slotsmagic

Two issues for me : 1) Probably one for the admins... Not sure why I can't see your previous posting history. It says you've got 114 posts here, yet I can only see the ones in this thread and then a single one from 2023? I don't know if that is something to do with the way in which you were banned? 2) I may well have mixed you up with someone else and I apologise if that's the case. I guess the word 'Fruits' is going to be pretty common on a fruit machine site. I've had a look at your reputation score and it looks like you don't have any of the negative reputation things. Then again I also can't see any posts pre-2023. So entirely possible I am mixing you up and having checked my post the language like 'disgusted' and stuff really wasn't fair given I was basing that on just (a) you being banned and (b) someone with the name 'Fruits' (which is common) doing something stupid. I shouldn't have made such a post based on assumptions and which would lead others to make assumptions on your character so I do apologise for that.

To be fair an IP address, posted on a fruit machine forum, is of bugger all value to anyone but the person that IP address is assigned to. Much more likely these days that people will have issues based on data collected during hacks, which is then posted online / sold online. I was trying to see previous posts from @Coskey Fruits last night but was unable to. I'm sure I recall some incident(s) that everyone got fired up about as it's a sort of recognisable name. Depending on what it was it might be a case of you being allowed access to the site but don't expect much in the way of help or support from members who were (rightly or wrongly) offended or disgusted by what you may have posted. Like I say I can't view previous posts so I'm just going off vague memories. Assuming you apologised for whatever it was you did, I'm hoping you extend that apology to the userbase here and not just the admin(s). Admins may let you in, but it's forum users who will be interacting with you and it is up to them how forgiving they want to be.

Something I just thought of. Is there no way of using another app designed to work with the PACdrive to drive the hopper, and use that app via some kind of keyboard / iPAC shortcut? I don't know the Ultimarc themselves have any software available for PACdrive - they definitely did for iPAC. Would be worth a quick rummage. Obviously Chris isn't here any more, but I'm sure there was discussion in the past about MFME and PACdrive outputs. I feel like maybe square brackets [ ] were used for keypresses to the hopper? I'm probably just confusing more and not helping but I'm trying to think of anything that might help lol.

I was tempted to make something for my cabinets, would have been using a refill key switch to drive a hopper motor directly with 12V (ignoring the hopper PCB and just powering the motor). Never got around to it. So if I needed money I could just turn the refill key and get more coins. Again it's all theoretical. Couldn't be arsed in the end, just left a layout in my collection with a massive bank after a streak, loaded that layout, collected some bank out and quit the game. Gave me an excuse to play another layout to get a big bank

Worth a punt. It may well be that the machine would need to be initialised for it to work. The only other option I could think of, would be use say a Bell Fruit layout that gives change rather than credits via the note acceptor (so earlier Scorpion 4 machines), and then set a keyboard shortcut to say the five/ten/twenty pound note input, even if it's to something daft like your start button. Then you could just open that layout, wait for it to initialise, and use that shortcut to get coins. There's probably a more logical way but those are the best I can come up with

@Road Hog Mad Not fired up MFME in ages, but I've just had a quick look and I'd assume (probably incorrectly?) that if you set up a button within one of my Concept layouts, and set the button to one of the hopper motor values here, pressing that button (or whichever keyboard shortcut you set it to) would cause the hopper to spin and pay out coins. That's just theoretical though!

Not sure about a keyboard shortcut unfortunately, and I no longer have an MFME cabinet to yesterday with. You can use the menu within MFME to test PACdrive but I guess that's no use if you don't have a touchscreen connected. The closest, easiest I could think of would be to draw from experience when making my Concept Electrocoin layouts. To get the hoppers to work I found that there was a 'switch' that acted as a hopper motor drive, and a 'lamp' that acted as a hopper opto output. Presumably if you have that hopper drive 'switch' set to a keyboard shortcut, you would just need to open and boot one of the Concept layouts, press that button and it would drive the hopper? Unless it would alarm?

Was only thinking about him earlier, and his motivation for creating MFME. Imagine how awesome it would be if we could have interviewed him? Being a private chap he probably wouldn't have been up for it, but it would have been great to have heard him talk about why he took it upon himself to create, and continually improve it. He probably didn't realise how much MFME meant to people (and still does, obviously!) Happy Birthday Chris, and thanks to you @WizardsNiece96for keeping us all informed

I remember when I lost / broke my pirate copy of Johnny Castaway as a youngster. I wrote a letter to Sierra On-line. I told them how much I missed it, and enjoyed their other games too (Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry - which probably wasn't really appropriate for a 10 year old, and The Incredible Machine). They sent me a legit floppy of Johnny Castaway for free and a nice letter!

