Leaderboard

Wow, it's been nearly 5 years since I last posted in this thread!!! Just had a batch of MMM's in to sort. Most faults on these boards get cured by swapping out all the components in the battery area including the RAM. There can also be the odd broken via and corroded tracks but easily rectified with rivets and patch wires. One board which I'd had a few weeks previously had stopped working so I knew it was going to be a nightmare. On power up it would bleep about every second, flash a few lamps and motor drives and the 7 seg would go on and off too. Sometimes, very rarely, it would go into attract mode but not credit and then again sometimes it would credit but only on one denomination of coin???? After about 3 days of head scratching I was getting nowhere although I did discover some more faults that would have affected the lamp matrix overload (if it ever ocurred). So here I am on day 4 and I've got no idea what's going on, nothing is making any sense and the fault condition varies every now and then. Now I have two different game chips, one is 4 ROM chips (Cash Drop) and the other is Roulette which is 3 chips. I always use Cash Drop as it confirms all ROM sockets are Ok. So lo and behold with 3 chips in it runs a treat..... hmmm put the four chips back in and socket 4 if I move the chip with a little touch it boots fine or fails. Out with the socket and in with a new one. Not the easiest job in the world as the solder is grey and crumbly on the top side. A slight diversion here... A method I use to extract old sockets with crumbly solder is to apply heat with the iron tip (approx 370c) to the top side of the pin and when it melts the solder on the underside use a screwdriver blade to push the pin flat to the board (ie force it upward). Of course the socket will be ruined but it's knackered anyway. I find this breaks the seal and the socket can be removed a fair bit easier. Lots of flux is essential of course and the usual caveats apply don't attempt this unless you know what you are doing. Back at the ranch... With the new socket in the chip now is a snug fit whereas before you could extract it with just your fingers and of course it boots and runs fine. Phew!

David Mead came to join me in CS and together we repaired hundreds of SRU circuit boards and those damned Varelco(?) plugs that kept on breaking when you unplugged the board from the reel unit, what a design flaw that was. He had an absolute photographic memory and would remember details from older machines in seconds we had no need to have record kept, although he did as I remember and kept copious volumes of details. I met him in a pub a few months (years?) ago and he is still in the industry and is an engineer for one of the big companies, forgive me I know not which one. Tony Braggins went from development to HR, strange step but there you go. He spent years in that role before retiring and as far as I know became a trustee for a Nature Park. The R+D team changed massively over the years and as I have explained previously the 'cabinet populating' side of things all went a bit pear shaped prior to the introduction of the SWP's, so that will date it for 'you that know' a you may have read I was asked to take it over when on of the w@n7ers left, or should that be pushed. The software department obviously grew from the introduction of the SRU and although we started with two or three developers, eventually it went on to number at least a dozen or more as I recall. I wasn't too involved with the software team until I took over the PM role for the SWP's and then I had at least three working for/with me under the 'matrix management' project which was novel to say the least. I do remember a game we played in the software department which involved taking an eprom and placing it in the end of the Eprom packaging tube and flicking it upwards into the ceiling tiles where the legs would hopefully keep it there embedded in the fabric, of the tile. Cheers

Big thanks to Superbank and Clo. EPROMs have been burned and have arrived. I've tried them and they work! One step closer to reviving this Nudge Double Up 😀

I assume this is the Data I/O 22? If so did you know a guy called Mike DiBattista has written a Windows program to talk to all the Data I/O programmers and very good it is too. I use it all the time with my 29B. It's a free download from the groups.io forum DataioEPROM but you'll need to sign up first. Hope that's useful.

Working !! The new board arrived and when I took the old board out I realised one of the new chips was only connected one side !!! Put them in correctly and all working and know sec fault too !

Hi I just manage to gett this up and working. Just wonder if was also used in UK. I belive it is the only backgammon ever made on a machine. Cant win money on this type ( but Cost. Money ) its only for play 2 player or against cpu, for high points. Snapchat-1701319154.mp4

Send it to me, I'll put a new socket on for you.

Well the saga continues. It's now the 11th year I've been looking and this time I've come up with another AMP document. Of interest in this one is the addition of two more pin types which have soldered tabs for PCB fitting. Not seen these before but they are the normal type of pins (ie the crimp ones). Still no further with the solid pins though and whether they are a separate item or come pre-fitted with the shells. Comboline.pdf

Spot on, looking forward to seeing the finished article! 👌

Many thanks for the kind offer. I've invested in a Desolder Station and it was a good investment. The socket is done...gradually working through the board now to see what else needs replacing. There's a fair bit of corrosion

basically if you don't have the gear then don't attempt it. low heat so as not to lift the tracks, never apply heat for more than a few seconds even with a proper temperature controlled soldering iron, and NEVER EVER EVER attempt to prise the socket out with a screwdriver! if it doesn't come out with finger pressure then its not completely DE soldered. there is no shortcut, anything that goes wrong like pulling away tracks, or pulling out the through hole insides WILL result in tones more hours in corrective action which takes skill to do. here is a video I did 9 years ago with the tools you are suggesting to do it.

Fantastic, i'll look forward to see a video of it when it's all up and running. ☺️

Funny you should mention that! I used to have this one.

He don’t do tea either.

Yeah that’s me. Not got a clue, I just hack away 😛

Love that! Very nice to hear about the comprehensive documentation and in exactly the right hands. I got lucky with second hand modern kit that can handle oldskool jobs like 2708

Fine as they are just going to be used in front of machines in my man cave.

