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Mid 1980s slot machine with dot matrix display instead of reels


Stonesfan
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Hi all

Currently enjoying an extremely sentimental trip back in time with the emulator plus the likes of Nifty Fifty :) Takes me right back to my teenage years spent playing in kebab shops etc. 

Anyways....both me and my bro can recall a half size slot machine that we played in Spain in about 1985. Instead of reels it had a coloured dot matrix display display that used to display about 8 different 'fruits'. Am sure it had 4 'reels'  too. Like many on here who used to play I was around 12 and my brother 9.  Being a kid gave you and an advantage i think  as you had that uncanny ability to work things out. We more or less emptied that machine every night until the bar manager barred us from playing! 

Just wondered if anyone can remember these types of machine. Never saw one in the UK. 

Cheers

 

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I remember these Spanish machines quite well.  They had panascopic 'reels' which projected the image of a fruit into a panel, probably to get around some Spanish law of the time about having reel-based gaming machines.  I went to Tenerife on holiday as a kid back in '87 or '88 and they were in abundance in the resort bars and whatnot.  There was one in the hotel I stayed at called Limon y Baby - 3 'reels' with a window above which every now and then would display a fruit which you could swap for one of the symbols in the reels - a novel way of getting around the nudge patent and similar to Project Coin's Sevens Above and the like.  There were also two 'apple trails' which filled up over time to award the player 500 pesetas or something like that.  My brother and I would wait for a trail to be near the top and then play them out.  We were only 9 or 10 at the time!  These games used to streak as well for 2-3000 pesetas, which was £15-£20 back then.  You have to be seriously into fruits in an unhealthy way to remember details like that when you're that age but well, there you go eh?

Might try and see if I can find any more info 🙂

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10 hours ago, stevedude2 said:

I remember these Spanish machines quite well.  They had panascopic 'reels' which projected the image of a fruit into a panel, probably to get around some Spanish law of the time about having reel-based gaming machines.  I went to Tenerife on holiday as a kid back in '87 or '88 and they were in abundance in the resort bars and whatnot.  There was one in the hotel I stayed at called Limon y Baby - 3 'reels' with a window above which every now and then would display a fruit which you could swap for one of the symbols in the reels - a novel way of getting around the nudge patent and similar to Project Coin's Sevens Above and the like.  There were also two 'apple trails' which filled up over time to award the player 500 pesetas or something like that.  My brother and I would wait for a trail to be near the top and then play them out.  We were only 9 or 10 at the time!  These games used to streak as well for 2-3000 pesetas, which was £15-£20 back then.  You have to be seriously into fruits in an unhealthy way to remember details like that when you're that age but well, there you go eh?

Might try and see if I can find any more info 🙂

Glad it wasn't just me then!! Yes I think the jackpot was about £20 which was quite a lot of money back then. Am sure there was a 'repeat' feature that adults couldn't work out of which was the way to get the money too. The 'reels' span to an electronic 'sparkly grinding' noise if that's how I can describe it. Can fondly remember me and my bro emptying the machine surrounded by German and French kids with open mouths. There's probably a thread elsewhere about it but I think the fact some of us 80s reprobates were already messing about with 8 bit computers, hacking and poking them etc gave us a huge advantage. Even though we were legally not supposed to play fruit machines!!!

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