as well as the rollovers! On the real hardware, the rollovers are replaced with ball returns. Pretty neat - unfortunately, I cannot use a real United playfield due to the difference in ball size. I would have to change out the trough and lifter hardware to do that. These games are gorgeous.

Here's the menu for Tahiti

tahiti_1_menu (resized).png

And for Tropics

tropics_menu (resized).png

And Cabana:

cabana_menu (resized).png

Rio is done! The first production game with Lite-a-name. The name is always out to start the game, and one of the ball return, left rollover and right rollover will always light one of the letters.

If you light 'R-I' you get an automatic 3 in line score and lighting 'R-I-O' gives a 4 in line score.

The catch is that you cannot earn another 4 in line score from gameplay, only the difference between 4 and 5, so you're most likely better off to start a new game if you earn RIO.

Next up on the travelogue: Havana.

Havana is done! This was the first game United produced with a 'Ball Return' feature. Unlike Bally's continuation of the same game - seen in Surf Club or Palm Springs - United started an entirely new game with the same features and odds available.

Next up on my tour of the United world - Mexico!

Still couldn't get over the craziness of Tropics jumping your odds all the way to the top, so I called in a second opinion...

When you spend all your free time looking at schematics, you can make mistakes! In my case, I mistook an EOS switch for a limit switch on the odds unit.

When you advance your score on Tropics, it actually only jumps one position... should I leave it at top?!? (Just kidding, it's already fixed).

Mexico is finished, so I hopped on the plane to Hawaii! Hawaii was the first game United made with diamond diagonal scoring.

Interesting feature - like a portion of the red diagonals that would come later.

Hawaii also replaced 3 scores as 4 on the select-a-feature bar with 4 scores as 5.

Starting with Mexico - the Lite-A-Name feature was changed to a trip relay instead of an automatic award.

I realized that as I was reading the schematic for Hawaii - they made a few interesting changes beginning with this game. The diamond diagonal scoring feature is really nice, as is the change to the select-a-feature - you can now earn the ball return auto-magically if you have a really bad game!

...and Hawaii is done! Now I'm back to the continental US with Nevada.

When you get that first (really rare) all four star zones for 600, definitely upload a pic d0n ! Very happy to hear you are enjoying it.
They are a unique and very fun part of pinball history.

Nevada is now done! There were several portioning changes and a schematic misprint or scan anomaly to contend with, but it's done!

Nevada was the first production game to use a stepper for the Lite-A-Name feature. It was a carryover and would continue near to the end - if not all the way.

Next stop, heading to Singapore!

And Singapore is now done!

I have one more United game to implement before United completely changes their portioning - and my tour is done for now.

United switched to non-place names beginning with the next game.

If I'm counting correctly, I have over 60 games complete now?

Happy Thanksgiving, US folks!

Holidays don't stop me! I finished up Tropicana, and my next game is a Bally. It's a type that has not yet been completed, but I had multiple people at York ask about it. It's a very interesting game that I've never played, and has a unique hook - a portion of the bingo card is hidden, and revealed at intervals until the entire 5x9 card is shown.

Looks like a tough game and I hope it will move quickly - I have some new graphics to draw that will only be used on this game.

d0n I haven't forgotten your request, but today has been rather family-centric, so couldn't fire up the gameroom. I'll see what I can do tomorrow.

And Miami Beach is all wrapped up!

This was the only game Bally produced with a 'Magic Curtain'. As you play, the bingo card has a chance of expanding up to four positions from the default.

Corners are not available until you reveal them by moving two sections of the curtain.

Gorgeous, interesting game.

I went back and counted... and this is game #63!

I also fixed my Twist scoring issue this morning. Talk about embarrassing - I had a limiter in place to prevent scoring above the max card - but I must've been testing a particular card position at one point... I had left in a specific limit instead of the max card.

Easily fixed.

I have about a dozen or two things in process related to the podcast or to the game here. I am likely going to try to keep momentum up by starting to knock out the 'duplicates'. Games like Barrel 'O Fun '62 & etc. Quick, easy games to knock out, then move on to United's Triple Play, one of two baseball-themed bingos!

