[Note acceptors/ Coinmecks]

I think the only issue with a note acceptor would be that you'd want one that doesn't use encryption or similar, and I'm not even sure if they exist in these days of polymer notes?

I would think that (as with hoppers and coin mechs) you'd be wanting parallel mode, not CCTalk or similar.

[Fair games, timeless, bar 7’s]

1 hour ago, vectra666 said:

Didn’t think we had any of the fair games machine running yet but don’t we have Pluto 5 tech within mfme? 

We do have Pluto 5, but I'm guessing that - as with Pluto 6 - there's probably different chips and possibly minor board differences between boards. Hence why, if you have say a Betcom Pluto 6 machine, you need a Betcom Pluto 6 board, or another board with the same colour sockets and then swap at least one socketed chip over.

2 hours ago, edwardb said:

Aren't Fair Games machines on Heber Pluto 5/6 ? I know the guys there - they've been around the industry for a long long time. In theory you can brute force the encryption on Pluto 5 to get them to run, but that'd need some dev work...

I'm pretty sure the ones I saw inside originally were Pluto 5. I'm sure it would be doable, but I think you are suggesting, it's something that would need to be done emulator-side, which suggests it being a thing for future MAME

[Some cheap hoppers available]

Decent prices from a chap I've bought machines and spares from before.

Mind you the cheeky sod never supplied the promised ROMs for BFM Shogun  

[Fair games, timeless, bar 7’s]

46 minutes ago, Jamie28J said:

The sys85 one of Ploggy's is a gem: 

Does that one have a decent streak? I've never tried it

[Fair games, timeless, bar 7’s]

I've tried several times to get the Fair Games ones to run with no luck, sure plenty of others will have tried too.

If you need something that is similar, CashmanEQ has an app on Google Play if you have an Android phone.

Download this app - it also has some Bar X simulations, and there's a simulation of Bar 7 in there that does a bonkers streak with the hidden holds.

 

[The Derby]

1 hour ago, fruitsnappa said:

Played a good one of these in Vegas. Think it was a Konami game.

IMG_2023.zip 19.18 MB · 2 downloads

I don't want to be seem like I'm stereotyping but the Japanese do seem to like their horse racing. They have proper horse racing arcade games (much like the car and motorcycle ride-on arcade games... but with horses.)

That looks like a nice bit of equipment, but clearly in the casino environment it's destined as a proper gambling machine and not the old 2p versions we had, which (while still not cheap back in the day I guess), weren't full-on gambling

 

3 hours ago, vectra666 said:

Great machine this roulette and horse racing one 

bets on blue win!! And their off!!!

loves roulette running around the machine shoving 2p on white for 32p and having it land on white the noise of the six machines paying out 16 2ps (if they weren’t empty!) then running around again white three times on the trot a good £6 in 2ps lol 

the horse racing was 50p on 2p/ £1.50 on 10p 

Yes, I used to do that too, as a young lad, as well as a bit of spread betting  

Despite running a Whittakers roulette in the arcade I never really had much to do with it. I don't think it ever broke down so I never had a need to go digging into it.

I'd be inclined to say it actually uses a random maths model based on the amount / size of winning segments rather than any sort of computerised  compensators. But it's been so long since I played one! 

I'll probably end up owning one at some point just for nostalgia  

[The Derby]

12 hours ago, Amusements said:

I used to have the older version of this called Derby Stakes (6 players). I once had environmental health come round with a sound meter to  measure the volume of it across the road from my arcade, because someone in a high rise complained about the noise. That went nowhere!

Apparently the manufacturers in Oldham closed in 2024.

Coin-op amusements news | Whittaker Brothers closes its doors | InterGame

It's a tricky one, leaving me conflicted. I was upset when I read that news. But then I got to thinking about the other thread about seaside arcades, and slot machines that look just like adult versions being offered to children like a gateway drug.

Some of my favourite old arcade machines were these horse racing and the Roulette I mentioned above (see attached flyer - but also we had a smaller, 2 or 4 player version in our arcade, pretty sure it was called New Orleans but can't see any Google results for that).

Thankfully I never really had a problem with horses and roulette or other table games. But that is probably only as I didn't have the attention span and I needed a quick fix without trying to work out maths or form  

Still, I had many happy memories of playing them, and the fact they were 2p and a slow game... I'd be sorry to see them go.

