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Showing content with the highest reputation since 03/28/23 in Posts

  1. Hello again (anyone) Well the last year has been a blast and work on the project is progressing so back to the history. JPM, the End (for me) circa 1989? So, apart from a few recollections that may crop up in the future, that is it for the history of JPM in its heyday, well as far as I was concerned anyway. We spent quite a while looking for successors to the GUAB, we had ‘3 in a row’ another game based on cards which I cannot really remember and the far more memorable “PAC Quiz”. The latter machine was an amalgamation of PAC man and a quiz game. You can guess the game structure I bet. Your Pac man’s progress was based on your selection of direction with a successful question giving you progress across the dots towards the next question tile while the ‘Ghost’ Icon made progress across the dots towards you as you were answering, the longer you took the more advance he made towards you. The most memorable thing about this product as far as I was concerned was Ray Parker Jr's response to the request to use the ‘Ghost Buster’ theme tune. It went something like “I ain't gonna have my music played on no goddamn cock a mamey gambling machine”. Oh well, you can't say I didn't try! And so in answer to several of you that have asked, especially Sulzerned and Roadrunner, I have no definitive answer as to why JPM’s product’s appeal dipped so much in those days. I have an opinion however, but then don't I always! JPM just took on too much at that time, the talent was spread too thinly and new people just “didn't get it”, whatever “it” is. I remember the new Salesman standing at one of the product release meetings, in fact his first, and as he was playing the machine the feature started and he took a step back, held his chin and was heard to say “its saying something to me” several of us joined in chorus an said “yeah try pressing the fecking button.” The Whitbread thing, the expectation of software for them, the increasing export markets and of course the new SWP were all demanding a distillation of the intellectual input of the 'dev team'. Perhaps the new ‘professionalism’ and ‘specification sheets’ of the Dev process took away from the spur of the moment decision taking that was often the most successful Again as a personal reflection I remember a new salesman looking at rev 27 or so of a programme that was playing in a machine and saying. “If we change ‘this’ and modify ‘that’ and perhaps have the feature doing this, we could release it, how long will that take to implement?” The software engineer said “Well if you wait about 3 minutes I will change the Eprom back to Revision 4 and reboot the machine.” Silence was golden! Combined with these observations and at about this time, the dev team became spread across Cardiff, the lunchtime banter, backgammon and bacon sandwich meetings became a thing of the past. It has to be said that increasingly we were seeing new people as well. Who knows, I could be wrong in my views! I have to be careful here. The next few paragraphs are carefully covered by the following statement: “…without prejudice and in my own opinion the statements following here are alleged but are based on fact and come from individuals that should in all honesty have known the truth…” JPM the end.. As is well known, the original guys had decided that after the many years of success and the effort they had put in, they wanted to realise the money they had tied up in the company and so agreed to the sale of JPM to Whitbread which went ahead for circa £27 million. Jack, Alan, Howard, John and Ernie all pocketed a tidy (welsh see) sum which they were absolutely entitled to after making the lives of so many people so happy by being so successful for so long. However the new management under the watchful and cold steely robotic eye of the new MD were not so benefactorial or inclusive and the company continued to founder for reasons that did not at first seem apparent. The new JPM was now running under the Whitbread banner and it must be recognised , with the benefit of the deep Whitbread coffers, but there were fewer and fewer people there on a day to day basis that understood the heart of the industry or the product or for that matter the customers. The fact is that as the downturn continued to take its toll, around 70 people, me included, were selected for redundancy and around 30 more asked for voluntary redundancy, that was around something like 30 percent of the workforce. Another interesting ‘fact’ is that when we were all sat in the Black Lion at lunch time after collecting our ‘letters’ and drinking our sorrows away, I remember looking around and realising that if I had the money or the drive to start a gaming company, here was the very nub of the old company, the very core of the thing that had driven JPM to where it was. A large number of individuals that were left at the company were capable of doing their jobs and keeping the ‘company’ running, but the driving force behind many of the ideas, the enterprising individuals and the resourceful ones, the creative ones, were all sitting here crying in their beer. Again, from the outside it appeared that over the next couple of years JPM layed down extremely expensive tooling for cabinet designs to house games that were, well, not performing that well at all. The undeniable fact is that after many years of meandering around in the doldrums, JPM was bought from Whitbread by a consortium for £X million, a sum that I doubt anyone had in their back pocket and a sum that in all fairness a bank would have wanted some sort of business plan for. I wonder what sort of business plan could have been put together for a company that had spent years with little profit, had no viable product and undeniably had invested so much to no avail. The fact is that within a short period of time JPM machines, now resplendent in their new and very expensive cabinets ( very expensive to emulate as well ) were making huge inroads into the sales of gaming machines again. Again, the fact is that after a few years JPM was sold to Sega for circa £40 million. For me at that time however being made redundant was yet just another rejection and one that I could not begin to ponder over. I had just become maritally separated in my private life as well so all was not well in the Bird’s nest! So as one of the old crew, and never really seeing eye to eye with the new MD, it was no surprise when I was asked to go and see Martyn Stork who was by then the development manager, and as he asked me to “sit down Frank”. I replied “Cut the crap Martyn and just tell me if I get the car”. Amongst several shakily proffered and previously practised platitudes, love him, he asked me to hand over my access key, the key to the very security system that I had been instrumental in specifying and installing, oh and then leave the building. I told him exactly what he could do as there were over 2 hundred people that I had worked with over the years and I was going to say goodbye to each and every one of them and the only way he was going to get the key off me before I did that, was to ‘try’ and take it off me. I said goodbye to everyone before I left for the Black Lion and Brains beer. It took a while to get over. No, it took a long time. Redundancy is no fun. ( Sorry if this has become too personal ) Just in case it was missed, "the previous paragraphs should be covered by the following statement: “…without prejudice and in my own opinion the statements which have been read are alleged, but are based on fact and come from individuals that should in all honesty have known the truth…” So. Astra to follow, or rather, Where did that steel cabinet idea come from? Once again apologies if it is too personal but it is from my perspective.....