I'm thrilled with the recent progress. Seeing my 'to-do' list dwindling is pretty special. I also had some great revelations about how I am handling portioning beginning with Miami Beach. It seems I know a thing or two now... one of my goals with this project may be met!

Some glamour shots taken today and a little movie of the close-to-current menu - I've added three more games in the menu since I took that video this morning.

IMG_20161126_144044 (resized).jpg
IMG_20161126_144114 (resized).jpg
IMG_20161126_144132 (resized).jpg
IMG_20161126_144201 (resized).jpg

Thanks @d0n!

I finished up the original Fun Spot today, and Barrel O' Fun '62 is mostly complete. I am still reviewing the manual to see if there are any spotting unit changes between '61 and '62.

Graphics are complete on Fun Spot '61/'62/'63. I found a GREAT 'Spot-Em' image that has certain colors screened incorrectly from the original BOF '61.

I figure that will be an easy way to see the distinction.

These 'duplicate' games are hard to find in original condition. In fact, the 'Spot-Em' is apparently a factory screened glass (from Bally) - they came in three different varieties - one for the original Fun Way, one for Fun Spot and one for Fun Spot '61/2/3. Aside from the title change there were small color changes. Odd. Probably made for jurisdictions where the 'Fun' games were outlawed?

The next game on my to-do is a bit of a surprise, but it's in the same vein as these duplicates.

Lots 'o progress, but I have to get to bed a bit early, so not yet ready to reveal the 'mystery game'.

However, here's what I did accomplish:

Fun Spot '61
Fun Spot '62
Fun Spot '63

I have ensured that the portioning is correct for each of these (just subtle differences in the spotting disc), and I wrote a new automatic replay function since the old one just quit working. Hmm. Not sure what happened there, but the new one works well!

I also sat down with the portioning for Variety, the first game with moving numbers (in this case, Magic Lines). All the documentation was available for Big Time (the next game) and luckily, almost all of the wire colors matched between the two games (one small exception on Mixer #4, but I fudged it).

Reading ahead, since I had the docs open and in front of me... I looked into the schematic for Big Time... let's look at Phil's writeup... 'almost exactly the same...' looking at the schematic - HEY! He's absolutely right.

Bally made a change to the portioning for Magic Lines - the run to the top is only prohibited if corners are lit on Big Time. On Variety, there is a secondary portioning against the reflex... so actually, on Big Time, it's possible to have a run to the top in two positions, if the corners are not lit. On Variety, you can have a run to the top on two positions, but only if the reflex allows.

Small change, but substantive.

Also: this may be the first game I've run across where odds stepping is impossible beyond a certain point. Variety and Big Time both will prevent odds steps if you have both super cards lit. At that point, you can light additional features but NO MORE odds jumps are possible.

Long story short, I wrote the complete portioning for both games! I have my mystery game to finish tomorrow, then will work on the graphics and search routines for Variety and Big Time. That should be interesting...

Mystery game time - nothing special really, but an implementation of a 'Single Coin'.

The story goes that a group of operators in PA got together and had a variety of backglasses screened, mostly for Shoot-a-line or to replace the glass in Lotta Fun, Barrel 'O Fun or Barrel 'O Fun '61. I've implemented a Pittsburgh-themed glass that modifies a Lotta Fun.

As far as gameplay changes, the local regulations required that you only had to spend a single coin to light the whole game. Thus, an extra relay or unit was added to hold the start relay down until all six cards were lit on coin play.

I've worked to reverse several of these games, where a Dixieland or Nashville was converted to Single Coin play... just an interesting footnote in history.

Oh, I know exactly what you mean, and I certainly have enough to do that - a 'wheel' type interface would work well. Press left and right to choose the manufacturer, then the 'r' button to select.

Easy enough, and would mesh well with what I'm doing already.

I'd lose the little flavor text, though.

That's probably a better interface for this, though there are only four manufacturers... Bally was incredibly prolific. It wouldn't subdivide enough, I don't think?

