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Just purchased an Odyssey machine about 2 weeks ago. These machines are sensitive but fun to play. My only question is when I first turn it on Code 102 comes up, I turn the reset key then 410 thru 415 comes up then the machine goes to 9999 and it is ready to play. Sometimes when I am playing a game it will freeze up right in the middle of play, I have to shut off the machine and go thru the steps I mentioned above and the machine resumes play from the point it froze up. Just would like to hear from any Odyssey owners and some advice on that problem.

sorry to hear you bought one   i was told to stay clear of them  way to many headaches

For what I paid for the machine, it would have been a no brainer not to buy it. They will give you headaches but I could sell the touchscreen and monitor if I want and be way ahead of the game. I just purchased a complete set of boards for the machine which were tested and are good.

glad you got a good price on it there a few trying to get  close to 5000 for 1

You would have to be out of your mind to pay $5000.00 for one. I seen the one on Ebay for $5000.00. No disrespect to the seller but that seller is way out of line with that price. I always wanted one, got one for a great price so what the hell, go for it. I have another one that I am going to purchase which is working and the seller is giving me a good price on it. I might remove the touchscreen and sell it when I get it and keep the rest of the machine for parts.

One of our members, robertwinter, is an Odyssey guru junkie...  :200- :5- :71-

He has a site devoted to them here: http://www.robertwinter.com/slot/odyssey/ (http://www.robertwinter.com/slot/odyssey/)  :89-

best thing to is never turn that machine off if it running good it may not run again if you turn it off it a cool machine but hard to keep running

It seems like everytime you turn it on you have to cross your fingers and hope for the best. Anybody have any suggestions on why it freezes up sometimes during play.
Thanks Louie

I know nothing about Odysseys but if it has a computer/hard drive -
I'd suspect not enough ram memory?

Louie-

There are a number of possibilities.  You may wish to make sure that the cabinet is free of excess dust to help keep components from overheating.  If you haven't already, I highly suggest checking out Robert Winter's site for help with your machine.  He's very knowledgable about the games, and has a forum dedicated to the platform.

Replace the CR2032 battery on the motherboard.  Takes about 30 seconds.  You'll only get the 102 error once after that, then not again.

I don't understand why people keep complaining about the Odyssey.  It's a fantastic platform and has MUCH better graphics than most games today.  I've had machines running for YEARS with no issues.

But that's just me.  I'm an Odyssey "junkie."   :3-

Your hard drive is probably failing.  That's the biggest weakness of the machine.

The Odyddey is my dream machine. Was the first machine I ever played on a trip to Atlantic City.  Was a neat interactive machine.  What kind of harddrives did the Odyddey use?

Kind of funny, I saw this craigslist ad a while back for one of these machines and didn't have a clue what it was. Stumbled accross this thread and saw the link for the page about them. Then I went back and searched my local craigslist to find the ad again. Sure enough he had a link to your information page about it.

As far as I can tell, its still for sale and he's wanting $1200 for it here locally in cincinnati.

http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/vgm/2191706759.html (http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/vgm/2191706759.html)

The Odyssey uses an RSA encrypted Seagate ST15150N SCSI hard drive.

I think that machine is really a cool machine!
It's way ahead of it's time and I love the dealer's white gloved hands on the blackjack game.

I have a question...Can you substitute that HD with another plain
hard drive using transferred software?
Or is that a proprietary-like machine unit?

Short answer - no, it MUST be the Seagate ST15150N.  There was also the Quantum Viking they used early in production but those were prone to overheating and premature failure.

BTW, the white-gloved dealer is in Phantom Belle Poker, not Top Hat 21.  Top Hat 21 was the game that initially got me hooked on the platform way back when.

Well, they're available in quite large quantities for about $30 on fleabay! >>>

http://cgi.ebay.com/Seagate-Barracuda-4-ST15150N-4-3-GB-SCSI-2-Hard-Drive-/170600515913?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27b8954949 (http://cgi.ebay.com/Seagate-Barracuda-4-ST15150N-4-3-GB-SCSI-2-Hard-Drive-/170600515913?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27b8954949) >>>


http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p4684.m570.l1313&_nkw=Seagate+ST15150N&_sacat=See-All-Categories

Yeah, $30, plus $10 to ship for that one.  And there's no guarantee it would work.  There are actually *different* types of those drives out there, all with the same model number.  Think block sizing.

I know for a fact the ones from seller recycledgoods.com won't work in an Odyssey.

What happens when the hard drive fails? Are they easy to find or expensive to buy? I don't have much experience with the Odyssey but its a blast to play. I know a lot of people blast the machine but I like them. Is the battery hard to change on the board?

I always got this platform confused with the "Games of Nevada" platform. As for the hard drive , because of the encryption,, can't use Ghost or another cloning program.

Oh!... good answer reho!
I think maybe that's what robert meant when talking about the hard drives I found on ebayz.

Here's the data sheet on those drives.