Ah, I might have been confusing Betcom with someone else. I have a habit of lumping all the modern crap machines into the same category lol. There's definitely been plenty of pub AWPs on Pluto 6 the last 10/15 years I'm sure, but many of them may have had Scorp 5 versions or similar? (Edit - see attached for a Betcom Pluto 6 board with Paddy's PD (PayDay?) CF card)

Pluto 6 would be impressive, although I guess the manufacturer specific FPGA chips will be the issue? Definitely good to see development on it. I forgot that my old JPM clubber, an Al Murray clubber based on Casino Crazy but with £400 jackpot and multi stake, used it. I assume other late JPM and Crystal club and pub machines would. Along with the usual Betcoms and similar. I'm assuming Empire used it too once they were absorbed by Astra, so plenty of other lo-techs. I can't remember though if the likes of Bullion BARs Streakin' used Pluto 6 or if they ran something else? I feel like they might have had a backplane arrangement like the Firefox machines? They used Firefox cabinets for sure.

I'm not clued up on the full signup process, but did you make a thread in the Introductions area, and get the required reputation points? Have you ever been able to download? If you have downloaded recently and now find you can't, it may be because you have hit your download limit? With all that said, your username is a bit suspect lol. Have you joined previously, been banned, and this is another account?

Could be any of them, but could also be someone else? Maybe just a competent programmer who fancied picking up some techs that hadn't been covered. That Cobra 3 looks bang on, having owned the machine. The clips and graphics are spot on. If it was just that it could look suspect, but the gameplay looks correct too. The only bit that looks weird watching it back is the fact it doesn't have onscreen controls, with the original machine having buttons rather than any sort of touchscreen interface. I assume they are being emulated off-screen (keypresses, or part of the GUI we can't see on video). Whoever it is or why they are doing it, I'm still happy to see it, and hopeful that it'll see the light of day at some point. Scorp 6 doesn't bother me at all, machines were dead by that point for me anyway. But Cobra 3? Mmmmmmm.

Yes!!! I remember all the stupid clips and things from it!! So glad it's working, and don't feel bad about not being able to dump my CD. Good game, I also liked Telly Addicts which may have been the same hardware? But TOTP is one I played a lot with dad, and then bought the very machine we used to play together. Lots of good memories of it

I'm not that technical... but I wonder if perhaps Betcom / Blueprint / Reflex software on Scorpion 6 might be less protected? Perhaps it's a case of starting with the easiest** stuff and then trying to get the harder bits going once you know you've got the basics covered? It is interesting in any case. Scorpion 6 is, in UK terms at least, almost dead. I assume it's just Reflex and Electrocoin using it now? I've no technical experience inside the most recent BX7 e.t.c. but I'm sure they build them on Scorpion 6 now, rather than the old Z80 architecture.

Never owned a Jaguar but came close. There was a video game shop in a city near me - I don't think it was EB but was something similar. They had a pile of Jaguars and I believe they were £20/£25. I think mum or dad must have talked me out of spending my pocket money on it! I did have an Atari Lynx, that was a cracking console. A huge unwieldy thing for a 'handheld' - unless that's just the fact I would smaller and younger back then. But great fun, even if I mainly played a Boulderdash type game on it, Crystal somethingorother. Regarding BFM SWPs, the only one I owned was Top of the Pops. Unfortunately I was unable to make a backup of the CD due to scratches (which also meant it would freeze during certain scenes). I feel that putting CDs into an SWP was a bad idea, as obviously clubs / pubs would pull the machines about whilst turned on (to reach power socket, e.t.c.) I do recall it being a Cobra (possibly Cobra 3?) board, but can't remember much else and it's long gone.

The hopper is now sold, it was a 12/24V Azkoyen Parallel and someone else asked me about it last night. The coin mechs I have ran fine off 12V. You could try running a 24V hopper off a 12V PSU - it might work fine, work slowly, or not work, depending on the hopper type. I have a spare plug for a coin mech with some length of wiring attached (probably about 1ft?) - if not long enough to use as-is you could always extend the wires using wago / chockblock or similar. The coin mechs I have are front-entry SR5 and top entry 9524 (I could have the wrong number!). The PC I was using in the Interplay is still here, but it would probably be too big? It's an intel i3 7100 with 8GB RAM. I did remove the plastics and whatnot so it's an open metal chassis with mATX motherboard, 250W Gold rated small form factor PSU.

No worries. So here for example is an iPAC, PACdrive (special) and 7 x 10mm LEDs (fit into almost all fruit machine button lamp holders), as well as a couple of spacer legs if needed, just to raise one or both boards away from any conductive surface if that's an issue. These would be ready to post out, I've got a mountain of USB cables and stuff so will include appropriate ones and extension cables if needed. I do have more LEDs here somewhere, 7 is because the machine I pulled these from had 7 buttons (pretty common amount!). I'll get them found tomorrow The issue you would really have would be the wiring of everything together. I'm not great at explaining things off the top of my head, all I did was spend hours researching the Cabinet Building subforum, seeing what others had done and documented and worked back from there! It isn't difficult To give you an idea for these bits I'd be looking at £30 including postage and the anti-static box. I'm pretty sure that's a fair price as I feel just an iPAC is around £30 these days. I can certainly have a rummage around (I've got plenty of free time before work tomorrow). I definitely have another box of MFME bits but not sure where off the top of my head, that other box is the one with hopper and stuff (and maybe some wiring loom?).