I'm guessing arcades simply don't want big old good value for money machines when the same space could be used for a 4/8 player cube grabber or a video slot that pays tickets

[The Derby]

1 hour ago, MikeyPosh said:

Can anyone recall this badboy? 2p a go £1,50 JP if memory serves me, or 10p a gom £3 JP (if you bet on the White Horse

Boy I had some fun on this, id be put my coins on White, but in more than one place, of course id lose

Can stuff like this be emulated?

 

Yeah, I used to love these, but often found them on much lower payouts - so 2p play and a jackpot of something like 40-80p

I think they were made by Whittakers, not sure about that exact model. Same with roulette, bloody loved those 2p/10p bet roulette machines  

[Worst playing / surprisingly bad pub fruits and why...]

A few of you have mentioned Big Cheese and clones. I've probably mentioned elsewhere about the time I got absolutely shafted by High Flyer, which I guess is the Spitfire themed one referred to above. You also had Super Star, Top Dog, Hot Rocks and possibly more.

The High Flyer was ridiculous. I can remember the exact location (O'Neills in Peterborough, opposite the Wetherspoons on Broadway). I remember it being incredibly frustrating. Totally unwilling to go through blocks. Didn't help that my college friends were waiting for me to sit with them and got so tired of waiting they walked off without me (can hardly blame them!!).

Unlike the mess about I had with Smash Martians at the beginning of the thread - it wasn't like I was knocking back jackpots or owt, it just didn't seem willing to go past a fiver or so despite me being a good £100 in at some point I'm sure.

But, swings and roundabouts, despite swearing off that machine and it's clones, I did later put £5 into a Big Cheese in a pub, and it gave back to back IMs and I think it paid £75. So I guess that's what they saved for.

Still maintain they were shit though  

[Worst playing / surprisingly bad pub fruits and why...]

13 hours ago, logopolis said:

Mega Bucks was always one of the very worst JPMS. It was always a great sight to see that thin red cabinet through a pub window but hopes were dashed when it turned out to be Mega Bucks!

It's a weird one, isn't it? I don't remember it being too bad, in the local pub, but then I would have been 15/16 or so and we didn't really have (many) pro players out in the sticks and it seemed happier to give IMs and stuff than in the emulator, despite this layout being 86%.

Must be those rose-tinted specs again I reckon  

13 hours ago, vectra666 said:

The like s of mpu4 flash cash and clones 

they’d take a age to fill action cash up and most features you win 10p repeat for another 10p but I still played em but lost loads unless you catch the flash cash feature apart from that they were shit 

Little bit before my time but I'll give these a blast later to see how bad they are

12 hours ago, MikeyMonster said:

I sessioned Meggabucks the other note - and yep - its garbage IMO.

Seems to be next to no progressiveness in it - so like most JPMs a force, not good - BUT seems to be no other way to get any value out of the thing. Evil Nastiness.

---

I like these, always did IRL - i have had one of them do 7 repeats in the emulator - a juicy £16! Seriously though, if I had ever had this backn late 80s, early 90s, I was still disciplined enough to run away to the local book shop  

I just don't remember it as being that crap, but clearly it is. Bloody awful game  

As for the old Barcrests you also replied about does show how we have different experiences and opinions! 

10 hours ago, woodsy said:

megabucks was a gobble game, similar but not as playable as g-force. as in take every £2.40 + etc and wait for a decent super nudge spinner etc. imo the worst jpm with a similar jp game was pinball wizard, always gave me a harsh time despite its similarities to maximium overdrive.

the megabucks we have is nothing like the ones i played, same with hotpots, roll in jp too eagerly.

the flintstones yabba dabba dough was awful, again nudge spinner being the only saviour, coliseum and s breakout, obvs lucky touch and big's but the layout had potential for a greater game imo

instant millioanaire, and bwb super soccer etc, great when ready but dog poor otherwise, sadly games that upon release would've been really fun but had been on site for 20 years etc, like the palace pier with make amillion and bullseye, dr who and the like, years of rechips and rom alterations leaving them a husk of their true selves, games that had once been enjoyable now corrupted and played bizarrely to a casual but like clockwork to a regular, glitches etc, a few examples.

apollo 9 5p £5 dreadful no features and then a mystery win off cherries lightin jp on the trail.

the gambler by empire not being able to lose on a 7 hi-lo.

indy final crack the whip, jink the start button and eventually awards the top.

andy capp, hyper viper despite having £6t jp'd solely spinning 4's &9'S showing us it can only pay xash wins.

eureka only giving jp by 3 holds.

there are so many out there, thats before the players info on them, imagine playing a cash lab and never getting past 80p, or a spotted edick thats on it's arse etc.. 