    18 points
  2. Hello Members, If anybody lives near Preston, Lancashire there is 3 fully working on new coins MPU3 machines Adders and Ladders Exchange Unlimited Line Up All for public use I believe they are testing the water to see if there is a demand for more classics to be sited in the bar area
    12 points
  3. No longer JPM Good afternoon chaps people (carefull), well at least those of you who are still reading this. So the new JPM spat me out. And again, before I go much further these last reminiscences are not about JPM obviously and are a personal recollection of the last four gaming organisations I worked with just to finish what I started. I was also mid divorce and had to find employment so after messing around with the useless benefit system (for people like me) and not finding employment and bills building up, I decided to go back to my tools so Property maintenance was the way to go. As an aside, I remember speaking to a benefit agent and explaining that a mortgage, 2 kids in private school, maintenance to pay and a one bed flat to rent was difficult and I was trying my best to get everything sorted and what could they do in the short term or at the very least for a month. When he offered me £42 quid I asked how tightly he could roll the cheque up so it didn't hurt when he shoved it up his … After a short and I must say fairly successful period of around a year, I took a call from JJ (Jack Jones) who said “How do you fancy meeting me next week.” I thought why not and we both went to a decrepit factory unit on the Somerset Industrial estate in Cwmbran. Walking around through the cobwebs, bankrupt stock, steel patterns hanging on the wall, inches of dust and debris and huge noisy and oily machinery he explained that he was going to restart the business and supply IP65 electrical trunking systems again to the Automotive Industry. In conversation he just said “and would you be the MD?” Of course I agreed, without hesitation, repetition or interruption, although what the hell did I know of Sheet steel? So we built up on the base of the old business and updated equipment, systems and brought back staff. When I say we I mean it, to see Jack with a toilet brush scrubbing the old bogs was a sight to behold and one many people just would not believe. I contacted suppliers and customers, got to know the staff and also worked on the machines when I wasn’t doing the office thing, and between us and with the guidance of a mate, Spencer Davies (https://www.amcanu.co.uk/) we slowly dragged the business back to some sort of break even within a year and a half. Installing new Cad and Cam systems and training the staff in their use revolutionised the business and Electrical Enclosure Products dragged itself back into life. As another aside Spencer was also the coxswain of the Burry Port Lifeboat and a good mate of Jack’s and accompanied us on Jack's 50ft boat when I was lucky enough to be invited for a day's outing around the Pembroke coast, what a day to remember. Over a lunch meeting at Mcdonald's one day, Jack suggested we could design a metal table top cabinet, just like the vegas machines and he began to sketch it out on the back of a napkin. I nearly threw a coffee over him. To be frank (sic) I had developed a bad feeling with regard to gaming, who could blame me. I stubbornly pointed out that the business could not afford the machine time or for that matter the design time for playing around with what seemed to be a romantic departure if we were to continue to supply our customers in the way they had grown accustomed to us doing. You see we were small and flexible, I would drive (in my second hand BMW 525) to Vauxhall or Ford or Land Rover and look at the problem with the installation of electrical and control distribution layouts and call back to the factory with changes to the ‘standard’ units that we made, or perhaps design a new control cabinet and we would start the process there and then. This sort of thing… https://www.at-enclosures.co.uk/products/switchboard-enclosures With a few guys willing to work overnight and with our own powder coating plant under our roof, we would have the units dispatched, often in the back of the lethal 2 litre P100 pickup, before other competitors could even respond as they were in many cases overseas manufacturers, in fact we often modified their offerings. We were also supplying systems to the guys that supplied large scale machinery to the Automotive Industry, did you know that the engine block goes through a washing machine after it has been machined? This photo is of a small one, I was actually locked in the large fully automated one as a prank, although thankfully it was not running at the time! Jack explained we could employ one of the dumped guys from JPM on a part time basis and fit things in around production (Yeah, shure) So Clive Salvidge (mate) joined us and together from those drawings on the McDonald napkin we drew up the cabinet that was to become the Astra machine and started sending the parts to the CNC machinery. Not only that but we built the first one together. We also became involved with Barcrest as they wanted a machine cabinet to house, as I remember, a lottery terminal after they saw that prototype cabinet. Yes they saw it, you see I hawked that dam cabinet to all the majors to see if we could get funding to further the development and buy machinery. No one wanted it, “too expensive”, “never catch on”. So one day JJ took the cabinet away to Consort engineering in Pembrokeshire and the manufacture of it was to be taken on board there. JJ sold the enclosure company, although I would really have liked to buy it,I was ‘taken on’ by the new buyers and I transferred the business, the machinery, customers and know-how to a company in Derbyshire that made Conveyor systems. Ever seen the escalator at the SnowDome in Tamworth? I was involved with the first drawings of that thing. I worked with them for a while until I got the call from Alan P to ask me if I would like to join Astra to develop the cabinet further as the shell design and manufacture was practically ironed out and the interior design and population needed addressing and manufacturing needed to be set up. And so I joined Astra Games, back in gaming, and became the go-between from Penarth, where the design offices were, and Pembrokeshire where the cabinet was being made. We pushed the boundary on a lot of things by putting the machine in that cabinet, and of course introduced the Azkoyen hopper into the design. It was so strange us all being back together, me, Ron, Alan, Jack, Clive and a couple of the software guys who would not be familiar to you. The intention was to build and populate the cabinet in Pembrokeshire. Consort is a brilliant company and was already successful in manufacturing electrical appliances, but