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Today marks exactly a year to the day since our friend Chris last visited this site, this is the eve of August 9th 2020, the last time he every logged into Desert Island Fruits or communicated with any of us. Looking back – it was hell on earth and I as others were going frantic trying to find out if he was ok. We were in the middle of lockdown in Covid-19, unable to travel and unable to reach out and get a response from Chris in any form. As some of you know I had approached the police for a welfare check, it was a huge shock to us all what had happened when we found out and this check was now not needed. I am still unhappy at the failure of the police to even progress or come back to me when I was chasing them for some help last year and to this day. They never responded back to me on the welfare check I raised against the case number sits very badly with me. It changes nothing – but still makes me very upset to think about it. If it was not for a member on this site who found an entry online for his funeral, who knows when we would have found out what had happened to the man that gave us everything for nothing. Perhaps even to this day still not known. He was a friend to all of us in different ways. When we did find out that he had passed away to at least answered the question – tragically the worst way it could ever have been answered. The positive that happened is that we were able in one form or another to let his family know how damn awesome he was and everything that he had given the world for nothing return. I wrote a letter to the family that the undertakers passed on and there was representation from this community at the funeral. I understand that the knowledge of us and what he had done gave his family them some comfort in his passing and his legacy continues to this day with every release. We also had the chance to celebrate his life in the virtual wake that we did – I am very proud of everybody that posted there. I do feel as a year has passed this is now the right time to lock that post. A time-locked memory for all to see that will be pinned. That is the only change I am making to this area, the rest remains as it is – the memorial virtual forum to talk about our friend – start new thread – join others as long as it’s respectful. My thoughts have always been with the passing of Chris; how do we mark the year anniversary of his passing for this site ? I think really the best I can do is simply a post like this to honour the great talent that Chris was. I am going to try to keep names off this as everybody has been involved to one extent or another and the fear here – is that I miss somebody and that is not the goal – this is why I mention no direct names. Today, I would hope that Chris would be proud that his legacy does live on – and as a community – we carried on and the evidence is here today to see. This also shows the brilliant coding of his emulator and really, we are a plus one year down the line and everything is still working – that shows what a perfectionist he was and how right he got it. I recall before one of the releases, around v19 I was asking when was he going to do it and he was always just there and then find something else that needed fixing. These fixes were so minor in my eyes at times – but Chris wanted it perfect and it really as in the end – especially if you look at the journey from the original Fruit.Exe. I do often wonder if Chris knew that the time was near. This is partly because of a post by a member here or perhaps a PM I saw ( I can’t remember which ). There was a comment that when he fixed the reels in M1AB to make the spinning sound work, it was noted that Chris had some kind of urgency to get that in and done. That was the last real update we saw of MFME. He certainly said nothing to me directly – but it was a comment that was made last year and has always been in the back of my mind. If the comment was valid, then on reflection Chris was never one to be “soft” and if he was aware that this was the eve of what was going on, then I do believe he would have wanted people to carry on and treat him as they always did, that would have been on his terms and I believe he got that if he had any awareness. He did know how well loved he was. The “Wine for Wizard” campaign really touched him and as the scene size that we were – he was very well recognised for what he did and the way that many of you came forward to support him, really did touch him and have some wonderful private messages surrounding that. Through the years of knowing him, I know that he was very fond of animals – especially cats and we had quite a few chats about cats over the years. He no longer had his, but we’d often chat about mine and he would be very enthusiastic about them. If he had still had his, I’d have tried to adopt and take care of his once we knew what had happened. Looking at what can be done from this site, I want to do something on behalf of this site in honour of him and what I believe he would approve of. My first thought is to site funds that keep the lights on here. Once I know that everything has been cleared in terms of subscriptions, bills and everything else this is what I am going to do. To honour Chris and his fondness for our furry friends, this site will make a substantial donation to the Cats