I used to get my arse handed to me by the Pinball Wizard in the local kebab shops... But I also had no idea of how to really play JPMs back then as that really was when I first started out as a solo player  

Yes I recall those BWBs being utter shite. We did have a couple locally and don't think they lasted long, probably as most pubs wouldn't have covered the lease on them. Quiet village pubs, and if machines were shite they generally didn't last long as there weren't enough regular players, once someone realised a game was shit it sat there and never got played.

I'll have to give some of the others you mentioned a blast to see how I get on

1 hour ago, stevedude2 said:

There was also that JPM Casino Las Vegas game in the Vogue cabinet, which was a bit like Sonic the Hedgehog but with every single vestige of skill and excitement removed.  My word that game was bland.

Does seem to be the same old story - a new game comes out and is good, and with each chip, then clone of the chipped version, there's another even more nerfed version just around the corner - even tighter, more control.

That feels like the issue with Megabucks. Although I also generally didn't like end-to-end games once we go past the £6 era, they just didn't suit the £15 era.

[Worst playing / surprisingly bad pub fruits and why...]

Note - I'm avoiding the £70/£100 era as in my opinion they are basically all garbage. I'm playing older layouts, for nostalgia / the hope of a better game.

My current choices :

1) JPM Megabucks £15 

I used to have one of these local, and don't remember it being too bad, but in the emulator it's an awful pile of crap, despite what I assume is a decent percentage. Possibly a case of rose-tinted specs when I used to play it, or could be the emulated version is some awful chip?

I'd recommend someone play it, to see if they have the same thoughts - there's a great DX layout released by @vectra666 a few years back.

https://www.desertislandfruits.com/forum/index.php?/files/file/1338-mega-bucks-£15-dx/

Why is it so bad? There's so many things. The machine is designed to look like an upgrade to earlier JPM games, it's a normal start to end (not a lapper) feature, with bigger award ladders. It's got a 'SUPER' upgrade which is bloody rare, and upgrades features, cash and knockouts. It's got a top feature at the end of the trail.

But -

1) The feature board. It's end-to-end and is far too kill-happy, even at the bottom of the trail.

2) It's totally unforgiving - and it might just be me and my failing reactions as I get older, but it feels like skill-stops on the feature trail jump. If they do seem to jump, and you miss a jackpot, the next spin is almost certainly death. No second chances.

3) The 'arrows' which light up at the beginning of the feature, and can be added to via 'xtra arrow', have absolutely eff-all value. Each arrow acts as a 'hi-lo' to the next level of the board. But the gambles are so brutal I'd say the only safe numbers are 1 and 12.

4) It's such a brutal, block happy game that I can't see any way to take value out of it, it just feels like a constant run of blocks, before it does an easy board with the blocks off and repeats a few times, or it does something like chuck in a Fireman's Lift off the red boxes and it repeats a few times.

5) The top feature - much like the arrows the machine likes to tease the player by lighting a 'random' amount of the required 8 symbols to trigger the top. But it's all academic as you are more likely to get a the jackpot via a roll-in, good use of SUPER upgrades, or something like a Fireman's Lift. 

Compared to other JPMs in the same era, like £15 jackpot Thunderbirds, Viva Rock Vegas e.t.c., this feels totally nerfed. I wonder if it was a case of them taking a winning formula and ultimately ending up having patched it up so many times they destroyed it?

-----

2) Barcrest Smash Martians £25

This one surprised me. I'd never played it out and about in real life but figured I'd give it a quick session, nice layout from @kutjebef if needed :

https://www.desertislandfruits.com/forum/index.php?/files/file/1292-smash-martians-£25-barcrest/

Ended up taking £130 to cave for an IM, which paid a £42 Mega Streak. Next board, also went IM, another £42 Mega Streak.

