Was talking to someone a few days ago, and was surprised that they weren't aware of some little things in TZ's software, so I thought I'd post here what I knew, to share -

Game Timers - There are two main game timers, 'Nice' and 'Strict'. The 'nice' timer is what you're usually familiar with. This timer pauses every time that the ball is 'captured'. Almost all modes use this timer - TSQMadness, Super Slot, Fast Lock, etc. i.e. You start Super Slot, and then lock a ball. The mode's timer will stop, until you shoot and start playing your next ball. The 'strict' timer is the timers that do NOT stop when your ball is captured. You may notice the Spiral lamps timing out when a ball is captured for lock, or in the powerfield. LITZ and the score timer for Powerball Mania are hard timers, too. Interestingly, the 'Triple Pickup' award for shooting around the spiral and into the hitchiker shot is a 'nice' timer - just very short.

Building on the above - The 'Mute & Pause' feature pauses all the 'nice' timers. It will not pause the strict timers. There's a fun little bug that good players can take advantage of - the flipper hold bit for the 'Mute & Pause' feature is dropped at every bonus count - including at the end of PB Mania and LITZ. So, right before LITZ expires, activate Mute & Pause. LITZ will end. When your ball resumes, all 'nice' timers will remain paused until the end of your ball.

And building on a high LITZ score, LITZ counts down all mode bonuses that it starts - Greed, TSQMadness, PB Mania. Since there is only one counter for these modes, any of these modes started before LITZ will be counted as your LITZ total. So, if you're really good, start Greed, TSQMadness, and start a PB Mania. When you start LITZ, these scores will be brought into LITZ, and any scoring there will be added to the existing score and totaled for LITZ - giving you a fantastic chance for new Lost In the Zone champion.

The 5-Mil targets score 10 million, when lit. Ted Estes knew of this when working on 9.4H, and chose to not fix it, as he was afraid it'd affect scoring too much.

On the 'Spiral' mode background, you'll notice three spirals. Since the game was originally designed with three magnets, those spirals were meant to indicate which magnets hadn't caught the ball yet. If your game has three magnets, then everything works as expected. If your game has two magnets, however, the right magnet will activate for both the center and right graphic.

Once the game knows there is more than one ball in the gumball machine (by either shoowing a powerball into it, and having a metal ball come out, OER, shooting a metal ball into it, and having the powerball come out), the gumball will start ejecting balls sooner, to save some time - normally, the motor will start when the 'Gumball Entry' opto is triggered. Once the game knows there is more'n one ball in there, it'll start the motor at the 'Gumball Lane' switch.

On top of that, the animation for the gumball dispense was made to be timed with the actual gumball dispensing a ball.

The 'Light Right Spiral' controlled light never went out in versions <9.4H, even in multiball and modes where spiral couldn't be awarded. It now only goes out rarely - ie. Multiball modes.

Powerball Mania - The software does not keep track of how many balls are in the powerfield. This means that you can get multiple jackpots for a single ball up there. Simply try to keep a ball on the powerfield as long as possible, and keep having it break the top PF opto. Shoot the other balls into the camera or dead end holes, and jackpots will be awarded. (This works really well in LITZ, as well - especially if you can shoot the first ball out of the slot machine up into the powerfield. As long as you hit that top opto to make the game believe a ball went out the top exit, balls leaving the gumball will trigger jackpots!)

I'm sure there's more; at the moment I can't think of any and have to run out. If I do, I'll update the post.

Enjoy. Get some playing (of any game) in today!