Game #25 is implemented... Continental was the first solid state bingo! It was tested in the US, but the entire production run was sent to Belgium and formed the basis on which all solid state bingos are made even today.

I cheated a bit with this one - the portioning is the same as Dixieland since the software has never been dumped. It has the same features... I figure that it's close enough?

Game #26 is also done! Lite-A-Line is one of the highest scoring games without the double or nothing or magic number features that I've yet implemented.

For five-in-a-line on card #6, you can earn 960 replays!

Cards 4, 5 and 6 lite on a mystery interval, but it's generally pretty easy to lite them, even after a biiiiiig win. The design of this feature is pretty neat. There's a separate motor that will rotate through 7 different positions - most run through a separate rivet on the reflex.

There's also a spotted number feature which is really really generous. It's more generous than the same unit used on Lotta Fun/Fun Way. Interesting!

I've played a very nice one in real life. It's a hard game. Making that 5 in a row is really difficult.

That may have had some influence on which games were implemented...

Honestly, I can't either! I'm just in overdrive right now. I have a few more surprises I'd like to get done.

Can't wait to get your thoughts! I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone's reaction.

This next game required some really fancy keyboard work to implement the crazy lifter logic as it works in the game! I think that this one is going to be a bit confusing to play, but that's how it really plays......

The graphics on this game are also going to be a bit rough, but there's only one mostly in-focus source image that exists.

...Moving on to another really interesting game at lunchtime.

Did up another game at lunchtime... but it's not quite ready yet. I'll test it tonight, and finish up the other game mentioned above!

Hole In One is now available on the multi! This game was never produced. I know of one that exists, complete, and a backglass was photographed years ago. There's no paperwork available, so no one knows how it really works.

I had a lot of fun designing and creating my own ruleset.

There's a single digit replay register (it looks like it can support a standard credit wheel, but I don't have that implemented, so the max credits is 9).

If you get a three in a row, you get a lit rating of 'Good' and a single replay.
If you get four in a row, you get a rating of 'Excellent' and two replays.
Five in a row gives you 'Superior' and three replays.

Another game added - Mississippi Showboat - only one is known to exist, and it was shipped overseas. This was the last full EM bingo produced by Bally.

It has all the features of Dixieland, but will accept another six coins - these will enable scoring of a special sixth ball. The sixth ball will only appear when you press the 'collect' button after shooting your first five balls. This was the confusing game I mentioned above.

There are only two really poor photos available on IPDB. I've done what I can! It's a pretty interesting idea, though. The extra six coins is a money grab, but you can really use this to your advantage.

I agree! I also like the fact that you can get a sixth ball and it will score up to the card you've paid for. Of course, you want the best odds, so getting that extra ball on card #6 with magic number hit, and the double double feature with double or nothing.... well, that's a pretty amazing feature.

Guaranteed extra ball features for a single coin like on Bali, Super Wall Street and Mississippi Showboat are very interesting to me. Your max bet only has to increase by 1 vs. the random number (usually relatively small, but greater than 1) for first extra ball on other games.

On a six card, it really makes every game quite lucrative for the player. On a three card, more numbers have to be made, and there's no red diagonal scoring or magic number doubling/quadrupling. But on a game like M.S. - you have so much opportunity to win.

It really has a beautiful, sharp stencil. The backglass is very colorful - the whole package is pretty appealing.

I have absolutely no insight as to why it didn't get made. Bally was performing some very interesting experiments, like with Continental, at this time. I can only imagine that the pressure in the states was too great, or their sale of bingo division was happening to IGT or ?

I'd really like to know what was happening at Bally in their last bingo days.

I'm also really curious about Apollo Ball, which was on their production list, but never seems to have been produced at all - no documentation or photos have ever been found.

While we're talking about rarities and etc. - I found that there's a listing for Tahiti from earlier in the 1970s! It was apparently a three card machine... I wonder if it was also a retheme of Bali? Again, no photos available.

I'm obviously /incredibly/ interested in any information anyone might have on one of these games, or this bit of history with Bally.

Logic is complete for another three(!) games. I have my typical graphics work to do. This will complete all the six card bingos that Bally produced using a standard 25 hole playfield... save one. That one should be really, really simple, but I have a lot of testing and positioning of various elements to do before I start on that one.

After that: I have two more games I'd like to complete before York. Unknown if I will be able to do so.

Oh doggone it. Looks like the last game doesn't have a documented (critical) unit.