Very odd coding, not what I expected from a Barcrest of this era. A much more progressive game than Megabucks, but then a massive hard block on the Mega. I expected a much more casual, fun game than ending up balls-deep into a machine I expected to be a fairly safe force. It just blocked board after board, with a rigid block around the £15/£25 area, for ages, before caving.

I did end up getting back to percentage, but absolutely shocked that a Barcrest, that offered JP (knocked back pushing for the Mega Streak) within the first £20 would then take an additional £110 to give the Mega. I used to feel Barcrest were a safer option, albeit often with £75 streak potential that obviously would have to be saved up for somehow.

I was never a big fan of games that looked like Cash Bang Wallop / Full of Beans, even though I'm sure there was something on early ones (a free win?). But this was a shocker. It owed loads, why do two identical £42 Mega Streaks? Machines of this era could easily do £75 tops. It feels like an artificial cap, and a bloody weird value to pick.

Anyway, rant over. Despite how it may sound I'm really enjoying playing MFME again at the moment after a small break. Reminds me of just how crap some machines are.

Would be nice to hear from machines in MFME that surprise others with their crapness, especially if it also comes to machines you'd think would be safer!!

Also happy to hear from people telling me 'you are playing them wrong!' and similar  

 

 

[Bell Fruit Cobra3 emulator ?]

23 minutes ago, dec1962 said:

Are there enough mpu6 mechanical machines to warrant the time and effort it'd take to emulate it ?

Are there many update files available and any info/schematics for the board itself ?

I mean I'd love to see any tech emulated - hence how I was blown away by the Cobra 3 emulation even though that only has a very limited amount of games.

But the thing with MPU6, is that it was really the death throes of Barcrest Group's analog machines. Would be lovely to see, there's a couple of interesting machines, but as said before there's not much to them. Then again if it could potentially open the way for digital machines being emulated, then it would be nice

[Bell Fruit Cobra3 emulator ?]

1 hour ago, infection said:

Would mpu6 run.     ????

And Pluto 6

At the moment it looks like he's specially working on Cobra 3 (which works fine), and Scorpion 6. Which I'm cool with, it's always good to see new techs being worked on.

MPU6 should be possible if someone took it on but I don't know if anyone is actively looking at it. Aside from the digital stuff I don't think MPU6 was used in a lot of analog machines. Probably about 10 (that we don't already have MPU5 versions of) before Barcrest Group exited the market. Don't forget Barcrest analog machines never made it in to the £100 jackpot era. 

Pluto 6 would be nice, although I'd be more interested in the late JPM, Empire, and similar stuff. Betcoms and similar that used it don't really interest me  

[Bell Fruit Cobra3 emulator ?]

Absolutely epic stuff! Although as I posted on his YT recently, my main interest in Scorpion 6 would be the potential for the latest Electrocoin lo-techs. Given that the older £25 ones don't quite run correctly on MFME (they soon lose track and go into a win-every-spin situation) - being able to run the Scorpion 6 versions would be incredible

I am surprised he chose the Queen machines to show his work off, simply as I'd be worried about copyright and whatnot from Queen  

[My "consecutive losing spins" experiment - PART 5]

57 minutes ago, nails said:

wish i  had your luck. from a reset at 30p 82%, it cost me £77 to get a £25 roll in ?

I think he means reset as in power cycle after it's been forced, not RAM clear

[T7 and t8]

6 hours ago, Road Hog Mad said:

Anyone got an image of them then? 

It was my first Barcrest digital and I never kept an image, but I know there are images out there, certainly all the BPAKs are.

[T7 and t8]

2 minutes ago, Road Hog Mad said:

 

Yeah, I mean what are the main games we want?  Rainbow Riches, Elvis, Cashino etc.

There's perfectly good games on them, from £5, £35, £70 and up to £500. None of them have pie gambles and stuff so are more 'traditional' slot games. I used to own the Monty Python's Holy Grail, the later B3 version on £1 play. The earlier £2 play, and especially the Sec16 versions, were probably the 'definitive' versions of games. But not sure if the external random number generator on them would just be more complexity to get running  

[T7 and t8]

Just now, Road Hog Mad said:

Maybe an image of an old rio cab would better then?

You'd have a much more limited choice of games, but might be easier to circumvent?

[T7 and t8]

12 hours ago, Road Hog Mad said:

@redbagssure I reading the string somewhere if pre 2006 Hasp not required unless I was dreaming.

