Not possible, really. Your best bet is to reprogram the coin acceptor to see guilders as Euros. Which machines do you have?

Oh my god - I wrote the code for some of these - mainly export versions. They were done by us at Mazooma way back when. Last thing I did before I went to Global!

Yeah the tilt was always a pain; we had to do some fairly extreme Scorpion 4 hacking to get the swing arm to work (trying to make it work like a reel's stepper motor) was a pain in the backside.

The escalator was fun, too. It used to jam up all the time...

Nope, sadly not - all the FOBT games are on encrypted hard drives (for legal compliance reasons), so it's almost impossible to get them aside from the developer.

BGT made some very good games - a lot of the same people were at Maygay, Mazooma and other places. Good pedigree of staff.

The lead artist at BGT has been around the industry and did a lot of other games we would all remember; he is now at Barcrest/SG. Nice bloke and a great artist.

BGT's hardware was the one thing that let it down. BGT was funded by Spain's biggest (at that time) gaming company, Cirsa. They gave BGT all the hardware and cabinets (remember the "piano keys" cabinets??) and the main problem was that the software code was all written in Spanish! So it was hard for the English guys in Cannock to understand it all....but they did, eventually.

The cabinets were never acceptable to pub companies, the PCB-based lamp boards were a pain to work on - the UK is very different from Europe in that regard. So BGT never really sold any machines into pubs, and eventually Cirsa pulled the plug.

Ron Bastin ("Big Ron"), the man behind BGT, died a few years back now.

@edwardab so do you say this was ok to do? so many machines today give red reels or so called advantages to play on IMHO it is wrong 

No, but the thing is, even if there was no last credit incentive, you may well think there was. Mechanical reel machines only have 16/24 symbols per reel so the chances of spinning in a pair is pretty high, regardless of any software induced incentive. We used to get letters complaining about this when there was no LCI code in! 

Also, today with the Gambling Commission, neither of the last 2 companies making AWPs will do anything illegal. The penalties (both commercial and *personal* - i.e. jail time) make it not worth the risk.

If it's a Scorpion 4 machine, then yes an SR5. I think we had stopped using Mars mechs by then, largely.

there was a thread or threads on here from someone in the industry edwardb  and  i did ask him this question and did say there was an element of the machine leaving something on the last credit to make the punter put more money in.They were really interesting reads.

Yep, I think I mentioned it on there. We did a very obvious last credit incentive on the original Pac-Man AWP and Barcrest wrote us a shitty letter to complain. We did the same to them for another minor transgression. The days of the self-policing industry are sorely missed...

The answer to the original question is "yes and no".

Truly random AWPs were tried a few times but all failed for a number of reason. Firstly, operators (pub companies..) hated them - they wanted guaranteed money in the cashbox week in, week out. A machine that did £800 one week and -£800 the next week was not going to get rented (when machines were ordered). Secondly, players usually hated them. They were too unpredictable. With a compensated game, you kind of knew where you stood, but a random game could bite your arm off and keep going. 

Many countries had truly random games by law, and some were ported or converted to the UK. Grandslam is a good example, even though this was compensated, it started life as a Dutch AWP. I've done a number of similar games for Norway, even recently for online games.

BGT's Random Replay did have a random repeat chance, but the positioning of the red and green channels was controlled depending on the state of the compensators. The ball unit was biased towards the far right hand side channel. We had one at Mazooma and rigged it to keep firing the ball, and record which position it fell into. I can't recall the exact numbers, but over 100,000 balls fired, it hit the far right channel way more than the others. So put a red light there, and you can have a little more control over the repeat chance.

Read my posts on compensation for more info.

Cheers

Ed

I can have a word but the smaller guys are far more paranoid ("concerned" might be a better word) about piracy. The big boys don't care any more - mainly as they don't make AWPs....

The thing is, the Pluto platform was used by just about everyone and every FPGA was unique....

Bit OT but I have a plan to do a YT channel to build on my Fruit Machines Inside Out threads; interviews with the designers/developers/artists of famous AWPs, how to code them (with a real machine!), and a lot more. I just need time

If anyone has watched the GameHut channel, it's that kind of thing but maybe a bit less technical, initially.

If they're on Pluto 5 you need the company specific FPGA (kind of like a boot chip, I guess). The game contains mappings and codes specific to the FPGA to be used. Pluto 6 has something similar though I can't remember what....long time ago since I did a P6 game.

