New Life Games Tech Forums

Just added a 1981 Sircoma IGT Draw Poker machine to my collection. It was cheap and after a minor transportation mishap :279- It works great :89-

I like the old stuff too!! :91- :91- :71-

Nice find on the old poker machine!  :89-
Please tell us about the "mishap" ?  :96-

I think he is trying to forget :89-

http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=14875.msg127539#msg127539 (http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=14875.msg127539#msg127539)

Ron (r273)

He found a tube at the dump?!?!? :72-
WHAT a FIND!!! :97-

How did you even know the dump would have stuff like that?   Did you just wonder around and simply come across it?   :103-   Near me the junk yards (for cars at least) have all of their parts and cars cataloged.  So I can

I know it!  Congrats on that, Coors!   :244-

(...and custom cardbacks, too -- very cool!)

great fix

I got on the net after I saw I needed a tube, I searched the tube part number and saw it was crossed refferenced to LG and Phillips TV's. I know I thru out a lot of old 13" TV/VCR combo units in my past. I have a large landfill by me that makes you sort your stuff when dropping it off. Two large dumpsters for TV's and monitors, another for airconditioners, another for microwaves ect...
So I figured how hard could it be to find a 13" LG or Phillips TV or monitor in a large dumpster. Turns out it is a popular tube used in most cheap 13" TV combo units. It is a RGB standard tube. Actually I grabbed 2 TV's and they both have the correct tube. Exact part number.

Just had to sneek into the closed landfill, security is weak there...not too many people stealing trash  :208- :208- :208- :208- :208-

Now all I'm picturing is a guy sneaking under a fence into a junkyard with
a ski mask on, flashlight and a measuring tape...  :182-

And a T Bone Steak for the junk yard DOG

Its a landfill not a junkyard! Gates across the road but no fence :279- Just walk around the gate...high security :103- They are just worried about you leaving stuff by the truck load when they are not there to supervise, could not care less if you walk around that high security gate and take something out.

But it was daylight, no flashlight...just a beer for the ride and a tape measure :200-

And I got the light to the right of the screen working. Did not even know that lit up till another member pointed it out!

This makes me want to start working on mine. Hopefully it will look as good as that one does in the near future. Thats a great addition to the game room!

At least you avoided the burn in the original tube likely had.

Coors, throw up some video footage of that machine.  It's fun to see and hear the classics in action.

Jason

This is prior to the Fortune 1, but very simular. It only has a bell on hopper pays. No sound board or speaker in this machine. The hold buttons are just "Hold" buttons with a seperate cancel button. No credit option. Will post a video shortly. I have hit 4 of a kind a few times for 250. There was someone on here that had a few non working sound boards from a fortune 1. I have a plug on the mother board back plane that is labled sound. Maybe I  can get one of those an try to fix it and see what happens, just have to find him..and hope he did not throw them away :60-

Are you sure?   :103-   From the outside, it looks just like a Fortune 1.

I found an intersting tidbit of information posted by a member a while back:


I've never seen the inside of a Fortune Coin Co. vs. IGT/Sircoma so I wouldn't know what the differences would be.  It would seem to me, though, that your machine is more modern than the one in the quote above, which would put it a lot closer to Fortune 1 territory.

Most fortune 1 have nine buttons, I have 8. On the other fortune 1 machines I looked at the hold buttons were Hold/Cancel buttons. I have one cancel button next to the draw button. All the others are hold only. Maybe different models had different button decks?? I am no expert on this by any means!! It is very simular to the fortune 1 manual but just a little different in some ways.

Few more

It looks very similar to my fortune 1 and its from the same year. I have one cancel button and just plain hold buttons on mine as well. They could be different but they look the same to my untrained eye  :200-

It seems to like it's new home  :3-

It paid these out back to back tonight  :71- :91-

And I got all the lights working  :96-

All that is left is to finish up the sound  :79- :79- :79-

Back to back?!  Wow!  You must have the Ron Harris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Dale_Harris) chips installed!   :97-

 :105-  Coors

And the Grandson hit this tonight in the first 5 minutes !!!

