34 replies to this topic

[elcondor]

I've had a look at emulating this, but it seems that the BwB video board maps things to memory in a different way to the Barcrest one, which doesn't work properly in MAME at the moment anyway. I'd be surprised if the differences were major, but it is known that BwB used some new hardware in their designs.

[Guitar]

Is anyone in the process of trying to get thes class machines to run?.

Yep. Me.

I've bought a blues boys, there are things that need to be done that will take a long time. The BWB CHR is incredibly difficult to crack. I know roughly what its doing, ish. But theres no easy way I can see yet. With enough time it would be possible to crack it. First problem with Blues Boys is no rom set that we have actually gets anywhere near booting in the emu. The real machine with no CHR in it from a ram reset will boot normally and complain of a CHR error where the attract mode should be. However neither FMEF or MFME will run any of the roms that far.

So, firstly I need to get my roms dumped by someone close by as Im not trusting those roms with parcelforce or similar. Or buy a rom dumper.

Next, try them in the emulators, maybe we have all bad dumps so far, not likely.

When that fails miserably its a case of prodding around with a continuity meter and making a schematic of what goes where, as I'm pretty sure its writing to an address that isnt mapped by any current emu. What its doing at that address, who knows. Probably they have moved the Bankswitch around somewhere. But maybe not.

So get that done, then its time to trace the CHR somehow. Now, it uses the CHR a lot, meaning values from it get minipulted and pushed all around the ram. So following it is a nightmare. However there is a possibility of resetting the ram in the real machine, read off the address and data lines from the CHR and watch the sequence it produces. Keep resetting the ram will give a clue about what its doing, if its the same every time, it means a forced boot is possible, if its different every time, the differences with each boot might give something away. Not sure what I am looking at / for yet, but I know how top take it further.

Someone buy me a set of 48 hour days and I'll get right on it

Oh and once you get past the security, it also swaps the paytables around like Barcrest CHR does with lamping. Except the paytables arent a visual thing, and there are many combinations which will be nearly right, but not 100%. So perfection could be hard.

Great CHR by BWB though, even if an inscrupulous arcade owner managed to copy their game, and crack the security, the machine could still pay out 1000%.

Damn annoying clever gits.

[fuzion]

I'm pretty sure it will be cracked one day. BWB seem to be very clever. I mean these machines are very old, I'm suprised these are so tough to crack. I guess with no documentation etc its like looking for a needle in a haystack.

J

[Bencrest]

First problem with Blues Boys is no rom set that we have actually gets anywhere near booting in the emu.

Great CHR by BWB though, even if an inscrupulous arcade owner managed to copy their game, and crack the security, the machine could still pay out 1000%.

I was always under the impression that Blues Boys ran in a version of MFME/MPU34 and that, as at the end of your quote, it paid out stupid amounts.

Perhaps it was a hacked ROM of some description, perhaps modded in a way that at least it ran, even if not correctly?

Not sure if someone can expand on that as I've never tried it myself.

[Guitar]

I was always under the impression that Blues Boys ran in a version of MFME/MPU34 and that, as at the end of your quote, it paid out stupid amounts.

Perhaps it was a hacked ROM of some description, perhaps modded in a way that at least it ran, even if not correctly?

Not sure if someone can expand on that as I've never tried it myself.

I know the germans hacked out either mfme or the rom and got it to run in 2.0. However they dont like sharing info.

However it suffered from the payout problem. But that would be better than nothing.

It means only one part of the CHR is left to find. Unless of course its all done in one fell swoop. Which knowing BWB, it is.

[ploggy]

Daft question here, but can you use the BWB machine Super League that has already been done on MFME, and find out the information you need that way?

[fuzion]

I forgot that was released. Was this rom hacked? I was under the impression that Wizard had cracked BWB protection to a certain extent.

J

[Guitar]

Daft question here, but can you use the BWB machine Super League that has already been done on MFME, and find out the information you need that way?

I forgot that was released. Was this rom hacked? I was under the impression that Wizard had cracked BWB protection to a certain extent.

J

I believe Wizard did indeed crack it to some extent. However, you need to use MFME 3.2 to run it, which has no debugger in, so is totally useless in terms of helping. In 2.0 you get reel errors and malfunctions.

[piesthecat]

So does this mean red hot fever BWB may be emulated in time

[Guitar]

So does this mean red hot fever BWB may be emulated in time

In time yes.

[straekseims]

i know where there is a blues boys to play on 5p £4 jackpot if anyones around the skeggness way.

If you go to ingoldmells (fantasy island near skegness) you will see an arcade called "planet fun" right where the traffic lights are when u get to fantasy island if you walk down the road beside that arcade for about 200yds you will see an arcade at the bottom of that road (right oppersit a place called "oasis bar" ) an in there you will find a 80s-90s fuity player heaven with machines to name a few such as-

Blues Boys £4jp
Casino Crazy £8 jp
tuppenny nudger £5jp & £3jp versions
Haunted House £5jp
The Crystal Maze £5jp
Each Way Nudger Mk2 £3jp
Bolder Dash £5jp
Big Bucks £8jp
Monopoly 60th annerversary £8jp
Big Apple £5jp
and plenty of others i cant remember lol
if you click below me n my m8 did a "tour" vid of this arcade about a month back
YouTube - Clarkeys classic fruits

also if you like the Blues Boys fruity you will like this video LOL
YouTube - Bwb blues boys Fruit machine 5p play 2nd time around

hope this helps peeps

[Guitar]

i know where there is a blues boys to play on 5p £4 jackpot if anyones around the skeggness way.

If you go to ingoldmells (fantasy island near skegness) you will see an arcade called "planet fun" right where the traffic lights are when u get to fantasy island if you walk down the road beside that arcade for about 200yds you will see an arcade at the bottom of that road (right oppersit a place called "oasis bar" ) an in there you will find a 80s-90s fuity player heaven with machines to name a few such as-

Blues Boys £4jp
Casino Crazy £8 jp
tuppenny nudger £5jp & £3jp versions
Haunted House £5jp
The Crystal Maze £5jp
Each Way Nudger Mk2 £3jp
Bolder Dash £5jp
Big Bucks £8jp
Monopoly 60th annerversary £8jp
Big Apple £5jp
and plenty of others i cant remember lol
if you click below me n my m8 did a "tour" vid of this arcade about a month back
YouTube - Clarkeys classic fruits

also if you like the Blues Boys fruity you will like this video LOL
YouTube - Bwb blues boys Fruit machine 5p play 2nd time around

hope this helps peeps

Cool, might have to head up that way this year. Shame Blues Boys is on 5p play, mine is on that and it is totally dire. Really wish I could find a 10/20p version. Problem is, I believe all the chr's are different for every machine so I cant change the roms in mine to a nicer set.