I'm going to look through my physical paper archive and see if something's just missing from the online manual. Does anyone have a Bright Spot, by any chance?

Schematic makes it appear that the numbers are spotted for each coin, which seems a /bit/ generous. Haha!

Hey! Did some more graphical work and testing on game one of three over lunch and mulled this problem with Bright Spot over...

It only spots one of six numbers when the ball gate is hit with the first ball.

So the max number of spotted numbers is 1 (or 2 if the adjustment plug is in place).

Reading is fundamental.

Alright, I've got another game complete. Graphics, funky scoring system, portioning, all appear complete. Unfortunately, my old friend multi-winner bug rears its head. If I have a winner on card 1, 3, and 4 all at once, it only scores on cards 1 and 3...

Otherwise, it scores just fine.

EDIT: OK - as soon as I post something like this, I figure out the solution. My count_seq function - that checks for sequential hits - resets to 0 if you have a blank number between. It should have reset to 1. Fixed.

Another two machines are complete - Blue Chip and Bull Market.

These are sister games - Blue Chip and Bull Market are 70s six cards that allow the user to choose one spotted number (out of the six numbers that are the center on one card). There are a series of relays and a continuous stepper that controls this feature, but it only VERY rarely awards. You only get 4 chances on a 50 position selector stepper. Each of the 4 chances then looks through additional units. Depending on the position of the reflex, you get one or two more connections.

It has an extended time tree option, but you cannot improve your time with additional coins. If you trip the before 3rd relay, you cannot get before 4th by putting in more money.

This adds a bit of extra strategy to the game. You have to choose where your winner is going to be, or strategically place a different center number up to give you access to that center number in another position on another card. That was a convoluted explanation.

Corners and super line scoring are back, and award on a random basis for the first six coins.

Bull Market was only produced for export. The artwork is almost the same, and the portioning and features are the same between the games.

These are games #30 and #31.

Another game complete - Bright Spot. I still suspect that the spotting unit has multiple spaces not documented - otherwise, you'd always get the same number.

Regardless, game #32 is done!

Game #33 is complete as well - this is Keeney's Holiday! It's a take-off on Bright Lights with triple scoring for additional coins.
There is no paperwork available, so I've taken the liberty of making the triple scoring guaranteed. I -suspect- that it should be randomized. At any rate, another beautiful early game, and a fourth manufacturer now in the Multi!

Took a closer look at the schematic for Bright Spot. There's an adjustment plug for the spotting unit that puts a second connection between two connections. This tells me that the unit has at least double the rivets that I thought. I've changed the code, and now spots are not guaranteed.

Who has time for trifles like eating and sleeping? Haha! Believe it or not, I am going at a fairly comfortable pace. Every unique Bally six card that was produced (and some that weren't) are now in the multi.

My next game is the first Bally with select-a-spot. A real 'Beauty'. I'm working on the graphics at the moment.

Select a spot is working (I had an implementation for Blue Chip/Bull Market, so I cribbed that set of routines.) In older games with select-a-spot, there were separate circuits with red bulbs to light the spotted number. I'm emulating that as well. I have all the feature/odds and etc portioning complete, but still have to write the EB portioning. It's taking me a while - this game is in the era where things are not quite as well documented. Bally must have been racing to keep up with production schedules!

I'm doing some reading ahead... while I do some grunt work on this latest game. I've figured out how to do Magic Lines animation... this opens many doors.

I've also figured out how to do Magic Curtains... and more importantly, how the scoring would work.

Magic Squares still elude me... as a terrible artist. Along with the roto games, Magic Numbers and anything where the animation has to be a particular speed ,and highly visible. I can do the same stripped down animation, of course. Maybe that's the answer until I figure it out for sure. This would not require additional hardware or a lot of knowledge that I don't have (currently).

Magic Screen is definitely doable (even without heavy duty animation). Same with The Twist (I think).

Mystic Lines are hazy in my mind (as to how I'll handle the animation).

Haha, true enough.

I just finished testing Bally Beauty! This is a really fun game. The select-a-spot is one of my favorite features, and I have had fun figuring out the puzzle of the extra ball portioning on this game.

If I implement exactly as shown on the schematic, it took over 40 coins, consistently, to get the extra ball unit to step a single position (and that's with a guaranteed first step).

In this case, the mixers are not documented. Though the schematic shows only two rivets on mixer 3 (only one is actually connected if you have certain features enabled) there /must/ be multiple rivets connected together.

I had to play with percentages to get the game to step even semi-appropriately.