Keep in mind that the interface is largest using the default 25 hole playfield.

I'm working on game #70 right now. All 70 of these games use the standard 25 hole playfield with rollovers.

I have another 34 to implement using this playfield. The maximum you'd press to get from Bright Lights all the way to Mississippi Showboat would be 104.

However, slap a different playfield in, and the menu contracts to 2-16 games. More manageable, and the interface would be completely usable in this context.

I think... what I might do... is implement something like those multi-videos. If you hold down a button for a while, it changes the behavior - perhaps flipping through the games very quickly? Since the games are chronologically ordered... it makes lots of sense - you just stop around the year you want, then you only have to press a few times to get to the game you want.

Thank you for the suggestions - I'm still open to these ideas, just thinking out loud.

Alright, lots of progress for tonight - I finished that six card - all the duplicates are complete for the 25 hole playfield.

Variety - I wrote all the display routines, and wrote a new search routine to use the magic lines. This same routine should work for Magic Squares, and I'm pretty excited that the display routines actually work for moving the lines. I'm really ham-fisting it right now, but I'll go back and add smooth animation at a later date.

My search is working for default positions, but doing some odd things for other line positions. That's my goal for tomorrow.

Since I won't have knobs to turn to select line position, you'll have to press buttons to get the numbers in the appropriate spots.

Big Time should fall quickly... probably by the end of the week.

This opens up the door for Miss America, MA Deluxe, MA Supreme, and MA 75.

Big Time (game #71)! All five columns can be moved up and down one position. I've written the portioning a couple days ago, today, I wrote the search routines and the graphics routines.

All working!

Next, I'll work on United's Triple Play.

Alright @zimjoe! Can't wait to have all the bugs come out for you...

Lunchtime! Triple Play graphics were completed last night, today I did all the portioning. I also checked and the portioning for Manhattan is 100% the same. Should be pretty easy.

Pixies would be the next United after Manhattan...

zimjoe did bring the bugs - but I've squished 'em. Other than that, I'm still working on positioning graphics. Too tired to do more tonight! Should have at least Triple Play complete tomorrow. Positioning 25x3 numbers takes a while, plus all the features.

Triple Play - complete! Boy, when the portioning changes, it takes a lot longer to test!

Here's an example of the difficulty with this game:
It's a three card game - one card guaranteed per coin
New layout of spotted numbers - have to rewrite how that works to handle the different layout (16 is now the hardest number to achieve).
Corners score 5
Each card can score separately - there's a new unit to keep track of the separate scoring - used in many more United games.
Lite-A-Name has one more position - have to test each position
New portioning had some bugs - the switch to Bally-style portioning caused some issues with the frequency of lighting certain features. Careful tweaking and testing required.

Each of the new scoring features and award of features and odds jumps are very difficult.

Here's the great thing: the award of the features /seems/ like it is accurate to other games of the era. I can port the mechanical portions of the portioning to the remainder of the United games (I think).

This is one of two baseball-themed bingos produced.

Another game finished that fell off my to-do list: United's Manhattan! Cool two card game with separate scoring. Uses the same card layout from the first two cards of Triple Play.

A multi-card game with spotted numbers is pretty neat.

I'm working on another United title now. The schematic is not available currently. I'm going to pull portioning from a later game. Luckily United did not change their portioning outside of the major evolutions in hardware.

Pixies - also added! Beautiful artwork - this is the first United game with red diagonal scoring. It has all of the features of my Caravan, except for the Roto.

Red diagonals can use a separate scoring stepper (so you can earn replays on the regular bingo card and on the red diagonals separately).
Special Pocket feature can light for pocketing hole #24 - this advances a carry-over stepper that will grant all 8 balls next game guaranteed.

The smallest Lite-A-Name using the carryover model. Just a neat game!

I had to guess at a small bit of the portioning, but again, it feels that it is correct.

In my (extremely limited) experience, odds steps are fairly hard to achieve, whereas features are relatively easy. This latest set of portioning seems to hold up.

By the way... there are only seven United games left using a standard 25 hole playfield. Inching closer!