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README For United's 10th Inning Beta 2 (7/21/01)
Original Table designed by United Manufacturing Co.
Visual Pinball conversion by Warrior (warrior@despammed.com)
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Revision History:

Beta 2 (7/21/01)
-Sounds added to the table.
-Some minor adjustment of some kickout angles.
Note:  I have also been working on a Tech beta 4-specific version of this table which includes last score saving and makes use of some TB4-specific features.  These features will be integraterd as soon as a "stable" tech beta 4 version comes out.

Beta 1 (7/6/01)
-Initial public release of 10th Inning.

About this table:

10th Inning was a very early novelty flipper game (in fact, I believe it's the earliest flipper game recreated in VP to date) released by United Manufacturing Co. (UMC) in 1948.  It was a countertop game, and would most likely have been found in five-and-dime stores and similar locations.  Although United did produce pinball machines (mostly bingo pins, although they did produce a handful of pitch-and-bats as well) for approximately twenty years from 1942-1962, they are better known for their shuffle alley bowlers.  The United name was used by Williams for shuffle bowlers from the time they purchased UMC in the sixties until into the eighties.  

One feature to note on this table was the early version of a "Running Man Unit" used on the table which used balls as the runners.  When the runners advanced, the whole unit would rotate to advance the runners, and was a precursor to the running man units seen on later pitch-and-bats.  Bally's Heavy Hitter, a pitch and bat contemporary to 10th Inning, used a similar running man unit.  For my recreation, the runners are advanced along the base paths by kickers.  Although this effect looks cool on it's own, it's not an accurate depiction of the original table.

To be perfectly honest, I don't have a whole lot of info on this table.  I got the idea to do the table from searching through the Internet Pinball Database for baseball-themed pinball machines.  I chose this one for a couple of reasons:  First of all, the available pictures of the table, although of a badly thrashed example (I take it fifty plus years tend to be somewhat less than kind to a pinball machine) looked like they'd be workable (and the ruleset for the table looked like it could be interpolated fairly easily), and because I thought it would be cool to do a "Virtual Restoration" of the table.

I took the IPD pictures and started retouching in Paint Shop Pro.  The work required for this proved extensive, and almost ended up taking more time than I've spent so far building the table in VP.  The picture still needs work, and will improve with future table releases.


Rules: 
For the most part, I'm guessing on the rules for the table.  The Ball Release Button (Enter) releases a ball into play (note that the actual machine doesn't have a plunger, so for this version the ball is kicked into play when the release button is pressed.)  From there, it's pretty self explanitory, as hitting kickers on the playfield will advance the "runners" on the bases and score runs.  The game ends when three "outs" are recorded when balls are drained.

To do:
-The kickers probably still need to be adjusted to some degree.  Right now, I have them set in a way that they should all return the ball to one of the flippers.  I doubt that this is accurate.  If you would like to adjust the kickout angles, I have put them all in one convenient location in the script (the KickoutTimer_Timer() function.)   The script should also be commented fairly well.
-The graphics still need a little work, as there are still some artifacts left on the table picture.
-a better backdrop would be nice too.  When I have some time, I'll make one, unless someone else wants to take a shot at it.  
-The reset routines are pretty basic.  These need some work too.

Feedback:

If you own this table, or know someone who does, I would be very interested to find out any info I possibly can.  Please either contact me at warrior@despammed.com, or at the Visual Pinball boards at ShivaSite if you can provide info.  Bug reports, feedback and comments can be directed to the same address.

&8v)