the constant back and forth was a problem and we soon realised we needed to be on top of it. We leased a factory in Bridgend and also moved the offices to North Road in Bridgend, I transferred the manufacture there and we started minimal production runs with Consort still supplying the machines, In fact they are still supplying the industry to this day. Astra was built up with many ex employees of JPM but also carefully handpicked new employees and we soon built a new structure much like the old JPM. I eventually celebrated my 40th Birthday with a huge bash to which most of the guys were invited and many others from the JPM days turned up much to my surprise. I guess the rest is history as they say. I eventually moved from manufacturing and design back into Customer Service, we sent stuff all around the world and I ended up travelling to Scandinavia, Africa, Italy in fact all over as the product was new and different and training was often necessary. We developed and installed the first Party time or Community games as they are called now or so I am led to believe. “Good things have to come to an end or you would never know they were good.” Once again I found myself at loggerheads with an intransigent arse who would not listen to reason as his ego was all important, the Sales Director. I had bruised his ego once in JPM when I enabled a sale in Germany and it appeared that it had taken all this time to seek revenge. Too much to go into here but I had a stand up and very heated, red faced argument where it all came out, this in front of a room full of staff and I ended up calling the Sales Director a c**t, well because he was, and it was obvious we could not work together after that. Astra had just started a Casino division, I went straight to the team leader and immediately asked for a transfer and they seemed happy to take me on board. So that was me and Astra finished. Hello Core systems! At Core we designed a new Casino product for a Canadian company VLC. When I say new product I mean the whole thing: the circuit boards, the software, the cabinet design and all to Nevada gaming board regulations which was quite a feat, that I can assure you. The team was led by Jeremy Boswell, ex Aristocrat and a german gaming company (IGT?) but also an ex stock exchange developer and a total knowledge blotter. Whatever he looked into he understood immediately and we ended up working together for 20 years some time later and in a different industry but that’s another story and not for here. I remember helping the techs during prototype build, with SMT, a circuit board and a heat gun for the first time and I ended up blowing all the dam components off the board. My how electronics had progressed. My job was to document everything and transfer those designs to the manufacturing facility in Montanna, Canada, which we did with members of the team going over to make sure the prototypes were to a standard. I used html to create a dynamic library of images and drawings which worked really quite well and was eventually going to be a CD based diagnostic tool, allowing engineers to recognise the faulty part by delving into dynamic images and clicking to circuits, wiring diagrams and part numbers. After around a year we had the thing nailed and then came the bad news. IGT had bought VLC in Canada and as such the new organisation had no need for the product! I had just had my third child (second marriage) and I didnt want to end up once again on the scrap heap so I sent out the feelers and had a quiet meeting with Coinmaster gaming. Despite promises from Core that other markets could be found and the future was perhaps bright I decided to jump ship and so moved into the Casino Industry. Finally Coinmaster Gaming to follow.
    12 points
  4. Haven't posted much recently on the 'Tales from the workshop' but this one was a corker so worth documenting. A couple of Sys1 boards were giving me the run around. They'd already been returned but failed soon after! The trouble with these boards is the dreaded green plague gets in everywhere even where it doesn't show and once repaired, even after soak testing, can sometimes fail shortly after. In the case of these two, one had the CPU fail (which looked really clean) and the other the sound chip failed causing (apart from bad sounds) no dip switches. So, the first one with the CPU fail burst into life with a new CPU but there was no sound? Surely not two faulty sound chips (AY-3-8910), these are getting difficult to source these days. Luckily there is a more modern pin for pin replacement in the Yamaha YM2149. So in with a new one and full sound restored. Now back to board two and out of curiosity I just thought I'd put the bad chip from board one into board two and blow me it worked just fine??? Back into board one and nothing. So now I'm scratching my head as to why the Yamaha chip works but not the AY-3-8910 in board #1. After a good few hours and with the original chip in board one it did start to work but stopped again never to return. It was time to get the big guns out! Armed with the scope I started checking the pulse feeds into the sound chip (pins 27 & 29) and noted that in board one they were twice the speed as board two?? Hmm in that case maybe the modern Yamaha chips are faster which would explain that one, but why the speed difference? This is where someone was looking down and smiled on me I think. IC7 (74LS00) does quite a few things in the circuit, one set of gates is directly connected to the sound chip but it wasn't that. This had already been changed on the first repair so I knew the chip was good. Another of the gates selects the bus speed depending on what ROMs are fitted (via IC10 74LS175). Hmm that looks promising. Looking at the waveform coming out of IC7 pin 3 it didn't look right ie there was lots of crud on it and it was low. Funnily enough it looked almost the same as on pin 2 which is one of the inputs. On lifting the chip out of the socket it measured about 4 Ohms across the two pins. Looking under the socket with the microscope I could see a tiny spec of solder that was sitting across pins 2 & 3. Once removed the waveform was now correct and the speed of the pulse feeds to the sound chip were now at the correct speed. Of course now the 8910 chip worked as it should do. I think I need a holiday after that one!
    12 points
  5. Good evening all, Well finally got hold of a Barcrest Hi Lights, my first Mpu2 as well. I am delighted. Came to me as a non runner, and it's taken a little bit of work to get running, but with the help of the Mecca folk's, it all came together!
    11 points
  6. Many thanks to Phil1974 for doing me a good deal on a very nice clean Silver Shadow. I’ve been looking a while, and thanks to Tim Harrison for spotting it, It was good to meet another Mecca member too.