 

With earlier cabinets (eRio e.t.c.) there wasn't a HASP and instead each game had its own MPU5 program card, so before it was hacked (which I believe it now is), you needed to have a different program card for each game you wanted to run. No HASP that I recall.

[Unable to cash out]

7 minutes ago, edenb said:

What do you mean? I thought you should be able to cash out at any time?

No, on most British fruit machines you can only collect your winnings when the machine is out of credits.

There are some exceptions but normally only the most recent machines and video slots, or games with note to credit where you can collect the remainder of a banknote inserted

[MFME User Guide?]

1 hour ago, edenb said:

Hi

So I'm totally new to MFME, I can load games but I'm stuck on what the top menu information means like s door, c door, IN, OUT % and Drift.

Is there a guide on what these mean please?

I have refilled the machine, the machine I'm playing around with is is Deal or No Deal Golden game (£100).

Any help wold be greatly appreciated

I've just cobbled this together to it may be a little wrong but gives you an idea.

The checkboxes refer to switches on a real machine, each door will have a switch and the others refer to internal switches / buttons.

S Door = Service door. Normally top door on a front opening cabinet, or back door on a rear opening cabinet.

C Door = Cash door. Bottom door on a cabinet, where the cash boxes are.

Refill = Refill key, normally you insert and turn a refill key to check hopper balance, adjust volume, or refloat a hopper without opening a door.

Top Up = A lot of machines have a top up button inside (you need to open a door to use the button), it tells the machine the hopper is full.

Test = Test mode button, to perform basic machine tests.

Test 2 = A second test mode button, some machines require two buttons to be pressed at the same time to prevent fraud since you can force the machine to pay out coins via test mode.

JPReset = Unsure - but could be there for the USA style slots that would lock up on a jackpot / hand pay?

Demo = Demo mode, but on many machines you can get into demo mode without pressing it, just with a door open and pressing the machine start button and/or cancel button.

IN = coins in, normally the total amount of coins inserted, given in 10p units.

OUT = as above, but coins paid out.

% = current amount the game has actually paid out.

Drift = the amount the machine owes to the player (difference between current amount paid out, and what the machine needs to pay out to meet percentage payout). If drift is a MINUS number it means the machine is technically overpaying.

With the In, Out, % and Drift, the main thing is the long term stats, since machine will swing quite a bit on a session to session basis, but over the long term should aim to meet it's target percentage. I think you use F12 so switch between long and short term.

It gets harder to track on more machine machines like the DOND games as they have variable percentage according to stake, to try and entice the player to play the higher stakes options. £1 a play will often give a boost of 6-12% in percentage, the trade off being that you don't get much fun for £1 a spin  

[T7 and t8]

15 minutes ago, Norwenglish said:

Hello there,

I'm trying to piece together information from various threads and earlier posts here, but are these games running on consumer versions of recent Windows or Embedded XP or Enterprise LTSC?

While it sounds like it makes sense, it sounds unlikely that software would be tied to specific consumer grade hardware, because that would make servicing a nightmare.

If it were possible to acquire all the parts of the necessary (T7, T8) equipment, what would that look like? An industrial backplane is unlikely to matter, because it's just a backplane. I'm thinking CPU, I/O chipset, disk controllers, GPU family. Those are things that could, but very loosely be controlled.

Embedded Windows XP from memory. I've lobbed all my research out I think but the PCs in a T7 didn't use a backplane as such, just a USB connection to an MPU5 or MPU6 fruit machine processor for fruit machine I/O stuff (coins, buttons, lamps, e.t.c.).

The PCs used were basically off the shelf DFI industrial PCs. Mk6 PCs used (I believe) a Celeron D from circa 2007, the later Mk7 PC used something like an E5300 so a little bit newer. The Mk6 used a proprietary GPU (or so we were led to believe) but really it was an ATI x1300 or similar with minor changes made which you could probably get around easily enough. I managed it

The Mk7 PC was a bugger as it used an S3 Chrome GPU, and you can buy them but people charge silly money for realistically a pretty worthless GPU.

Main components you'd need to run in real money mode (you may be able to run in 'door open' / 'demo' mode without the latter bits. Note that my Interplay cab used to throw up errors for things I consider trivial - cabinet fans failing - so again, you might need to overcome loads of trivial stuff that wouldn't seem important  :

1) The industrial PC. Barcrest referred to them as the Mk6 and Mk7 for the T7 cabinets, but they are basically DFI motherboards in basic metal chassis with SFF PSU.