I still have a P5 dev kit and machine, however.

I am sure Speedy from Fair Games won't be too happy you trying to crack his software (nice bloke though, known him for years!) 

Ha, this game was coded by none other than @phattbloke - maybe he has some better art?

I think I have the sound ROMs for this....let me dig around

Hi All

Going through a load of my stuff from years back, and I found this article from CoinSlot (industry weekly newspaper - is it still going?!) from Feb 1997. I used to buy it when I was at school as I always wanted to work in the trade. Anyway - I hope the photo comes out OK.

Written by Norman Leftly who is still active in the industry press, and a lovely bloke to boot. I wonder what he would make of his comment in the second to last paragraph now....!

This "hacking" worried a lot of people back in the day...... 

Think I have the flyer of this - will have a look.

I could if Hungarian games were your thing!

I might have a stab at writing a new game from scratch.....

Ed The file you have cant be the epoch FTU jig files as. Its windows based programme. That plugs into the hardware. Links from epoch to pc`s serial/parallel port

Yep, I have got some old games compiling, so I can write code for it just as when I was developing proper machines on Epoch....

Hi All

Can someone knock me up a layout for an Epoch machine, just for test purposes? I need it to have 256 lamps, say 8 LEDs, a regular VFD (alpha display..) and that should do it.

I can send over a test program that switches all lamps on or in sequence and displays 12345678 on the LEDs.

Would be a massive help

Cheers

Ed

I have no issue removing machine from under 18s areas, at all. I always thought Cat D was a bit daft. The industry does make a rod for its own back far too often.

As people on here know, I have been in the industry for 21 years, but I am all for more regulation. More than happy to see lockouts on AWPs/FOBTs as in Holland, and also enforcing time and spend limits.

The irony is, the arcade industry was behind the £2 FOBT change (funding the anti FOBT lobby) and yet they often allow kids to gamble.

Would also like to see scratchcard age raised to 18, and some more controls on online gaming. Oh and less betting ads on TV. A bit of common sense would go a long way,  

Why someone hasn't contacted one of the Chinese PCB copy shops I don't know. I am sure they could clone an MPU4 very easily. Hardly a complex board.

Shameless plug, but I just put 2 machines in the For Sale section - some interesting stuff there if anyone wants a look. Ever seen a Heber Pluto 8 board? Now's your chance...!

Hi

I have a machine which I coded years ago, that I need to find a new home for.

It is a bingo game (think Skill Ball Bingo) but pays out in vouchers. However, frankly, I wouldn't bother too much with the game and I would use the cabinet for a MAME conversion. Buy some buttons, a joystick, drill the perspex and stuff, and shove a Raspberry Pi in, job done.

£50 cash on collection. It comes with a ticket printer which you can find drivers for online (or I have the code, actually) so you can print stuff out if you really want. There's a hopper and coin mech too. If you're really good at coding you could make this a thin client gaming terminal (obviously you need a licence!). The hardware in the unit now is a Heber Pluto 8 board - possibly a development board. Rare!

Located in Sheffield. Collection before Friday 14th Dec please.

Cheers

Ed

Hi,

I am selling our Miami Dice £4 machine which we have in our office in east Sheffield. £100 cash on collection. Fully working condition.

Collection before next Friday 14th appreciated.

Any Q's let me know.

Cheers

Ed

Hi, 

Again, busy at work so sorry for slow reply!

680x - the x just denotes that it's a Motorola 680-something processor, e.g. 6805. I think it was that, rather than Zilog Z80 based system.

If you want MPU trivia, did you ever see Project's MPU with a Intel 386 processor on? Never went anywhere - too expensive. Can't recall it's name now, but it will come back to me.

Ed

Totally off topic, but you would not believe what I saw the other day when visiting what is now Barcrest in Manchester. They still have portfolios full of the original pencil sketches of games we know and love from back in the day. Saw the concept art for Psycho Cash Beast, Frenzy, Battle Axe and 100s more besides. Absolute works of art.

There were loads more from game that never made it to production. Honestly, I was like a kid in a sweet shop. Amazing stuff.

I'll ask nicely and see if I can get a pic of one, can't see why they'd object too much.

I wish someone would do an exhibition of fruit machine art. Everyone will have seen it, but probably never thought there's some very skilled people behind it all.