    10 points
  7. Finishing Lamp Mask Next step is to bond the 3D printed parts together. The filament I used was PETG. I sanded the mating surfaces and then applied PET Gloop! glue on each surface. Then clamped the surfaces together to keep alignment. After an hour for the glue to set, I drilled the 17mm holes for the top and bottom for the feature lamps.
    10 points
  8. Machine is working perfectly now, mixture of broken crimps, missing bulbs and a faulty bulb holder. Fitted starters and the florescent tubes are good. Re wired the token solenoid to pay the jackpot in tokens instead of cash. Thanks all for your help.
    10 points
  9. Heres the rom dump Fruitopoly.zip
    10 points
  10. Here’s one of my many projects it was looking rather sorry for it’s self smashed glass reel errors lamps not working cabinet was leaning as base rotted away but after a good few hours work a brand new glass rebuilt base and rebuilt and repaired reels and wiring sorted it’s back to its former glory nice to bring an old favourite back to life IMG_9590.MOV
    10 points
  11. Anyone that wants to know the full story I made the video I was also part of obtaining permission and I was there when they were removed, I got 4 myself.. I'm happy to tell the full story to put to bed some of the rumours.. Looks to be a bit of jealously ffrom 1 or 2 unfortunately.. The main thing is some were saved❤️
    9 points
  12. A massive thanks to Ed off here for taking a look at the rom program code to unblock the gamble on this great old mpu3 clubber .the three single bars dropped in on reeld 1,2&4 and it held so obviously I held them and the fourth bar dropped in .couldn't believe it but was over joyed .here is a clip of that jackpot .it stopped paying £6 short due to the tube sensor .
    9 points
  13. Just had a board in from a Match it machine that was listed as dead and on test it just sat there looking at me. First thing to check is the 5v and this was spot on. Next point of call is the main clock which wasn't running. Most times if not all is the 9602 (8602) chip that's failed. These are also used in the MPU3 but for a different purpose. These are getting very scarce these days, which I've mentioned before, and the prices on Ebay are ridiculous. Once replaced the board burst into life and ran all the diags and played games OK. After a good soak test it was time to pack it up and send it back. Back in the users machine all was not good. There were problems with payouts and the Match it feature didn't work. Not too long after the board died again. Most faults I've come across with payouts are due to the reel sensor backplane board but the main worry was the board being dead again. This time the board came back with the backplane and the sensors. Back on the bench with the board again I quickly discovered that although it looked like everything was ticking over ie all address and data busses were running there was no enables going to the PIO chips. IC7 (74LS02) had failed, you couldn't make it up! Because of this I decided to swap out all the small TTL chips just in case. They all tested OK but I didn't want to get bitten with another failure. Moving on to the backplane there were two outputs not being switched and this was due to the CD4049. All sensors appeared to be OK using my sensor tester so it was time to return. A longer soak test was carried out and all looked good. I had to do some detective work on the slingshot mech to get a good understanding of how it functioned and to work out how I could check the payouts on my test rig. Once I was happy back it went. Back in the machine it was functioning again but wouldn't run the Match it feature on reel 1. Also the Gamble feature never did what it said on the reel? Lots of head scratching then began to try and diagnose what was occuring and why. The first thing that became apparent was the lamp on the reel backplane interface board wasn't lighting up and this was due to one of its legs was broken. This never left the machine as it's bolted to the reel deck. That would explain the Gamble reel. Next conumdrum was the Match it issue. From the symptoms shown on various videos I assumed it had to be something to do with reel 1 not being sensed correctly. Lots of avenues were tried to no avail and I was running out of ideas. One other possible reason was the green interface cable between the deck and MPU. Sometimes you get dry solder joints on the plug (socket). This was checked and continuity tested but all looked good. Photos were sent over and no solder rings were able to be seen although it is very difficult to see them sometimes in pics. A breakthrough came at 04:00 this morning when the owner checked the continuity again and found that two connections, although showing good between the pins at each end, had no connection to their pads! A quick job with the iron and the Match it feature was back on. To say I was relieved was an understatement and the owner was ecstatic. Well you would be wouldn't you.
    9 points
  14. I'm taking no sides here but if Wearecity says he didn't use any part of Chloe's classic then I totally believe him. He's been around from day DOT and at one time used to playtest all my layouts, so in my view can be fully trusted. As for Freedom, I mentioned in PM (if you remember zippy) that running a forum isn't an easy job and went on to explain why. Anyway, in my view you should open the Forum to everyone REGARDLESS and forget all this 'invite only' policy which only promotes antagonism for those who don't have the chance to join. OK so you may have access to exclusive roms from Mr P (or wherever), so what? Over the years I've provided thousands of roms to the scene which I've managed to scavenge by various means and not once have I held them back to try and score points over any other forum. A lot of the Astra, Bellfruit, QPS, Mazooma, Empire & Union Games roms you have came via me. I've even gone out of my way to have them dumped from my own machine. In these days of FME we should be sharing EVERYTHING and be one big happy family. Wizard, for many many years wouldn't come near my forum as he thought I was a complete TWAT, but thankfully in the end we became very good friends and I'll always remember that with pride. Life's too short for all this bullshit!!
    9 points
  15. Picked this up today so hope to have it running shortly. It'll fit in nicely with my High kicker, Nudge gambler and Ten up.