Reflex, mixer #1 (guaranteed single step per coin), and mixer 2 (multiple connections unless super scores enabled) all also play a part in the portioning for EBs... that and the position of the spotting disc.

There's a sample of what I'm trying to do, and why these things take a bit of time to test.

But that makes game #34!

One last bug to squish then the next game is done! I have the artwork ready for another two games after this one. We'll see what I can get done. The portioning and features are becoming much more complex. Incremental Select-a-spot with an extended time tree is actually quite complex.

Bug(s) squished! It looked like one, but turned out to be three separate bugs.

1) Select-a-spot was not actually keeping the number in certain positions after the fourth or fifth ball was shot. This was due to a >= comparator instead of == - whoops!

2) Before fourth and before fifth were acting weird on the display - this was hard to diagnose until #1 was fixed. I rewrote the display logic for it, and all is well.

3) Select-a-spot was awarding one extra position when it reached the first 'award' position - in this game, you can progressively earn more and more spotted numbers until you earn the center spotted numbers on the super card. The trick is that you have to pick only one digit to remain before shooting your fourth or fifth ball.

So... what is this game?

It's Bally's Beach Club! Beach Club is a great game with a ton of depth. Advancing select-a-spot with extended time tree, advancing odds (without the diagonal vertical and horizontal scoring differently), star rollovers spot three numbers, and two super cards. Corners, if awarded, score 200 on the main card, but 300 on the super cards. Just a fantastic game. (#35)

The next game will be a real test.

Zimjoe, well, you know where to find me.

Game #36 is done! Yacht Club - this is a game that works like a proto-magic screen. You can change the physical layout of the card by pressing left or right (on the real game, you do so with a dial).

I found this game to be quite challenging to implement. Again, the units are not particularly well documented anymore, so I can't be certain that the portioning is 100% correct. I've made some minor tweaks to liberalize the game a bit. I only make these changes for single step movements. Multi-step movements remain as drawn on the schematic, which generally makes sense with how these games operate in the real world.

Some games you get really good spins of those units, others... not so much!

In real life, I've found Yacht Club to be quite challenging, because keeping track of the diagonal numbers is difficult with no visual indicator. I'm excited to get this implemented as it will ease the way for games like all of the Magic Screens and The Twist, etc.

Another change to the Bally wiring: the search disc - Bally was able to reuse several rivets, but I had to extend my search disc by 10 positions... (ssh!)

Wellllllll.... I've been thinking about this more and more since I've physically built the game up. The way the dial works is that there's a wiper board behind it. A coil will pull away from the dial, freeing it when the feature is granted. This is really cool and I love the physical dials - but! The complexity in wiring is probably too great. Especially since different games had a different number of rivets on the wiper board.

I can almost hear you saying, 'but Nick, why don't you just put some leaf or microswitches or something around it, and fabricate an arm to hit them?' - well, I have thought of that, too, and the main factor there is just space. In fact, that's another reason not to do a dial at all - wiper board or no. Just too bulky of a mechanic. I haven't yet found a game that included a dial and also included left and right buttons, so I think in this instance, I can just substitute it. I am emulating the wiper board, though - this means that if the dial is seven positions and you've only qualified three, you have to click through 'dead spots' to get back to the initial position.

...I'm gonna call it 'good enough'.

Yes, and taking apart the mixer units and documenting. Phil Hooper provides nice templates for doing so on his site, and he and others have documented many many games. The documented machines are mostly later models, though.

As far as York - no, there just won't be time to do something that ambitious, plus it would take a physical Yacht Club out of the picture! It'll keep. The game plays, and plays pretty close to how I remember - 'good enough' for now.

Yes - as I mentioned early on - I really wanted to see how and why Bally made certain decisions with regard to how the games are constructed, how the portioning works, etc. In this instance, I can tell you exactly why Yacht Club's card layouts are constructed as they are: it's so that Bally only had to use a single search disc!

A standard search disc has 50 positions - that is (at least) 5 wipers per position. In Yacht Club's case, more wipers were used, which allowed for them to hit multiple positions at once. Electrically, these positions work in Yacht Club, but in my emulation, I am forcing each winning position into a single 'row' of wipers. I cannot emulate (with my current code) a double set of wipers. And I haven't needed to... until now.

I could extend my SearchDisc class for Yacht Club to allow for 180 degree offset wipers... or I could just make the unit a little bigger than it really is. I opted for the latter, clean, simple, and just as effective. It's also much easier to follow in the code.

