Chopaholic

Many thanks for that Mort. Since Chris passed I have wished on several occasions that we knew more about him, that he'd let more of 'himself' out on the forums and suchlike, but obviously he just wasn't inclined to do so and ultimately we have to respect that. As such it's especially nice to hear from people who knew him IRL and it seems he was a thoroughly decent chap, but at the same time still kept his private life private. An enigmatic genius for sure. Thanks again for sharing Mort.

If that is true then it really is bent as fuck! I've been playing around with this one a lot more, I'd love to know what's going on code-wise with this one, it actually feels a bit like Overload in that some bits of the code just don't seem to have the faintest idea what other bits of it are doing, things it should be able to avoid really easily like giving a PAIR BONUS from a change number when close to a jackpot. Got mine consistently over percentage now and it's carrying on getting worse (for the machine!) - really bizarre the stupid stuff it does even when it's well over percentage.

And that is exactly how the DVD sellers win. They won't stop, they have more than enough to carry on just as they are, who ends up getting hurt? The actual genuine lovers of FME, exactly as happened back in 2001 when people started using the leaked version of the emulator tools to make their own layouts. It can never be 'sorted', it can never be 'fixed', all you can choose to do is rise above it and not let the anger win.

What are your long term stats logopolis? Have you got it over 100%? There were some interesting comments left on my video too about how to play it optimally so I might do a follow-on video for this. Also someone got the date right for me (I said 2000/2001) but apparently it was released in 1998 on a £10 jackpot and was then quickly upgraded to a £15 jackpot in 1999. EDIT - It settles down nicely after a few hundred quid through it too, I've used autoplay on it, and it starts to get some natural streak value and enhanced periods in there.

Well that escalated quickly, I'm not sure that suggestions of murder (or at least inflicting serious injury on a person) are an appropriate reaction to someone being rude to you on Facebook. Yes I know you didn't seriously mean that we should start shooting DVD sellers, (well, hopefully not at least), but all this is doing is starting conflict and introducing bad blood into a situation where there are no good outcomes. This is like the war on drugs, it's futile and just leads to harm. The demand is there, it isn't going to go away, people want an easy and relatively inexpensive way to get an FME collection, the DVD/USB sellers are providing that, and whilst the demand exists it will be met, whatever the apparent 'sanctions' are. The way to fix this is to provide an officially supported alternative via the main FME sites, we can talk about the specifics of how it'd work and what it'd look like in due course, and frankly, that'd be a far better use of everyone's time.

Up & Over running early unchipped ROMs for the first time ever

Mainly in Radcliffe/Bury and surrounding area from late 1990 and into 1991 (i.e. nearby places like Whitefield), sometimes Bolton, went to Blackpool quite a lot. Central Manchester in 1992/93/94 and down Fallowfield way, spent three months in Lancaster Sep-Dec 1992 as was at Uni there. I just have very vivid memories of playing machines on a £6 jackpot and thinking, 'This should be impossible, there's no way a machine should be able to take this much money'. Gambling Low Ebbs Part#1 (the one in York where I was visiting a friend at Uni and ended up trying to stick a knife into my head) was off the back of a run from hell. I particularly remember a JPM, 99% sure it was Dirty Dozen, absolutely taking me to pieces, I have it in my head it wanted something utterly bizarre, like £30-£40, just for a win.

It's terrible that so many machines were vulnerable to plugging/sparking. I remember getting fucking fleeced back in the day and wondering how on earth machines with such small jackpots could take so much money without kicking anything decent back - now I know why!

I actually had a few of these in the wild back in the day, they were worth travelling for, then they stopped working one by one as they got chipped

Zoinks! Are the ROMs available for that?

Two old JPMs in this video, many thanks to all who made them happen!

