New Life Games Tech Forums

Well, probably not really a restoration as much as a conversion and modifications

I started out with a Double Diamond that arrived with broken glass

(http://www.marks-home-theater.com/stuff/slots1.jpg)

After ordering Haywire deluxe glass, I did the ZIF mod to the board.

(http://www.marks-home-theater.com/stuff/slots2.jpg)

Next I prototyped a home-brew progressive display

(http://www.marks-home-theater.com/stuff/slots3.jpg)

After I got that working, I programmed a PIC and installed the display in the front panel.

(http://www.marks-home-theater.com/stuff/slots4.jpg)
(http://www.marks-home-theater.com/stuff/slots5.jpg)

Next I picked up a Beta Brite display with serial input. I used some of the built in displays to cycle through some stuff.
(http://www.marks-home-theater.com/stuff/slots6.jpg)

Next I used another PIC and a commercial Beta Brite converter to allow displaying custom info on the Beta Brite.

(http://www.marks-home-theater.com/stuff/slots7.jpg)

The end result is a display that cycles though various graphics and displays the current progressive amount. The display will always update the progressive amount whenever you play credits. The purpose of this project was to show that you can have a progressive display using off the shelf items. The original panel LCD mod also still shows the progressive amount too.

(http://www.marks-home-theater.com/stuff/slots8.jpg)

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

Good to see you back, poppo!  :238-

Although, there's a whole bunch of your namesakes on the board now, it's gonna get pretty confusing in here!!! :279- :25-

What have you been up to this past year? Besides the pinball and slot machine addiction, that is?  :103-

Thanks. After everything was lost when the forum 'died', I got involved with a few other hobbies. I had come back here a few times, but for a while there was not much going on. But it seems to have picked back up, so I figured I would repost some of the stuff I had put up before.

We tried to save as much as we could, but any old information that you can re-post would be greatly appreciated. :3- :3-
I can't give you another K+ because I've already given you one.  :96-


Stat :31-

I LIKE WHAT YOU DID.

Very cool work. How do you handle value retention when the machine is off ?

... and jackpot triggering to reset the progressive amount?

I plan to write up a home-brew progressive thread with all of the details and post it later. But for now, here is the jist of it.

The Basic Atom I use has some non-volatile memory locations. Here are snips of the code.

data 200,203,2,1,0,0,0 'pre-load non-volatile memory with $1,000.00

The above line is only used once to set the display for $1,000.00 After that, the actual program is loaded

When the program runs, every time the display is updated, the following routine runs which stores the new value in the non-volatile memory.

writedm 0,[cursor,cursor_low,bypass,prog_grand,prog_lower,prog_upper.highbyte,prog_upper.lowbyte] 'store the data

Then whenever the slot is powered up, the following line is executed first which reads the value and displays it.

readdm 0,[cursor,cursor_low,bypass,prog_grand,prog_lower,prog_upper.highbyte,prog_upper.lowbyte] 'read the data

Ok, that is the trickier part. If someone should hit the jackpot, the winning amount will of course be displayed. In order to reset it, I have to reload the one line of code listed above to set the start value again. And then reload the actual program.

However, it only takes a few minutes to do that. But if I wanted, I could install a button on the inside of the machine, and have the program monitor it. And if it was pressed, it could execute the pre-load command.

I wonder if there are some low cost full color LED signs about the same size as the Mikohn Cham II+ 60x8 machine or IGT Spectrums 64x8 but with a higher resolution?
 

There are Foster!  But they're NOT "low-cost"... :72-
I've seen at 32 X 256 but not higher than that.
I think the next step is to go with small-but-wide low-profile programmable LCD or TFT screens?

who has them?

Companies like this...like I said...NOT cheap! >>>

http://www.displaysled.com/led_dpt.html (http://www.displaysled.com/led_dpt.html)

For anyone interested, I posted a separate thread about building the progressive display here http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=10148.new

Cool stuff dude!  :133-