Believe me, when it was 11:45 last night and I realized what they had done, I was a little heartbroken that I couldn't emulate it.

The main feature on Yacht Club (overlapping cards) was really quite difficult to implement, but I very much enjoyed the challenge. I was surprised at how simple the portioning setup was (as documented in the schematic) when compared with Bally Beauty or Beach Club.

Never!!! Well, actually, I do need to stop and relax for a bit. I'm burning the candle at six ends simultaneously. This is really fun, but I do need to take a break (at least for tonight).

This is probably a good time to announce that I am unlikely to start and finish any more games in one night. The games are getting too complex to do the art, code, portioning, and testing all in one or two sittings like I've been able to do. I know I'm making this look pretty easy with how fast I'm doing it, but I assure you, it's complicated.

So, with that in mind, I am working on two games at the moment: United Showboat and Bally Dude Ranch. Showboat is a six card (and will also be at York!) that has a really interesting portioning and spotting scheme. I had implemented the vast majority of the game, but I think got discouraged due to having to rework part of the portioning (it's complicated).

Dude Ranch is a really cool game with great artwork - I have never played one, but long-time bingo folks have been telling me that this is a fantastic game, so I'm excited to play it! You qualify one of three features and can switch between them with a press of the green button. Cool idea, and looks like a real thinker!

Some testing happened this evening, I posted a few small videos.

I found a few small bugs, squished 'em.

And I added a new game! #37 is United's Showboat! Showboat is the only six card that United produced. It gives a guaranteed extra ball if you land in a particular hole. Cool stuff!

Alright everyone here's the latest deal: After a great series of suggestions from the custom pinball community (yet again) - I have taken on the unenviable task of rewriting all of my display and animation functions for each game to handle multiple button presses without delay in switch handling. This gives a less-than-100% animation, but does not mess up my lifter logic or other weird problems, so I'm good with it (for now).

I have finished 5 games worth of rewrites, will hopefully finish all before the end of the weekend. I am SO GLAD that I worked on six cards first, since this will be much more daunting in the future. Now I have a really nice display engine that will be much easier to modify per game.

16 games remaining (out of 38 - yes, that's right, I have yet another game in testing - needed a full graphical overhaul now and I am rewriting its graphics routines from scratch) need a display and animation rewrite. Inching closer. I expect there'll be a little fine-tuning when I get into testing on real hardware (hopefully tomorrow). Results are promising and the initial two games I converted worked like a dream.

A reminder: this fixes the 'press the button 100 times, queueing animations, but ignoring switch input until animations finish' problem I mentioned a while ago. Super excited to have this resolved, hopefully. Today I was able to fine-tune the changed functions to behave more like the real thing (which I mentioned yesterday I was less concerned about than missed switches).

Turns out that I really liked the animation. So, I have corrected that problem.

Now, once I test these, I'll move on to remaining games, as time permits.

OK, 13 left, but I'm beyond my limit. Time for sleep.

Systematically tested all 38 games in the multi. I have a page and a half of bugs, but they are mostly easily addressed.

I have an odd lifter bug if the ball is returned on ball 5 (the most important one to get right!!) - it just won't. This is probably due to overcompensation to prevent sixth ball lifting on 5 ball games.

Here's the rest of the bugs, but they are pretty bland otherwise - wrong or no rollover lights (for some reason), relays remain engaged on tilt that still show on the display, auto-coin play on 'Fun' games works, but it happens too quickly, some United games do not automatically lift the correct # of extra balls, timer is not reset on consecutive play, timeout mode is clearing all of the carryover variables (like # of replays!!!), and some animations are too lengthy and have a mix of blocking calls (replay step down) and non-blocking (display). I am going to fix all that and try again.

I may or may not be able to add any more games - depends on how long these take me to fix.

Almost all bugs addressed (except for the auto-coin play issues). Bedtime for now. Things are looking up again. I'll be testing these with the kids tomorrow. Ava came down and helped me test a bit tonight. She was asking why I hadn't finished the playfield swappable games yet... :-/ Soon enough, soon enough, haha!

Initial bugs fixed, round two of testing results:
1) Spot lite doesn't reset extra balls when awarded from game-to-game (whoops)
2) Lifter override not tied to eb steps on spot-lite (double-whoops)
3) Final ball return doesn't auto-lift, but it does now allow for lifter override to function
4) Long beach override doesn't work on extra balls, and eb doesn't auto-lift
5) Frolics, card six 1st row vertical didn't score a four in a row *sniff*
6) Frolics odds animation is still too long.
7) Showboat replay reset still doesn't reset replays (thought this was fixed - not yet)
8) YC - eb animation aligned incorrectly
9) High Flyer doesn't have odds listed on screen
10) MS no odds
11) Lotta fun no card sound on step up
12) Continental - digital reel needs more space between digits
13) Lite-a-line needs card sounds for cards 4-6.