2) The MPU5 with T7 program card, OR The MPU6 with T7 loader flashed on it. 

3) Sentinel HASP - pretty sure you'd need this as I'm confident the HASP specifies the cabinet type (T7, T8, Interplay, e.t.c.). Unless you had a workaround for say emulating a HASP or bypassing any checks made to look for it.

(Possibly optional bits below)

4) I feel like you'd probably get errors if you didn't have the coin handling components connected - that would be a coin mech / note validator and possibly even the hopper. I'm sure on the real machine you'd get the machine lock up with a 'serial coin mech fail' for example if no coin mech detected.

5) I also think I may have had errors from the cabinet LED drivers failing - these were a pair of PCBs that controlled the colour changing LEDs at the side of the cabinet but I can't remember exactly how they were connected. I assume they came off the MPU unit.

6) Touchscreen support - these will hide mouse cursor by default so if you don't have a way of overcoming that, you'd possibly want to use a touchscreen. Original T7s were I believe 1024x768 whereas the T7s were 16:9 format, can't remember if 1920x1080 or something like 1360x768.

 

 

 

Any error on a standard fruit machine that would cause the MPU5 or MPU6 to alarm out could basically do the same on a T7. If the MPU5 or MPU6 entered alarm mode, it was a power cycle job. It locked the terminal up. Might be worth looking at a T7 manual (loads available online) for a full list of available errors and stuff, I bet there's bloody hundreds!!

[T7 and t8]

4 hours ago, thealteredemu said:

He’ll only likely need an image of the hard drive to start with so he can take a look and see what’s going on.  I don’t know how specific or bespoke the motherboard is, off the shelf or modified?

 

J

The motherboards were 'industrial' designs, I believe made by DFI (not sure they still exist, they used to make LanParty motherboards with brightly coloured sockets and stuff stuff back in the day ). They aren't anything special really. The components are basically standard, I don't think there was any additional security on the board itself or anything.

I'd always been tempted (as I've probably said before) to just catalogue all the various chips used on the motherboard - northbridge, southbridge, network, audio, SATA e.t.c. in the hope that if I found one with exactly the same chips, it would boot without any driver issues / blue screens.

Alas I never bothered in the end. Partly because I'd lost interest, partly because you'd be buying aging hardware, similar age to the original boards, with no way of knowing how they would last either. T7 PCs date back to 2008 or so (we had one or two installed by Barcrest on test in 2008).

I believe others have managed it, but some of them are people who ripped me off in the past so they may be full of shit  

But as long as the chips basically all match, as near as damnit anyway, it could work.

I documented all the stuff (chips and whatnot) but not sure I kept it, when I binned the garage arcade off and couldn't be arsed giving info out to be made money out of I probably shredded it  

[T7 and t8]

I only worked it out as I didn't like the idea of paying £80+ for what we're basically 10-15 year old £10 GPUs

I started getting requests so to cover my costs and experimentation I started selling a few for £27.50 or so including postage once modded and tested (cards and mods cost me about £10-£15, after postage I was making at most a tenner a card and that is without my initial outlay and effort).

I then found some bell-ends were buying from me under the pretence of being amazed at how well they worked in their cabs... slapping them on eBay at £60  

One of the reasons I gave up trying to help people. I wasn't some big business, I was a nice / generous person trying to work stuff out to keep home use machines going without people being ripped off.

When I realised machine owners - many of whom were addicts but couldn't admit it, expected everything for free, were ripping off my generosity - fuck them.

But like you I guess, just working something like that out have me a massive buzz.

[T7 and t8]

3 hours ago, andrew96 said:

yes that is exactly what happens, same as you from memory, Even if its the correct graphics card that still happens if it has not been 'processed' by barcrest on T7, i don't know about T8, i never got round to investigating T8

Mk7 PC I gave up on, with it using an S3 (defunct) GPU chip. They probably got a good deal on them just before they went bust  

To run T8 content on a Mk7, as I'm sure you are aware, you add a second S3 GPU and use 3 out of the 4 outputs across the two cards (top screen, bottom screen, marquee).

But I don't know if that means a T8 itself uses those GPUs, never had one to work on