    9 points
  16. I've started off with the hardest job first, soldering on the H8 cpu... its 100 pins in 15mm square area! To do this I'm working through an aerospace spec microscope...started it here incase I Mucked it up and ruined hours of work later. The Cpus are new old stock which made it easier with the pins all being perfectly straight. £14 each but I'd much rather use these than lift off old battery damaged Cpus. The first 2 went on OK no dramas...sweated buckets
    9 points
  17. Last one.... So Core systems were let go by the VLC company of Canada and I didn't fancy waiting for the final straw so I started spreading the word and found that Coinmaster gaming were looking for a new Customer Service manager, right up my street I thought. I was interviewed by Tony Lynch and got the job and so started working in the Casino supply Industry. My first realisation was that JPM and Astra were different entities from Coinmaster altogether and the thought process there was a lot different with regard to Customer Service, the parts waiting list for some companies was nearly a year old. Manuals were written in a strange, factual only way rather than the friendly, helpful way I had come to develop, so that was a bit of a culture shock. Initially let me explain the product. Not a simple single player, money in, press button, game plays. This was different. Each machine had 10 separate stations around the centre piece which was a fully functional Roulette wheel. An automatic, powerful solenoid sent a ball spinning at various speeds into an already spinning, and extremely accurate, roulette wheel all under an acrylic dome to stop tampering no doubt. See below.... Players sat around the perimeter of the machine using their station’s touch screen to bet on the outcome of the game, so effectively your station was a self contained machine, one of ten, and passed information to the central controller which kept a tally on the machine's setup as a whole. A sort of betting terminal??? The network was therefore very important and each station had its own connection which could be disconnected without unduly affecting the central controller. Installation was quite a task as apart from moving the ten stations and the central controller there was also the overhead advertising carousel to install and of course it had to be dead level. Because the machine was global in its design the unit had to be set up to cater for the stake, the coinage, the notes and the metering value. I was new to this and during my first installation I set the machine up and kept the single station in front of the control system pulled away as I let the first few players get a feel for the machine at some ungodly hour when all the local takeaways were closed and the staff were frequenting the casino before trudging home. Just as well I did as the look of joy on the first ‘eastern’ player as he placed his bet led me to think I had done something wrong, in fact his scream to his other fellow countrymen and their rush to the machine prompted me to pull the plug. I had inadvertently set the metering incorrectly so each £1 placed was effectively £10 in value of chips placed. It led to a bit of an argument and an exchange of cash and I was very careful setting up a single terminal to test before I allowed the whole thing to be played. Lesson learned!! Exhibitions were a nightmare as we would take as many as 5 machines to be installed prior to the show and in a place like Vegas where it is already pretty hot, once you had put the flooring down and moved all these machines in you were completely knackered. We had an argument with the union steward on my second exhibition as I had created a central distribution box into which we plugged the machines, so we only needed a single heavy duty connection to that box which had already been certified. This was obviously to save us money. Normally the electricians would have to make 10 or more connections so they were enraged We did have to pay a little grease money. This by the way was 10 days after 9/11 One incident worthy of mention was when we had to change the note acceptors of an installation with another manufacturer's offering, which meant the note safe beneath had to be changed as well. The swap therefore was fairly straightforward and the old units were left in a garage ready to be picked up. A few weeks later I was prompted to pick up the old units as we were about to be charged for them rather than returning them as they were not exactly suitable. We had to strip off the adaptors which were fitted to our product so the units were slung in a carrier's van and delivered to our stores so the storeman could strip and then return them. I got a call from Mike which was quite to the point “Come to my office quick, the doors locked you will have to knock.” There on the floor were the first two units laid bare and around £8-900 in notes between them. We eventually opened them all and there was around £5k as my memory serves me. What was obvious was that something was dead wrong. How could we have walked out with all this cash and why weren’t we being chased when the loss was found which should have been some weeks ago. We all decided that the only thing to do was to book an appointment with the head of the Casino chain and take the money in. This was done and the casino site became the centre of an investigation which proved, let's say some “irregularity” on the part of a few employees. Technically the machines had quite a few good ideas, the wheel was a wonderful piece of engineering made to exacting tolerances. The lettering or numbering was printed on a single circular piece of plastic much like a reel band and this was adhered to the disc in a special cut recess. The central wheel lifted up and away from the outer pockets like two dishes separating thus allowing the ball to fall into the collection mechanism and be lifted by an archimedes screw in a tube back to the firing solenoid. I was sent to a machine in Holland that was paying out too much to find, after some chi-square analysis, that a few numbers were coming up more often than they should. This led to further investigation to reveal that the end of the circular band had not been trimmed properly and so overlapped the other end. This fairly imperceptible lump caused the ball ‘more often’ to land in a neighbouring set of numbers which was enough for a particular player to notice and he was winning too regularly. Another interesting technology was installed due to the sales technique of allowing the machine’s new owner to pay by instalments. Lets not forget that this is the gaming industry and we were dealing with places like Brazil, Argentina, Czech republic, Russia, Albania and many other similar places, if you get my drift? In any case there was a ‘real time’ timer in the machine and after a predetermined and agreed period the machine would prompt the owner that a transfer should be made and a code could be generated that would be given to the office. Given the successful bank transfer or visit to the office with a suitcase of money (I kid you not) a new code would be generated based on the old one. If not and after an agreed period the machine would fail and a notice would appear on each terminal to that effect along with this 16 (or 20?) digit code. This is why I often got calls from irate customers explaining that the machine had died and they had made no money and what was I going to do about it or how much did I want to give them a code? A sleeping accountant! Again, exactly what went wrong with the organisation I do not know. As a small aside it was only a few weeks ago that Tony Lynch, the owner of Coinmaster passed away and it was sad that so many of us needed this to bring us together, Alan Parker was there, an ex member of Starpoint, David Cornelius (maker of looms part from everything else) Anyway I digress. Coinmaster was working with one of the major bookmakers as we had a FOB terminal working and we had a new Horse racing game the design of which was based on terminals around a 40” LCD or was that a Plasma. Whatever, the receivers were appointed and I again started looking around, at the ATE where else, only to bump into Alan Parker again who was setting up another new venture so in for a penny and here we go again! So my final job in the industry was with Alan again and this time Gamesoft. I did much of the initial CAD designs of the multi player cabinets, sited many prototypes, arranged production runs, installed MRP computer systems and all in our new factory in South Wales. It was at this time that I took a call from Jeremy Boswell again and I learned that he had teamed up with a company called ROK and that they were working on a gaming platform on mobile phones for heaven's sake. He offered me the opportunity to work with the new technology in a supervisory position which I took with both hands and that is how I ended up managing a mobile and internet based gaming infrastructure in Russia and a team of software engineers in Wales. From there we diversified into all sorts, a quasi facebook, ringtone sales, they even bought a brewery ABK and then sponsored the Williams F1 team. But all that is now history and is not for this platform. I’m back in the construction industry, whiling away my later years as a Project Manager for a 17 acre, ex WWII aircraft repair site in Wales. Once again I apologise for what has become perhaps a little too personal and thank you for bearing with me and only hope you enjoyed the outpouring. Best wishes and perhaps we will bump into each other through posts in the future.