The critical issues above have been fixed. And most of the non-critical.

I've been heavily testing the multi all weekend. Found a couple of bugs - and one wild goose chase (misadjusted gate switch - those cause problems in the real game too, though not as pronounced.). The lifter logic is very complex, and I realized through playtesting that if you have a returned ball on ball #5 (last ball, typically), the game will not know to re-lift it. I have a lifter override button wired in - like on the real hardware, and that was working, so I just added a new variable 'returned', normally False. If the ball count and the returned variable is set to true, the ball re-lifts. When the ball count increments (at the gate) it knows not to lift another. Works well. Then I had the problem of the 8th ball lifting....

The 8th ball is the last ball in the trough. I have compensation all over for that, to prevent the relay from staying engaged. Nothing worked properly, unfortunately, so I rewrote the shooter lane switch handler to kill the lifter relay when the 8th ball is in the lane. That works, and with another small addition to the ball return logic, it will re-lift without keeping the relay engaged. Yay.

Now the remaining bugs are really small - things like the insert lamps staying lit when the game is tilted. No big deal. Now I can get back to adding games...

Here's the remaining issues, for those following along:

Showboat replay reset doesn't work. Tilts but doesn't remove replays.
High flyer no odds on screen
Mississippi showboat no odds on screen
Continental digital reel poorly spaced. This causes the numbers to move as they increase, and you can see how I cheated the 'electronic' system... Your seams are showing!
Magic Number animation waaaay too slow on Continental, Dixieland, Nashville - this doesn't really pose a problem, except that the animation is blocking, despite being run through several delay methods... I've yet to investigate, but I'll likely just simplify the animation.
Check score and instruction cards for ALL games. Make them where they are not available.
Mississippi Showboat sixth ball scoring is incredibly inconsistent. Sometimes it chooses not to lift the sixth ball, period.

Silence motor noise on Continental. Retain card step up noise, remove search noise. Basically anything that counts as background 'music' should be removed from Continental until such time as I can record or ask someone to record a solid state bingo.

All score and instruction cards have been created except for Williams' Long Beach. I am making my own cards where I do not have clear images. Should look pretty sharp!

I've made all the cards now... what to do, what to do????

How about I add another game?

#38 is complete and ready for testing. This is a sample game called 'Rodeo' by United. It is a clone of the earlier 'Stars' with different artwork.

Oddly, this will feed into #39 as well... for which coding is almost complete.

#39 is also implemented, and it's... United Rodeo?!?

Yes, this is a bit odd, but United created two different games called 'Rodeo' and neither apparently made it to full production!

This Rodeo is a single card game, with lite-a-name (the first appearance!), which grants 8 balls your next game (love that feature).

United also added a three-scores-as-four feature, and a four-scores-as-five.

It otherwise is almost a direct port of Bally's Palm Beach - including the funky odds and everything!

Paperwork doesn't exist for this game either, so I am doing a 4 in 32 chance for lighting each of the above features, otherwise, internally, it's working as a Bally game (but no one will know.... or maybe they will), haha!

I am finished with the portioning for the amazing game #40 in the multi-bingo! I have a small bit of new functionality to write, then some graphics to position, and I will be ready for this weekend's heavy testing.

I'm really excited to play this game!

This afternoon at lunch, I updated the multi itself with all the new score/instruction cards and the new games... I played a LOT of Rodeo 1 card. I really like that game - like with most of the later United games, tons and tons of ways to win. It's a shame that they didn't take it to full production.

Yes, precisely. But only if the other units align and get you to the point where it checks the probability. Reflex and mixer1 are always in the circuit (unless the reflex is all the way back, then it just bypasses mixer1).

Remember, this one is set up to work like a Bally. The United portioning works a lot differently. I did this for convenience, since the Rodeo is a close cousin of Palm Beach.

Dude Ranch is done! Just in testing, I see why this game is so great - aside from being one of the only bingos produced that allows you to select a feature for high scoring, the game has spotted numbers which are pretty generous, and each card (1, 2 and super card) scores separately!

Really neat.

Thanks to pingeek and Jeffrey Lawton for the video - always helpful to ensure that portioning is correct -