They're all formatted to 512 bye sectors. The block size can be changed with the correct software and a controller that supports the right command set, like dd or scu and the -bs option. My personal favorite sw package was SCSI Toolbox, but at ~$2700/license, too expensive unless my employer was buying... :89- :72-

Not all the controllers support all SCSI commands, but the better ones like the old Future Logic and high-end Adaptecs do. With the right setup, you could create your own drives that meet the physical and low level format specifications.  :186-

Thanks for the information, I figured that it had to be some form of encryption and not just a formatted harddrive.  The machine is still on my wish list for someday, but by then it will be an antique  :89- and parts will be ven harder to find..lol  Have to get the bartop up to snuff and tinker with the wardens machine long before I invest in another..lol

I have a non-working Odyssey sitting in my garage that I have spent more frustrating hours trying to repair to absolutely no avail.  When I first got it, it was always out of focus and was told by many, including some in this forum, to replace the flyback.  Well, then the fun started.  Go try to find the right flyback and then a source to purchase the flyback part.  Nearly impossible.  Two flybacks later, none of which were in reality correct, I have a board with no flyback and a pile of junk taking up space in my garage.  Of course, there is no one within any reasonable distance to me in CT that even has any experience in fixing these things.  Also, the bill validator stopped working.  Go try to find the particular MARS ZT bill validator for these machines.  They specifc model in question was made by MARS specifically for this machine and they never come up on ebay and anyone who has them wants to charge an arm and a leg for them.  My wife has even encouraged me to use it as kindling for a bonfire, saying that I would get more pleasure in watching the damn thing burn then the ultimate cost, sweat and aggravation she has witnessed in my trying to access various parts of the machine, taking out that huge monitor etc. 

The monitor...it's a tube?

Whatever label we call it, the thing is still a bear to maneuver in order to gain access to the boards and connections behind and/or to the side of it.

I would have modified the holding bracket and install a hinge perhaps for the screen?

Yes, it's a CRT monitor, and a big heavy one at that.

Enforcer, did you ever contact Robert Winter?

I did contact Robert Winter and have looked at his Odyssey site many times.  He certainly is the Odyssey expert in these parts.  While I have gotten some guidance from him, my problems remain.  Maybe he wants to buy my machiine, although I have this pipe dream of it someday working ?  I also have Odyssey extras, like several different pieces of belly glass.  Over the last two years I have set up ebay alerts to notify me of any Odyssey parts which go up for auction.  I have only seen belly glass, psycho boards, an occasional hard drive and the monitor up for auction over the years.  Haven't seen any actual working machines for some time.  The guy in Cincinnati selling his on Craigslist for $1,200 has had it up for sale for some time now.  He started asking more than $2,000, dropped it to $1,800 and now is asking $1,200.  Still way over-priced in my mind. 

Yeah I've seen that post several times on craigslist. I have alerts set up for all slot machines in the tri state area here and see it every now and then.

I would be interested in buying it (sent you a PM) but if you want to keep it, I'm more than happy to help you get it up and running.

Sounds like the first order of business would be to get your monitor board fixed.  I could take care of that for you.

Believe it or not, I've been able to move an entire Odyssey by MYSELF!  Takes some dismantling, but it is possible.  And since I now know my way around these machines backwards and forwards, it's not too tough.

1.  Remove the hopper (easy enough, it just slides out and 3 connections)
2.  Remove the cash can (just pulls out)
3.  Remove the monitor.  3-7 screws, 3 connectors, and it slides right out.  Yeah it's kinda heavy, but manageable.
4.  Remove the Ebox.  7 connectors, 2 captive screws.  Slides right out.

You now have 4 large pieces (case, monitor, Ebox, hopper) that are much more manageable for moving.  Reassembly is just a reversal of the above.

Now that I'm comfortable with disassembly, I no longer dread moving one of these beasts, which weight upwards of 350 pounds completely assembled!

I think the Odyssey machine is a blast to have and play. Can the machine get on your nerves sometimes? You bet!! I would stay in touch with Robert and let him help you with the problems you are having with the game. Once you get it going I think your fustrations will go away. Give it a try!!

A fuzzy picture isn't neccessarily a bad flyback. Could be a misadjusted focus control ON the flyback or carbon buildup on the filiments inside the neck of the tube. The former is a simple adustment, the latter requires a CRT rejuvinator. Someone close to you probably has one. With the tube running and the neck good and warm you can sometimes tap gently on the neck with the handle of a long screwdriver and get carbon buildup to pop loose. I worked on Zenith CRTs through the 90s and aquired huge amounts of experience at this :89-

Robert Winters, K+ for helping out members with their Odyssey Machines.  :259- :3- :244- :139- :137-

I enjoyed owning one for a while. I may buy one again if I have lots of extra money and a couple thousand doesn't mean much to me. The graphics are great, the games sound good but actual game play doesn't compare to today's action. After playing the Odyssey for a year or so I realized that the amount of money the game wants to trigger the bonus is not worth the payout of the bonus. That's opposite of my WMS 550 that has huge payouts with less investment. The Odyssey was a trail blazer and up until a few years ago had better graphics than current gaming. In the past three years IGT and others have finally caught up to 2011. I would have kept the odyssey around but even having a parts machine I feared the day it stopped working or a cracked touch screen. I think the card games are the most fun on that platform.

When I populate my historical museum collection in retirement (25 year) maybe I'll be able to find a working Odyssey.

Contact me when you do.  I'll probably still have a bunch of working machines like I do now!

I had a Balanced and equal relationship with my Odyssey...I hated it...and it hated me!
I NEVER/EVER had a machine give me more grief, cost me more time and money to try to keep working then that damn thing!
When I parted it out, I felt like I had successfully KILLED the beast...I was SO happy to see it gone.....
I have owned Bally, WMS, IGT, Konami machines and never ever had one kick me repeatedly in the chops like that piece of junk did :)

Kirk