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It's extremely upsetting It's not fair he doesn't get to see all the people he's made happy. My eyes are tearing up because I'm thinking about if he passed feeling like he wasn't done yet. He put all this effort into making MFME and he doesn't get to see all the happiness he's caused, it just isn't fair I hope in his final moments he felt complete, that he said to himself "There, I finished it. I'm ready to go", and then went to sleep with a smile on his face knowing he's made, and will continue to make, people happy. I hope he didn't feel like he wasn't ready. It's such a sad world. If anyone reads this who feels they're near the same fate, know you are loved. If you feel alone, know there's people out there who would gladly give you a big hug if they could.

So many of us first got into MFME in the very early 2000s - I was definitely still at school at the time, and my friend couldn't believe it when I show him how to get his favourite machine (JPM Rollercoaster) running at home. I think that was probably one of the early releases of JPeMu (by DialTone, not Wizard), or possibly an early MFMe with JPM support. I'd been using his pre-MFME emulator (MPU34) for at least a year or so before that released. That would make it 2001 at the absolutely latest when I discovered it, but I feel it might have been 2000? I'd like to think that many of us would have expressed our gratitude during that time, although obviously I (and I'm sure many others) wish I'd shown him just how much it mattered. Hopefully the fact so many communities like this sprang up (and yes, a few did fall by the wayside) where people discussed his emulator means he was aware of how much people appreciated his work

Ultimarc is the main supplier. Output :: LED and Output Controllers :: PAC Drive (ultimarc.com)

Not much at this very early stage unfortunately. Once we get to the stage where 'classic' layouts (that are mainly text based with just a few graphics and graphical reel bands), can be extracted and imported, edited, and then exported as MAME 'internal' pure text layouts - there will be a ton of labelling work, so that we can get the internal layouts for fruit machines (that get built into MAME.exe) to a complete state. This in turn will provide a lot more incentive for coders to work on MAME to iron out the many bugs, config issues, missing devices etc, that will result in MAME getting the various fruit machine techs to full compatibility (it's currently quite behind MFME). Meanwhile, I will be working on the graphical/3d side so then the community can get the 1000s of 2d layouts converted/expanded into 3d machines. So, in the future, there will be plenty more stuff the community can do, without programming skills - just not there yet

I did half-start a tool (a modern Windows tool with a GUI) for doing this, worked on a few techs, more were to follow, but I've been under the weather, plus a bunch of other FME projects require my attention these days! Here's a demo of someone using a rom created by the tool (so the feature board music normally isn't the official Ghostbusters, but a short loop of similar synth Ghostbusters music): The source code is here (all my projects going forward are open source so all code is always available). If someone has the time and a basic knownledge of coding etc, they could expand this to cover most/all techs, and also improve the UI etc: [ Sound ROM Editor ] Source code: https://github.com/johnparker007/SoundRomEditor

Thought I would share a story! As I had said in the memorial thread Chris had helped me out no end with trouble shooting many many mpu boards for me, within those emails he had mentioned he has an Ace sidewinder, my ears pricked up as I had not seen one since the 80's in an arcade I had worked in as a teenager. Anyway he said he had accidentaly necked the tube (means cracked the tv screen small end) Sidewinder is a video fruit for those not familiar. And is it was an odd size 16 inch Hantarex rather than the normal 19 inch one's he could not find a replacement! Well seeing this chance to help him for a change, so I set about searching for one posting on the many forums I use for my arcade obsession. I was delighted when I tracked one down in Italy of all places, the guy that replied was a guru on CRT tubes and knew what old TV's comtaind what tubes. So he had one tested and working, Chris was over the moon! The seller was spot on and packed the tube inside an old TV in a huge box with sponge etc, the cost was little shipping not so, as sidewinder was a memory for me also I paid some of the shipping which Chris protested about. This was in 2015 and I was delighted to help him out in a small way after all the help he had given to me and contiinued to give beyond that, Might be a bit of a boring read for others but I remember him sending me pics when he had the screen up and running in the machine, he had thought he would never find another, I'm like a dog with a bone with my OCD when I want something lol. And later he was telling me he was building an MFME machine in a JPM Vogue cabinet, I think that was 2018? I had a couple of bits he needed a 10p and £1 hopper and some coin entry bits, I was never going to be able to give him any tech help lol. I wonder how far he got with that project? Anyway sorry for ranting on! Just some of my memories Thanks Ronnie

I found this thread over on Fruit-Emu which has pictures of Wizard's cab that you mentioned above.... it looks as if he did indeed complete it... it looks fantastic! - Wizard certainly was a man of many talents. https://www.fruit-emu.com/forums/topic/56903-thinking-of-building-my-own/ You need to be logged in to Fruit-Emu, to see all the pics but i grabbed one to show you here... I can grab the others and put them here if you think it would be of benefit for the preservation of these pictures (I say that because Fruit-Emu is seemingly a site that is inactive so who knows how long that site will remain up for?) Cheers, Gary.