In simple terms you need MFMEV5.1, this is the last version of the emulator that will load old DAT based layouts. Load the old layout into MFMEV5.1 and then quit out of the emulator and answer yes to saving the changes, this will convert the layout into the new FML format. You can then load the layout into MFMEV20.1

Yes that's where my sentiment with this lies. My personal feeling is Chris would want us to keep FME alive, to keep his flame burning through the scene he made possible, via all the means Reg outlined in his original post to this thread. But, honestly, I don't think he'd want people mucking about with the code he worked on for 23 years. He never shared the source code in all that time, and I think we can draw a pretty simple conclusion from that. V20.1 is a magnificent, amazing piece of software, that brings us all such joy on a daily basis. We should be grateful for that, and respect Chris's legacy. I understand where miroslav is coming from in his post above, but for me, MFME ends at V20.1, where the scene goes from here, with V20.1, is up to the rest of us.

This actually worked for me last night, without it I'd have lost the hi/lo continue, and I got a barcode on the board instead. So much weird stuff on this machine, it's like Barcrest let the intern code it and Gladys the tea lady did the testing.

I've also linked this in the Overload thread, but here it is as well just to keep this thread up to date. ------------------------- Here's the video folks, the point isn't that I play it perfectly (I don't!), the point is to hopefully give you enough to go on to start getting a feel for the machine yourselves and get stuck into it, because this is genuinely one of the most interesting fruit machines I've ever played in terms of thinking your way around it. I've got mine above 100% now and it's going further over percentage every time I play it, and every session I learn something new or see a new way to trap it. Thanks to all who made it happen, all credits are in the video but particularly to Pootis for the layout, Dougsta for being very patient with me in PMs, and of course to our departed friend Chris for his amazing emulator.

My 2p's worth on this is Chris most likely wouldn't want anyone mucking about with his code, by all accounts he never shared any of it with anyone over the years (I stand to be corrected on that if anyone knows different), and kept it very close to his chest. If his family hand over his computers or something at some point to a trusted person then fair enough I suppose, although I can't help but feel that his code will be so bespoke and unique that no one else will be able to do much with it anyway. (There's also the question of how locked down his equipment/drives was in terms of logons, encryption and suchlike.) My gut feeling is that V20.1 is the last version of MFME, which is an incredible legacy and something which emulates the overwhelming majority of fruit machines released in the last nearly 40 years, which is quite remarkable. I can't think of any significant historical techs that are missing, some more recent ones are missing such as MPU6 and is there HEBER and PLUTO or something? MPU6 is a bit of a shame as that's the tail end of Barcrest's output on the £70 jackpot, (and I believe some Reds too), and Barcrest are one of the major, long standing fruit machine companies. In terms of gaps in the fruit machine canon, they pale into insignificance when compared to the truly massive boost FME got with the release of V5.1 in Nov 2016 (so many new techs added), and everything Chris did with the releases since then up to V20.1. As for MFME breaking at some point in the future with a new version of Windows, I'd imagine it'll always be possible to run it in a virtualised environment even if it doesn't run natively on Windows at some point, it's pretty trivial to get old DOS and Windows 95 stuff running on modern PCs even now, for example. It is a worry though I admit, I mean, there's no guarantee that Microsoft won't release some sort of update for Windows 10 next month that breaks MFME in some fashion. However, on balance I'd hope MFME will work trouble free for many years to come yet, the original V5.2 of MPU3/4 from 2001 still runs fine in Windows 10, for example, and that's without even mucking about with compatibility mode. I agree with what Reg said in his original post, that the best way to carry on is take V20.1 as the line in the sand, and see what can be done as a scene to flesh out what's missing in terms of resources, ROMs and artwork for the missing machines, of which there are many. Most of these will probably work in the emulator as it is, some may not, and in those cases we will just have to accept they'll remain non-runners or partial runners. I think it's fine to have this conversation, I don't believe having the conversation in itself is disrespectful, in a way it's the more considered, less emotional version of what was expressed in The Saddest Day and Virtual Wake threads.

Nice little story there Harvey, might be worth a thread of its own in Wizard's Rest? 'How autoplay got added to MFME' I think the stories in there that people are posting are building into a nice little memorial, and stuff like this all adds to that IMO.

Double post shenanigans.....

This has been requested quite a few times via comments on YouTube and PMs here and elsewhere, and I'm nothing if not amenable to finally getting around to doing something after months of prevarication and eventually feeling slightly guilty that I haven't done it yet.