    9 points
  18. I know not many know me on here but I'm quite well known on the arcade and pinball forums. Not sure if this is of any interest but I have written a book charting my arcade experiences throughout my life, a sort of autiobography but purely arcade related, including amonsgt others: - my first arcade encounters in the mid 70s at the fairground - the golden age of video games in the early 80s - getting hooked on fruit mahcines in the mid 80s - the explosion of pinball in the pubs in the early 90s - collecting machines in the 90s onwards - attempting video game world record scores - attending and competing in pinball comps UK and Europe - running the UK pinball league - UKVAC meets - arcade arts and crafts I've created There is one chaopter dedicated to fruit machines mainly from the early to mid 80s with rest focused abot evenly between video games and pinball. The book is 480 pages, appox 23 x 15 cm in size (like a large paperback), with some photos, mainly from last 15-20 years. Cost is £25 (plus £3.50 postage). I have a sample copy printed, see pics attached of some pages. Let me know if you would like to order a copy as will be placing a bulk order soon. Thanks Greg
    9 points
  19. Some people that know me know I did the most recent vid of the abandoned arcade... Well here is still still pics of most of the machines that were in there... I missed a couple.
    8 points
  20. They are holding up very well thanks being switched on 14 hours a day. There is now in full working order Line Up Frog Hop Adders and Ladders High Lights Exchange Unlimited Fire Cracker All working fine on new coins and getting reasonably used. Cash or Nudge not in the line yet but is fully working with a slight lamp fault Not about making money just good to see them for play and many people love them just for the memories they brought to them when they were younger
    8 points
  21. Used the Fiver online marketplace to get the pcb layout artwork drawn and the Gerber files created. I sent the pcb scans and within 48 hours the design was done. I got some advice from @midibob to check my selection of replacement components, he suggested adding additional pads for modern ceramic capacitors. Here’s the layout ready for manufacture.
    8 points
  22. 8 points
  23. come on lads lets put this shit to bed and try to get on a long with each other life is to short lol
    8 points
  24. Hats off to @EddieC - this sort of stuff is painstaking work, thankfully we have the emulator from Chris (RIP man) - which allows for much faster testing of ROM hacks than if the changes had to be tested on real hardware each time I did get a few requests for this gamble block stuff, but I just did the CHR stuff for a bit of a diversion from other projects since it meant fruit machines could live again that otherwise would get broken up for parts... so I couldn't justify the time requirements for this gamble block type work. Like I said above, and I'm sure Eddie can fully attest to, it is absolutely and utterly painstaking, trying to find the relevant routines, then figure out the relevant patches - it's really low level hacking! (plus of course you might need to hack out checksums/chr along the way) - Great work Eddie, really good to see someone has taken this on (takes the pressure off me haha! Very few fruit machine rom hackers around these days)
    8 points
  25. 3D printed parts to share Here is a copy of my lamp mask design that comes in for parts to be printed on a standard size 3D printer and glued together. It's designed to be printed upside down with the holes for the lamps flat on the bed of the printer. On the top and bottom sections drill the print on the angled sides to put the lamps where you want. I also include the bracket for the credit display and also the bracket for the upper florescent tubes. In both cases, drill the print and screw to the cabinet with self tapping screws. These brackets are designed to work with my glass design but should work well with the stock Line Up glass. Line Up - Tube and Credit Brackets.zip Line Up - Lamp Mask 3D Print.zip
    8 points
  26. Came across this short film about holidaying in Blackpool in 1978.around the 3min mark there is a nice clip of a BIG BEN fruit machine .use to remember these a lot .possibly in coral island as the bingo was before the clip.
    8 points
  27. Found one! It's yours if you want it, just cover the postage. 😊
    8 points
  28. I have drawn a draft replacement Lamp mask in CAD and I'll 3D print the replacements. I'll be able to finalise the size when the bottom glass is ready. Also given the size may need to print in sections. But doable.
    8 points
  29. Just completed a board which made me smile. Came in with the usual full service needed, so once that was done it was switch on time. Pretty much dead so checking the RESET which was good it was out with the RAM. With my spare test board it fired straight up and then using my new chip tester showed one of the RAM chips was knackered.👍 The other one was good and yes I did try it with another just to confirm it ran properly in the board. So now it was time to run through all the tests before going into the Cabaret machine for a soak test. First all triacs were firing, next all switches, sound working, alpha good, reels good......hmm no lamps! Inspected the board again and couldn't believe I didn't see this the first time. Looks like the plumber's been here! Once that was removed all the vias and the pads were missing on both sides. After a bit of patching, new rivets and lots of patience I arrived at this. With a new transistor in place all lamps were now correct.