ROMs are about as it's emulated https://www.desertislandfruits.com/forum/index.php?/files/file/1246-nudge-double-up/ that's the had bit covered I've got the right kit to burn SRU roms and perhaps have some good spare 2708 too. Looks like I ripped a set 😁 https://www.fruitemu.co.uk/ib/topic/19629-sru-unknown-rom-set/#comment-305933

I bet this chap has a treasure trove of undiscovered information in his loft.😀

Cheers for the reply frank and nice to see you posting again. i love the inside stories of how things come to life and the people behind them.

Hi - here's some files for red hot roll, there's some in there that match your version - hope it helps RHR.zip

I did answer this but perhaps not as I should have.. here.

As always Frank, an absolutely riveting read.

I was using at that time I did the that video, a weller wsp80 iron with a small tip set to 380deg c, and a Abeco 2009 Solder Sucker I now use a metcal 500 soldering iron when doing chips now, and a pace sx90 desoldering station which is much better, but those are ‘industry standard’ so carry a hefty price tag, but once you use the good stuff the difference really is noticeable and you don’t go back!!!!

It should do as the fixing is by two flaps on the crimp. The only thing it won't work on is the solid type of pins which are soldered to the board. All mentioned earlier on in this thread.

I could have sworn that I fixed a board where someone had plugged the power into the wrong socket(the person even said he had). come to think of it, it may have been the switch input as the resistors had fried and even scorched the pcb(it was about 15 years ago). my bad on the power and triac plug.

Good stuff, thanks for sharing Bob. Likewise Im happy to get involved in a group buy if anything comes up. @Road Runnerdoes the extraction tool work on both pins and sockets? If so then it would be worth investing in.

When I saw the price for the extraction tool it made my eyes water! Just to be pedantic the two white connectors are 15 and 12 way (PSU) so no possibility of mixing them up. Have to agree though that they chose the wrong type for the PSU connector but then again they didn't expect them to last 40 years plus!! Mind you I have seen many examples of PSU connectors looking almost new so old loose female crimps are also to blame. Never heard of Gowerpoint before but there is an example on here showing the connectors but unfortunately no documentation as is often the case.

Nice find. i have the extraction tool for these it not cheap for what it consists of but it’s probably worth the investment as it makes repinning a lot easier. It was a good idea from Barcrest TBF because with the plugs being colour coded it help to prevent wrong connections from engineers that were probably just getting to grips with the new MPU based machines(with the exception of the power and triac that used the same plug and colour on the MPU3 range). They probably should probably have used totally different type for the power plug as overheating was a problem. im sure Gowerpoint used this type of connector at some point. pity they are out of print but if a group buy is on count me in.

I moved the flying saucer sensor towards the top of the tube and then made sure the other one was ok and then the left hand tube is now in use and the right one locked out. I will precede with filling up the tubes and see what happens.

I had thought about building one of those. Never got round to it though...

Didn't realise there were 4 supply voltages needed. Not many pins left on the chip with that lot connected 😆 I'd think twice before putting a rom in something I'd knocked up... Especially if it was the last one known & no backups existing... Then there is the software side and multiple manufacturers of 2708 Looks like 2708 have got expensive to come by

Wow. That's a lot of £s for an adaptor. I did build an Arduino shield version, which initially read eproms ok, but when I tried to burn some, they literally burned 😳. I'm guessing that I got something wrong.... An easy to build programmer for 2704 / 2708 / TMS2716 / MCM68764 / MCM68766 EPROMs – Matt's Tech Pages https://share.google/y1qxj95mkDGOs1Bk1

Where from? Is it guaranteed working order? Also, have you tried this.... Turn the machine off Set switch 8 on the right hand side DIL switch to ON Turn the machine on and leave it for a few minutes Turn the machine back off Set switch 8 back to OFF Turn the machine back on That will clear the RAM and if you're lucky it might boot up... Finally, make sure jumpers J1, J2 and J4 are set the same as they were on the original board.

It's resetting every time the red light comes on.

Try changing the theme at the bottom of the page to "New Default", it is a known fault that can cause that issue.

You are correct!

Nice one pete and yeah phil does help out with rare bits .

New into the “Johncade” showroom. Been abused as was stored in a shed. Will be bringer her back to her former glory using my cowboy techniques.

Here are the Eproms for you 🙂 Nudge Double Up Roms.zip

im from county durham united kingdom pleasure to join the community

I saw someone trying to track down some ROMs the other week over on Desert Island Fruits, so I've mirrored @Geddy's big fruit machine ROM collection to the Internet Archive. I can periodically upload a fresh copy to overwrite the old one... since we've got the publicly accessible Community Drive (see Dif for more info on this project), this seemed like a good companion resource Link is here: https://tinyurl.com/3jhzbueb

I put some in my basket to see, they reckon that they will have more in stock soon. The lad in Austria is happy to have them delivered to him, he can then bring him back over in his luggage. I'll also get him to ask if they have, or can get, any suitable pins/receptacles for these. If they get more in then we can all order up what we need (within reason).

Hi sulzerned, I never try to work with what I don't enjoy so work is not a task but a set of targets. At least that's what I try to achieve. The contemporaries that have retired I look at and see the age 'taking' them and it holds no attraction. I am sooo lucky to have genes that allow me to lead an active, non medicated, life and I will continue as long as I remain 'relevant'. Always ready for questions on JPM if I can help. Cheers.

Another great read Frank and thanks for taking the time to write all this up .

Another note to Frank is that even though you were just discarded by the new management(it happens)you were part of and contributed to JPM throughout its best and most successful period. That era(mid 70s to late 80s)most of us would have given our right arms to have worked for JPM back then.

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.....

ahem. 62867-Each Way Nudger Manual.pdf