Protection League at the point this year there is nothing less to pay – sometime in December 2021. From this point onwards – knowing his fondness for cats – that will also be the chosen charity of this site should we do anything again in the future for a charity. Substitutional means every remaining penny will be passed over in the charity donation. This will be done once I am certain all the costs are covered and clear and I will publish the transfer in the reserved post that is below this this one. With a gesture like this, there is no need to be concerned. This is no different to when we did the “Wine for Wizard” campaign. That being said – you all know I am a man of my word – if I have messed up and let’s say in 2022 all donations literally stopped dead. I will cover the bills personally until the end of 2022 as I will not allow a donation to a charity to damage this site. Anything I do here with the charity donation the site will not be impacted if I make a mistake. Equally – if anybody wishes to exclusively donate towards this as well via this site who has already donated – feel free to use the donation system but you must send me a PM directly stating that this is for the charity pot. You will get a badge in your profile – without the PM, the donation will be considered site funds and not ring-fenced and I won’t know to add the badge. You will get the large badge just as I have on my profile unless you ask for the smaller one ( no cat footprints ). Just mention that anybody that donates who does not already donate, that will not be going to the charity – that is to support the site – the site always comes first and that is not ring-fenced. This site gives us ex-gamblers so much and has literally saved lives and we can do more and this is what we do. Giving to a charity and one that I know Chris would approve of will give support to our furry friends and so something to help others as well and is a simple but correct gesture to do. I look to the future now. Over the past year, we have had a hell of a lot of layouts from all the designers that give life into the emulator and we are also seeing the development of the arcade simulator that will continue to breathe new life into the scene. I never believed for a single minute that the passing of Chris was the end for MFME, I knew just how damn good the emulator was – but I never expected to see the development of a third party application that scrapes layout and displays them in a virtual arcade. That is some brilliant work there. I think in football, the phrase “it’s not over until it’s over” is true for this scene as well. While we have such skilled coders around us – then the emulation scene will still go from strength to strength. Before you all wonder what I am talking about, there was a post that I read sometime around 3rd July. A member had joined here and was discovering MFME for the first time. Even after his death, Chris continues to “wow” people and this will continue. We also have had so many new layouts this year and great designers still release. Some maybe on a break now – but they still frequent the forums and we’ve seen releases. Speaking of releases – we have a lot of foreign machines these days – I know Chris would have loved to have played them. This again is credit to his emulator that can be supported by the designers who make pictures into magic which is the wonder of what Chris have us with MFME. The greatest threat on the horizon was Windows 11 during the past year. That is not so much a threat now as it is looking like MFME plays well with that and we are in a great place going forward. Today, right now. What we have here is a brilliant community – and if Chris is looking down and can tear himself away from his virtual coding he is likely doing, he’ll be pleased with what we’ve done and how we’ve behaved. This site is a credit to the man – you are each a credit to the man – the man himself was a credit to human beings with a solid decency that did everything for nothing. It is always worth remembering that in a way, you can reach out to Chris as his account is still here and untouched. You can PM him and say whatever private words you wish and your comments will be between you, yourself and god. Private – time locked and you can say whatever you want. That gives me a feeling of comfort for some strange reason that the man I knew for over twenty years still has a private message box that is his and his alone. The funeral for Chris is technically one marker we can use to celebrate Chris, but I choose personally for the sake of knowing the last time he visited and knowing he visited daily, my marker will be August 9th every year for the post Wizard era. Tomorrow, August 9th 2021 marks the first day of the second year that we last saw our Chris on this site. He would have been delighted with what this community has done and how it has continued to grow. Everybody that remembers him – thank you for keeping the flame alive. Everybody that never knew him – look around you – this site, this membership and everything that is done here is because of that one great man, Chris Wren. Even in his passing Chris will still be helping others and his reach will also be touching the hearts of pet owners as we support The Cats Protection League at the end of the year. Peace out… …and Chris, I still miss you mate so much.

