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- description
- Magic Lines is a feature of [[game-format:bingo-pinball]] machines that puts some of the numbers on the [[gameplay-feature:bingo-cards]] on movable strips — typically a full vertical column of the card's grid. Knobs or buttons on the machine shift a strip up or down one position, the number leaving one end reappearing at the other, so a near-miss card can be nudged into a paying line.[1][2] It was the first bingo feature to mechanically move the numbers themselves.[3]
The idea arrived on *[[title:variety-2]]* (1954, [[manufacturer:bally]]), where the three left columns of the card could shift;[4][5] its follow-on *[[title:big-time-2]]* freed all five.[6][7] Later machines turned the lines sideways — *[[title:miss-america-2]]* (1957) slid numbers horizontally between two cards mounted side by side.[8] Where [[gameplay-feature:magic-squares]] rotates a block of four numbers in place, a magic line moves a whole column, and the two mechanisms defined Bally's card-moving games until the [[gameplay-feature:magic-screen]] arrived.
1. Bingo Pinballs — https://bingo.cdyn.com/machines/bally/variety The numbers on the bingo card were on strips that could be moved one position by turning knobs/pushing buttons on the foot rail. [...] Usually, the numbered strips were the vertical columns of the card
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- name
- Magic Lines
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- magic-lines
- status
- active