    8 points
  30. Have got my husband to do the Action Pack video i promised everyone. Here is the link. Thank you if you take a look. Ann
    7 points
  31. I wanted to dump some 2708 eproms and also to be able to burn new EPROMs for my SRU machines. I found that my programmer is not able to read or write these roms, they need a special adapter or programmer all together as the rom needs +26V, +12V, +5V and -5V to be read or written to. With a quick google I found a project created by a guy called Matt Millman where he designed a plug in board to be added to an Arduino mega 2560 controller. He has written open source custom code for the Arduino and also a windows programmer interface that is compatible with 2704 / 2708 and TMS2716 EPROMs. The programmer uses a custom board that he has shared the gerber files for along with the component material lists and open source code. The link to his site is here: https://www.mattmillman.com/projects/hveprom-project/an-easy-to-build-programmer-for-2704-2708-mcm68764-mcm68766-eproms/ The programmer project will be less than £100 for the parts which would be good value for a programmer solution for the 2708’s. As a start I ordered some pcbs from pcbway in china, I uploaded the gerber files and the boards arrived inside a week. The shipping was more than the boards. I had 5 boards made, I have 4 spare so if anyone wants to make the programmer I’m happy to share the remaining boards for £5 each including postage. PM me if you want one. The components arrived quickly from Mouser Electronics and the Arduino came from Amazon. Will assemble the board and see how the project goes! But looks like it’s a useful solution to program these early EPROMs.
    7 points
  32. Re fitted the coin mechs, adjusted and tested with old 50p and 10p coins, all worked fine. Test play went well, just need a minor adjustments to the solenoid on reel 3 as its not always engaging fully. I'll leave that to Dan to sort later. Other than the reel adjustment the machine is back up and running, ready for to go home and join Dan's electro mechanical collection.
    7 points
  33. Glass fitting. This is the part I have been looking forward to for a while. Fitted the glass in to the freshly painted frames. Glass I’d 4mm instead of 6mm on the original. Added some foam insulation strip on the back of the brackets to clamp the glass tightly. Fitted the buttons and their new decals, reassembled. Fitted the fluorescent tubes to the new mounting brackets. Moved the reel deck by 5mm to the right to align with the glass. Laid out the wiring loom and with the aid of pictures of previous rebuilds for reference fitted the bulb holders with a best educated guess. The bottom glass looks very good indeed, need to think about the bottom fluorescent tube lighting the bottom feature through the white lamp mask, may be as simple as a cover for the tube. Top glass has the black mask slightly out by 2mm but is an easy fix. Overall very pleased 😄
    7 points
  34. Button decals The A4 Acetate sheets arrived from Amazon today, I printed the button template on to the Acetate sheets and cut out the button inserts inside of the black line. I fitted the top row of buttons with the new decals and I'm pleased with the results. I have attached a copy of the artwork in pdf and jpg format if anyone wants to print some for their machine. Line Up Buttons.zip
    7 points
  35. Mike I have had some sucess replacing the pins. You can use any socket off of a scrap board and press the pins out. You'd need a vice as they are well fitted and some sort of guide to keep them straight. Obviously a better complete socket would be best, but if you can't get one then that is always an option. I think I did a mention in my MPU3 workshop thread a while back if my memory serves me correctly.
    7 points
  36. Yes that’s my 3D printer, I’ve had it for a few years and used it for various projects over the years. Pretty much anything plastic can be re created. The plastic is tough and can be drilled or even tapped with threads. I will post the .stl files when I’m happy it’s correct, then you can send those to a print service to get them printed or do it yourself. The .stl files are the universal instructions that printers use for models.
    7 points
  37. Token conversion While the glass is away being printed and I am waiting for the reel bands / barcrest coin decals to arrive, I decided to to carry on with a couple of other tasks. I have printed a set of temporary reel bands on A4 and taped the 3 sections together. They are not perfect but good enough to test with for the time being. Next is to adjust the coin mech to accept a 10p token instead of the 2p. This is done by adjusting the coin diameter screws and moving the bar upwards to allow the larger coin to pass through. I ordered a replacement coin tube for the tokens. I bought a 35mm OD and 29mm ID x 400mm Perspex acrylic clear tube from eBay. I then swapped over the coin solenoid for a slightly larger blue 10p version from a spare I had. I’ve linked out the coin level sensors for the time being. Then a quick test to make sure the token payout works.
    7 points
  38. Program card and Eproms After some research on this site I have learned that the Super Line Up and Line Up roms are protected with the CHR chip, so I would need a modified chipset as the CHR chips are not readily available. One of the memory cards that I bought was from a 2p On Line, it still had the CHR chip fitted but after checking that would have been from an Adders & Ladders and apparently they are specific the the machine so no use with the Line Up. I studied one of the posts from @Road Runner where he removed the checksum and CHR check routine from a couple of Barcrest rom sets. I dusted off my old eprom programmer and burned a set of patched Super Line Up roms from that post. Changed the links on the program card and they worked perfectly, couldn't resist a quick play. Need to get some Line Up roms working next.
    7 points
  39. I came across this one today with another machine I picked up,, these don’t come around often 😄
    7 points
  40. If you read that article you will see that he was the technical manager at Ace, the TM being the After Sales service manager or as I chose to call it 'Customer Service' manager, that was why I always found it easy to relate to someone who knew the issue rather than a f%£"@in bean counter with steel eyes. Aplogies You might also see that he left the RAF although very (fiercely) proud of it which is why Astra was called Astra derived from the RAF motto "Per Ardua ad Astra". He passed at 10 am the morning after I went to see him and I happened to be there with his family the night before. He was still joking at that time, as I left I prayed in the hospital chapel cause it as sort of obvious that there was little that could be done. We worked together at JPM and shortly after at a sheet steel engineering company that I ran for him, and then again at Astra but I will get around to the story of how the Astra machine or perhaps cabinet, came about and what the hell I was doing on a production line in Dagenham Ford and Vauxhall in Liverpool and how I ended up in a washing machine in Leicester.
