Techno Stuff
How They Work - Mixer #5
Mixer 5 first showed up with the mystic lines games, and it operates differently from the other mixers.
Rather than stopping randomly at one of 24 possible positions, it uses an escapement mechanism similar to a clock to move the mixer rotor one position for every coin/credit played.
This allows Bally to guarantee that certain thing can or cannot happen on for a series of machine cycles. If you have the diagram of mixer 5, and the schematic, and you know what position mixer 5 is at, you could use that information to determine to optimal button to push on the front door (scores only, features only, or special game). Or if you had one credit left and wanted to play for extra balls, you might know that getting one was impossible, so you save your credit.
Mixer 5 tends to effect very specific circuits, and there is no real
general way to make the gameplay easier except by jumpering around
the mixer 5 wires if it's safe to do so, or by modifying the spaghetti
wiring on the mixer 5 contact plate itself.