Thanks for the video This latest patch did have a potential fix in for a black screen issue, but it seems like yours is different (I think it may be down to Norton antivirus). I am slightly hopefully it might work for you in a week or two, as currently it tries to create those 'dll' files at the point where the black screen appears - and currently Norton antivirus misidentifies them as malware. I have submitted these dll files to Norton, and should hopefully have them accepted next week. So then once your Norton antivirus program updates its definitions (I don't know how frequently it does this, but I expect at least once a week), it will no longer fight with Arcade Sim when it tries to create the dll files. So that is my plan for your issue just now - is to wait for a week or two, then see if it has fixed the issue. Hang in there

A new patch is uploaded Again this is fairly boring but essential stuff, hopefully the last of these compatibility/stability tasks, as I'm keen to get back to working on the actual fruit machines! Tech info: Now if a user doesn't have adequate graphics hardware (low end integrated CPU graphics, or a very old graphics card) to render the machine lamps/displays etc, they will get this screen and it will not continue to install: This should avoid confusion for new users without the necessary graphics hardware. Also, as I've had a report of a black screen, I've done some extra work to flush the Arcade Simulator display registry entries at start up. It was possible before for these to get corrupted, and while I made it force full-screen mode, this will work as a second line of defence, as the defaults are always good, so no point in having potentially corrupted entries causing the black square screen issue. (it does the equivalent of the end user deleting the ArcadeSim and ArcadeSimLaunch registry entries through regedit that don't relate to my UserSettings system). Also, I've submitted the two .dll files to the virus killer companies that are identifying them as malicious, as I've not had any reports of further problems, so I feel that work is done and the .dlls are hopefully 'final' (for now, there will be more to do, but in a long time from now). Microsoft have already approved them, just waiting on Norton (Symantec), Max Secure, and SecureAge... Fingers crossed I can start looking at actual fruit-machine related stuff next, it's been quite a while getting these various compatibility issues sorted. Thanks to everyone who has provided information about those compatibility problems, you guys have stepped up and helped me with information, and it's a lot more robust now as a result

There was a good playing method on these until the later program came out and made it slightly more difficult to get the value out. Here's some game play showing how to trick Mega Streak on the feature board. As far as I can tell, we haven't got the original roms which allowed you to empty the machine from the Win Stopper feature. The later program is the machine on the right which I briefly play in the last 5 minutes.

lol i'm kinda drunk, but awesome this is all great news in terms of getting this thing more reliable guys Great stuff, thanks for letting me know - I realized I'd took an iffy shortcut on the patch server so I re-uploaded everything again to get the coherent copy from my machine, and it sounds like this fixed the corruption that i had inadvertently introduced in an earlier patch) Brilliant news, thanks for letting me know In a week or two, hopefully Norton will no longer identify the .dll files as a virus - thanks again for letting me know it was just down to the anti-virus Ah nice one, looks like that cheap gfx card just scrapes in with those Compute Buffers thanks for letting me know

I really liked the music on Demolition Racer PS1. Almost an albums worth of Fear Factory!

Updated. All good here. I was a bit worried as my machine is just an old business pc with a cheap gfx card added. Thanks JP

Right , its definitely Nortan , ive had a play about with it and ive managed to get the arcade working again!! so up and running

You can’t add your own arcade yet, this is a beta version of arcade simulator that John is working on. As the software evolves extra features will become available. J

That's solved the issue, how do I add my fruit machine please?

I get a black screen when it try's to load and as you know before it would run as administrator

No joy for me.

Upgraded and worked perfectly on mine. No issues at all. Thank you.

Sound Roms came with the layout. No idea about pictures though.

There should be a classic version of the English one somewhere.

Might be worth mentioning with Scorpion 4 Golden Game Top Box you need to create a button and an alpha display. Design, edit, right click anywhere on the machine that doesn't have a numbered button and then you will see create button or alpha in the menu. The button needs to be number 10 which increases the volume and of course the alpha display will show you the volume level. When you tick the refill box and door boxes, the volume menu is there straight away so you don't need to create other buttons to cycle through menus. If you turned the volume up too much then button number 9 will decrease the volume level.

Useful.

Ah sorry to hear that bud... it's more a case that this software is still in early development and has bugs, than you needing an upgrade, as it used to work on your machine (when you ran as Administrator). I have more to do on this sort of stuff, that will probably mean it will work again for you after another couple of updates. I might ping you in a a couple of weeks or so it that's ok, just to try it one more time - as then it should have worked past these issues. (For tech info - the work planned is deleting the Unity registry on boot of the Updater as it's caused issues to me and other users, and also getting the .dll registered with a couple of virus companies who are identifying as a false positive. I could also do with figuring out how to do a full automated uninstall via Windows Installer).

Second video on this machine (I did one back in late 2017), but this time I try to do the emptier properly!

Final Fantasy 7's music always stands out for me. So much effort went into every aspect of that game. Brilliance!

Demon Driver 1978 Tomy.

took some more pics..off course the phone didnt have enough power to use flash. (im cursed)..took pic of the blue space invaders game and the game and watch games...pulled out something for pics too..its a mess up there..theres even more behind the bookcase/shelves..amstrads with monitors, all the gaming mags i ever bought..loads of cassette games. theres a pic of a pile of controllers and power wires,Ariel wires.. zx spectrum printer..the smell of paper burning while it burnt the letters on...lol im a huge terminator fan and never got around to finishing my terminator..theres endo skulls /arms/rifles kits in boxs too.. can you spot the differnt toys on the bench top..

some of the stuff in my attic...what can you spot in the pictures... also the black rubber thing is a rubber baton round fired by the police during rioting...lol