    7 points
  41. Here she is from non working scrap to a lovely working machine .bloody hard to win on
    7 points
  42. Collected this ACE conversion from Scarborough on Sunday. A decimal darts-themed game based on a pre-decimal ACE such as Monte Carlo or similar. The lights came on immediately, which is always a good sign. Freeing-off the game timer led to the reels running and stopping correctly; no clutch troubles here. HOLD came to life after a while, and occasional payouts were made. The reel deck contacts will be receiving attention next. There is a darts feature, with flashing scores of 2-4-6-8-10. Changing some bulbs plus a bit of freeing-off has seen this back in action. It appears to be skill, too. ALL of the reel symbols are numbers, on different coloured circles. The feature starts with the darts symbols in any position. There are NO Mills-type fruits on this machine. I'll try and work out how to post some pictures...
    7 points
  43. Early electro mechanical machines were 2p play, A maximum 10p in cash payouts and allowed a 25p ''Gold Award'' in the form of a single none replayble token which could only be redeemed over the pub bar for goods (Beer,Cigs etc). The maximum cash was only 10p but as they were 2p play they could payout 24p in replayble tokens which is why so many different versions and size of tokens in various values are still found today. The 6p token would be payout out in 4 tokens to make up the 24p top token win and found to be a better option than the single none replayble 25p token. It was passed by the gaming board in around 1973 that the 25p gold award could be made into replayble tokens and when the 5p token came into use. After 5p tokens the 10p token then the 20p token.
    7 points
  44. Collected this today,may need help with it but got to finish decorating first and that's been a job,bricking up,replastering new everything.also noticed this little machine from USA so had that aswell.neither work but I'm hoping they will.
    7 points
  45. Hi all Just dumped the ROMs for this machine. May be useful, maybe not. Cheers, Dave King's Ransom 1.0D.zip
    7 points
  46. Hi all this is the online now I’ve converted back to its original machine as it was an adders and ladders before online so only right it was put back took a while to source a couple of the parts and had a wiring issue that was sorted out by player many thanks to him so it’s now all working fine and looks great in my collection:)
    7 points
  47. Been a while, since I uploaded here, but as one of the people who assisted is here, thought I would. So here's Circle Line. I believe this is quite a rare Ace machine on spACE tech. I only ever saw/played it in one arcade in the Edgware Road, London. 20p play £6 Jackpot 78% payout (to switch to 88%, press dip switch 8 to the on position, on dip switch 1 bank on the configuration screen). KEYS: 0 = INSERT £1, ' = Cancel/Collect 1 = Hold 1/Exchange, 2= Hold/hi, 3 = Hold/lo, Space = Start THANKS TO: Wizard (RIP) - Remember NONE of us, would be playing any of this, without this genius. The Rom provider. The Reel provider. Infection for the image used. Chris217 from The Mecca, for videos on youtube, helped clear up some stuff (search Circle Line fruit machine on youtube) ACE and whoever owns them now, for leaving FME alone, all these years. GENERAL NOTES ABOUT LAYOUT This is one machine I have been wanting to see for ages emulated and have mentioned it a few times. To avoid any confusion and to be clear, this layout is all my own work, with the exception of course for the roms/reels. I've put as much detail as possible in the layout, but some section aren't quite right. The layout is in cash jackpot mode, token input is enabled and I'm sure it can be made into token payout mode, if people ask on the forums. I did have a go but nothing I tried worked and it makes no difference to the gameplay. To the far right, out of sight, are some additional lamps not used and some checkboxes, if needed. Circle Line.zip
    6 points
  48. Front pannel now cleaned and re blacked edges,fitted anti spin bracket to lock.inside now clean.still need to check lamps and then refit all mpu and floppy,hoping to have it plugged in by Friday and see what happens.and new rubber mat on base.
    6 points
  49. Main issue is the feet have gone missing and the base is being pulled apart.there are 3 rusty screws each side that are not doing much,so I have brushed wood glue deep into the wood to seal it and clamped till dry.then I will add new wood each side and fit new screws slightly higher up on sides and up from underside into the sides.then add my new nylon glides.this should make it solid and prevent further wear.the monitor was filthy and has cleaned up a treat.
    6 points
  50. Should release more on here, but keep forgetting too anyways... Here's Starstruck, incidentally i actually started making this whilst "Starstruck" was showing on itv anyways this is a cracking little Lo-Tech from Pcp which will have you hooked from the start Thanks goto @hitthesix for the classic where i gained the lamping and reel band references @innfection for getting the machine images from @Fruityloopy1980 great images Btw i have a few more from you for future dx's the reel symbols i homemade but look as near a match as poss Now onto the layouts, there's Three to choose from the 2p £1 set where a pound or two will last a while £4.80 Tokens on 20p And a Irish rom set where the jackpot is £4 cash @10p play or 5p/£2.40 (select dips 4-5 bank2) the percentages are set to their recommended levels 2p = 78%, 20p = 91% and 10p = 84% all the percentages and price of play can be changed via the dip settings, there a image of the settings within each file and are written on the dip labels within configuration shortcuts are as standard £1 = 0 20p-token or 20p cash or 2p = 9 (lefttoken/ coin slot) 10p = 8 or click to the right side of £1 slot Enjoy and Happy Easter Gaming!!!!! Pcp's StarStruck £1-2p Dx.zip Pcp's StarStruck £4.80-20p Dx.zip Pcp's StarStruck Irish £4 All Cash-10p Dx.zip
    6 points
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