Hi folks, today marks the one week mark of us learning of Chris's passing. I already had this video finished and ready to go (it'd actually nearly finished uploading, and would have been published within an hour or two last Sunday, but then I saw 'The Saddest Day' thread that Reg had started). As such please note that this video was made before I knew Chris had passed, I've put a short intro onto the front of the video as an explanation, but other than that it is the original video.

I'll link this video first as it's the later one, this is bringing together the tributes from all of us and the uplifting knowledge that Chris's family found out at his funeral about how many lives he had touched and made such a difference to. My heartfelt thanks to the members here at DIF who made getting the message to him possible, and to Harvey for being the bedrock of the scene at this awful time. Thank you Chris - you made a difference in this world that most of us could never even dream of accomplishing. This is the earlier video from the day I found out about his passing.

I hate to pick out a couple of posts as so many people have said so many wonderful things over the past few days, however I would like to especially mention superbank's post in The Virtual Wake thread, to know that Chris's family have found out about the happiness and joy he brought into so many lives has really uplifted me. I also know that some scene members worked hard to put the pieces together on what had happened and Harvey managing to get a letter printed out for the family to direct them here was a brilliant endeavour. I read superbank's post late yesterday evening before going to bed and to see the message from Amy, Chris's niece, honestly lifted some of the darkness of the last few days. Also Retrofruit's post in the same thread, every word totally from the heart and I'm sure it resonated with all of us. I've been on the internet a long time, and I've been a member of many online communities, and I don't think I've ever seen a community come together and stand united as the FME Scene has following the loss of Wizard. 'I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars'. Fruit Machine Emulation's star will always be Chris, and for as long as we carry the torch for him and his emulator, his star will shine.

Thank you Chris, thank you for bringing so much joy into my life through your amazing creation. Over the last 19 years I've been through some bad times, and it's no exaggeration to say that your emulator is something that has always managed to bring me comfort when things have been dark. I think I can say that here at DIF without sounding insane, as I'm among fellow FME nutcases. Like many people here, a fruit machine emulator was literally a dream for me, and as such, you truly made my dream, and the dreams of so many others, come true. Even though you are gone, what you made will continue to bring happiness into the lives of many, and every time I load in MFME from this day forward, I will pause for a moment to say a quiet 'Thank you' to you. Gone far too soon, but you leave a legacy behind you the likes of which most of us can only ever dream of. Your light has gone out, but we will keep the lights of the scene and the communities you made possible, very much turned on, and as such, you will live on with us in spirit.

Hey there Jason thanks for checking in. I woke up early again and couldn't get back to sleep, but I do feel a little bit better today, this thread has helped, seeing how many lives he touched and made such a positive difference to, what an amazing legacy. I'm going to finish work at 2:45pm today and walk out to a nearby beach, find a quiet place and pay my respects to Chris whilst the funeral service is in progress, and I'll upload a picture for the virtual wake a bit later on. I haven't been able to play MFME since I heard the news, I've loaded layouts in but have just left them running in attract mode, it seems disrespectful somehow to play them before the funeral. That said though, the feeling I'm getting more and more is that the scene must carry on, even though we have lost the great man who made it all possible, his legacy must live on, and through the FME community Chris will live on in our hearts and minds. Hopefully his family will read the letter that Harvey wrote, and understand how many people he meant so much to.

View from the couch this evening, decided to have an evening playing on my PS4 Pro, it seemed important to have a bit of direction and focus compared to yesterday evening, give my mind something to concentrate on other than feeling sad. And the thing is, this is how my PC always looks when I'm playing something on one of my consoles, because I've always just found something comforting about having MFME running. It's not that unusual for me to load a layout in and have it running all evening from when I finish work to when I go to bed, and not even put a single emulated pound into it, just to know that fruit machine emulation is still there. There's a bit of me I think that's still in denial, still wants to do the proverbial wake up in the morning and it's all been a horrible nightmare, and Wizard will be back and it'll be OK again, and the person who made the magic is still with us, but I know that's not true, and that's what we all have to come to terms with, in our own ways. If nothing else I would like to say that this thread is a wonderful tribute to Chris, not many of us get to leave much if any of a legacy behind us, but Chris will live on with us for many years to come.