Fantastic Tributes , very touching . I'll never forget the day , a Thursday it was . I was at a mansion where the guy ran an internet cafe and I hired a PC for a couple of hours and downloaded a few layouts and ROMs from the web hovel . Now this was before usb memory sticks so the only way to transport the files were by burning a cd. So imagine my anguish when I went to pay and take the cd home only to be told there was trouble with the burning software and to come back and collect it on the Saturday. You can imagine how hard that wait would be. Somehow I made it to Saturday and my excitement was off the chart. I made my way to collect the cd, constantly worrying if it had been successfully burned or not. When I got there the guy was holding up the cd in one of those clear plastic numbers and said "this is for you" I said thanks and never so fast have I rushed home with something before. I turned the pc on and transferred the files from cd to a folder , still to this day, I named "Fruitz" I extracted Andy capp classic and fired up the emu for the first time. I'll never ever forget the SHEER JOY I felt, tinged with simple disbelief that Andy capp was ACTUALLY running on my pc in front of me. It was simply a DREAM COME TRUE , next I quickly tried Viva Espana DX and Wowwwww !!!! was just simply in Dreamland . The graphics , the sound, the reels spinning , the hold buttons flashing, Awh man it was bliss. I still can't believe it to this day and It's all thanks to Chris "Utter Genius" Wizard , Our so greatly missed friend and exceptional coder and Dream Maker. Chris if you're watching , Thank You So So Much for all that you've given us.

@Reg What a lovely post, written from the heart - and @Chopaholica lovely video - you both show how much Chris means not just to you both but everyone in this community which would not of existed without him. Rest in peace, Chris. You live on with us all through your brilliant piece of code MFME helping bring back memories by playing fruit machines which without MFME would simply be just that - a memory. Thank you...

What a beautiful piece from @Reg i want to say thank you wizard for mfme you are amazing

Lovely open and honest video there @Chopaholic. I know it's not going to mean much to your viewers that don't follow emulation, but those that do - I believe you really hit the mark. Lovely tribute.

Without @Wizard we would not be here with MFME emulation.

To the Wizard of MFME himself Thank you for this great legacy Sorry for my dismissive attitude and... Wish you the best (but to the worst to the flipping police, but unfortunately I guess that's to be expected knowing the current world of EntitledPeople we live in)

Thanks Reg. Very poignant . Missed every day

Very nice words. So glad we can now donate to a cause, that Chris would have liked.

Wonderful words Reg, honest and from the heart - I have to confess I sprung a leak as I read down your post. I still feel very sad when I think about Chris having passed, and every time I load his emulator in (which is every single day), I quietly say thank you to him. I'll be putting a video on the channel tomorrow to mark the anniversary. Thank you for those words Reg, I think you speak for all of us.

Than you @Reg for the thoughful and heartfelt post. Not an easy to thing to do.

Great post, and I love the touch of donating to a charity Chris would have cared about. An excellent way to show the community's respects. I'll pop something extra in the donations pot for this year, knowing that it will be used in this way. Hopefully others will chuck in whatever they can afford, too. RIP Chris, you genius. Massive respect.

I cannot believe its been nearly a year since we lost Chris his emulator lives on and new layouts keep coming from those with the talent to produce them. I have much to be grateful to him for and his emulator. I was addicted to gambling spending way more than i should have been, fortunately not more than i had 3 things brought me back from this problem. 1. The love and support of a wonderful lady. 2. My little dog gave me something else to concentrate on . 3 Chris's wonderful emulator and the games i could play on it so i was not going to have to go cold turkey. RIP Chris you are missed but still remembered every time i click on the icon to open MFME.

A very well written and thoughtful post. RIP Chris, a well respected all round great guy.

Thanks for this very well written post Reg, I think Wizard would be pleased that everyone is still enjoying his fantastic emulator. R.I.P Chris you are missed by all.

What a lovely post @Reg I am sure Chris will be so proud of you keeping everything going.Thank you for everything you do for us all. R.I.P Wizard

Wow a full year gone already ...still sadly missed by us all....and very nice post reg !!!

Thanks @Regfor that fantastic post, I think you said it all mate.

A very well wrote and respected post Rip wizard you’ll be remembered always though every layout I make and play and beyond

That is a beautiful post @Reg. Here's to Chris, and keeping the scene going and growing into 2022

A great post, thanks Reg. And here's to you Wizard! (Also, I'm currently using the Windows 11 dev insider preview and so far MFMEv20 seems to be working flawlessly, no issues whatsoever.)

Tomorrow marks the burial of our dear friend Chris. There are many of us that would love to be at his funeral and wake but we know that Covid conditions make this impossible and there is no reason that this cannot be done online. If you feel you would like to be part of this, please post a picture of yourself toasting Wizard taken after 15:45 tomorrow with a message of what you would like to say to this thread. It does not matter if your drinking tea or whatever, this is a symbolic gesture. Please no comments beyond your post and message on this thread, we have a thread for that and I will remove any that do happen. This thread will be locked forever in time when the lights are switched back on here. That will likely be the evening of 16th September. I hope that this is ok and is one way that we can bring ourselves together to mark tomorrow as one, virtually.

This area is the final resting place for the two threads, one for the Saddest Day and the other for the Virtual Wake. I also thought that as Chris's family are known to this site now - I should ensure the posts are easy to find of which they are now and will continue to be over time. This area is viewable by Guests to the site as well so no need for them to sign up. The original plan was I was going to shut the Virtual Wake thread and the Saddest Day threads, this is now not going to happen as people are still posting to them and they should be allowed without making a new thread. On the subject of the two, the Virtual Wake one - please keep clear of banter and comments - it's direct dedication to our friend Chris and ideally the photo and a message and that is it. You also have the ability to post to this area as well - if you have a story or something you would like to say about Chris, then this is the place - you can start a new thread. Thank you.

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.