No worries. Everything was disassembled so there won't be any complete looms or owt but I'll see what I can do. I'm out trainspotting at the moment

Sorry chap, had forgotten about this as gave up on the garage when it turned chilly! I can nip out and grab photos and stuff at some point today, but to give you an idea I at least have the following, and possibly more : 2 X genuine iPAC 3 X genuine PACdrive (1x Special, 2x Normal) Azkoyen Parallel Hopper SR5e front entry coin mech (known working with MFME, tested by me in Interplay cabinet). Top entry 9524e coin mech (known working with MFME but I did butcher the reject door at the top) An assortment of wiring although not 100% sure which will be of use to you so I'd need to check! Square buttons with 10mm LEDs and some spare 10mm LEDs (probably about 20 LEDs total but I would need to go and confirm). Also various PC bits, motherboards, SFF PSUs, that sort of thing.

@aland888 5V LED if powering from PACdrive, 12V will blow it up! I have 5V 10mm LEDs too, that I can bundle, so you can have all the bits together.

Yes, all the bits I have will be for sale, I'm at work now until Sunday afternoon (I work 3 long days over the weekend but then have Mon - Thurs off), but should have everything you could need, apart from a complete wiring loom for it. To be honest the wiring isn't that bad! As said above by @davep180 the way I learned what to do was to trawl the Cabinet Building subforum and see how others had wired their bits together.

Coin mech should work (edit - I note it doesn't have a 'new £1 ready' sticker so hopefully you know it takes the bi-metal £1 coins already) - you'd need to set it in to parallel mode, and it should have another pin header somewhere else for parallel connector. I believe it's on the opposite side of the mech to what you have shown. Off the top of my head it'll be about 17 pins in a straight line. Your hopper is serial only I believe and I don't know if anyone has successfully got serial / CCTalk components to work - not saying it's impossible, but parallel coin mechs and hoppers are known workers and have simpler pinouts. With a parallel hopper for example you have pins for power, hopper motor, hopper opto, ground. With serial you'll see the pinouts (they should be on a sticker on the hopper) are for DATA and stuff, rather than the specific components of the hopper. I've no idea how you'd even connect that to a PACdrive / iPAC, if it's even possible. My honest opinion? I'd try and source a parallel hopper. If you require the same form factor as that hopper you'd be looking for another Compact Hopper but parallel. Otherwise something like my Azkoyen Parallel or one sourced elsewhere would work, albeit with different dimensions. As for the iPAC and PACdrive - them of them as input and output devices. iPAC handles inputs (button presses, coin inputs from the mech, hopper opto sensor inputs). It's basically a keyboard encoder, it turns microswitch and similar inputs into keyboard presses which MFME detects. PACdrive drives outputs (lamps for your buttons, hopper motor). So you connect (for example) a lamp - 5V LED if you want to power direct from the PACdrive as I do - and when that fruit machine lamp is 'on' within MFME, the PACdrive powers the corresponding LED within your physical button. Or in the case of a hopper, the PACdrive acts like a middleman between MFME and the hopper, and turns the hopper motor on as required to pay out coins, then the iPAC detects the coins being paid by the physical hopper as they pass through an opto sensor, sending a keypress to MFME so that the emulator is aware a coin has been paid out.

That iPAC looks suitable. I've got several iPACs here, and PACdrives (used for driving button LEDs, hopper motors, e.t.c.). I was planning on finishing off several cabinets but ultimately disposed of them and kept the driver boards, PCs, e.t.c. The coin mechs and hopper (Azkoyen Parallel) I have do work and have come out of previously running cabinets - but if you are only ever planning on single coin entry that cheapo one from Amazon would be fine I guess.

I got banned whilst on holiday this year, I had my launch model Switch running modded firmware via an RCM jig purely for Retroarch - never played a pirate game. I was playing my legit original Links Awakening cart when the ban kicked in as the game was about to launch once I connected to the holiday home's Wi-Fi. Funny thing is - I was going to buy the new Zelda game (Echoes of Wisdom?). But since I was banned, which meant my existing games wouldn't load (couldn't connect to get necessary updates), I decided I would never buy a legit game again and would stick with piracy. They forced my hand in that regard. I'm absolutely for banning people from online multiplayer who cheat, that sort of thing. But to effectively brick my console? They can bugger off. I just won't give them any more money for software. As for MIG Switch and similar, I believe they are legit and work, but since the Switch is approaching EOL, I'll wait until mods are cheaper before investing, and just stick to emulation and stuff for now. I did manage to get my old games working by deleting games, and reinstalling the OS, then not connecting to internet so they didn't know an update was required.