This machine likes 3's for some reason :96-

I hate to say it, but that's odd. Not only did you get four 3's three times before getting a different quad, they were all in positions one to four with the odd card in position five. Now if the suits were also in the same order, I'd start tearing the software apart. :5- As it is, I'd chalk it up to chance but would keep an eye  :209- on it.

ok About 20 - 30 playes later it hit this  :3-  At least it is not threes :96-

It just likes it's new home

And two more tonight within an hour  :103- :103-

Coors, I think the game is broke.
That sucker is sure hitting.
Ford

wow...Show us a shot of the accounting screen.
That game must be in the red big time!

It will probably never hit any thing better in its life.

OK We need STAT!!!!

Here is a couple of shots of the stats screens

I turn this off when not playing due to its age and it has no battery on the MPU. Could that have an effect on the play ? The stats screen starts at zero every time I turn it on. Could that be inflating the payback due to a new start each play cycle? This is 30 year old stuff and a new idea at the time it came out. Did they depend on it running non stop and lowering the odds in the long run. I do not want to get into the RNG stuff again here, but do you think the fact that the board has no battery backed up memory it starts at a fixed starting point that it payes better??? I will install a battery on the MPU  and see if it has an impact.

Would never put this in my bar, but is fun for the home :3- :3- :3- :3- :3-

Is that the same type of machine Ron Harris and his buddy
( nobody remembers his name - he's the guy that bought the keno tickets for Harris )
got caught reading the keno's NEXT numbers in Atlantic City ?

Does that machine play the keno chips as well?
Or am I thinking of an entirely different machine platform?

I know nothing about this, I am in new (old waters here)it is a very early Fortune one/sircoma.

I hit four 6's last week on my Fortune one and then hit this the same night. I replaced the weird 4.5v battery in mine (ebay!) and now it "remembers" credits and the last played hand. It's playing like a normal poker machine, so far. Maybe yours is just happy!

First off, it's unfortunate that you were unable to retrieve all of the data since you started playing the machine, and that all we have to work with is one night's data.

I made an assumption that you always play 5 coins per hand (although the 1 at the end of 471 and 831 suggests otherwise.)  I used my older version of Wolf VP to analyze the game, and all I can tell you is that the number of hits for all wins in both posted images – with the exception of 4oK – are very much as expected, although you are a bit behind in flushes and straights. It may simply be that you're not playing for them as much as "best play" would dictate.

In particular, the 2-pair and 3oK data are just about spot on. (They should be closer to their expected values because of their frequency.)

Having said that, the analysis (which certainly has some margin of error, albeit a small one) indicates that 4oK should be seen approximately once every 435 plays (it came out to 434.6). If you play more for pair-type hands (2P, 3oK, FH, 4oK) than for straight or flush types, then the odds of hitting 4oK for you would be somewhat more likely.

Still, 4oK certainly seems to be hitting far more than it should be. As to why, I have no idea.


No one we collectively know has analyzed the code or the method of producing random numbers on one of those old Sircoma machines. While I defend the argument that reseeding the RNG on an S+ or later model will not cause larger payouts to appear more frequently, I can't say that here.

My (or the collective "Our") statement about the S+ is based on a first hand understanding (nod to Stolistic  :131-) of how the random numbers are generated and how numbers are selected from the generator as it runs its course. Here, I (we) simply do not know how this machine is designed or programmed. :128- This is one of the earliest computer driven gaming machines out there and we don't know how thorough a job they did trying to ensure randomness, nor do we know how capable the NGC staff were at testing the machine at the time.

The reset might or might not be the cause of these outcomes, and you still haven't played the machine enough to know if these types of outcomes will continue with future resets (powering the machine off and on).

You might want to start snapping pictures of the stats every time your done and intend to turn off the machine in order to build up more data.

I also have a question: What are those numbers in the right column (5/250/0, and 5/15/0)? You appear to have hit 2P in the second example, but that should have paid 10 for 5 bet, and there is no 4K to be seen in the first picture... :103- In both pictures, the total out matches the sum of the number of each hit multiplied by a 5 coin payout for that hit, which strengthens my assumption that you played 5 coins every time.

BTW, the analysis indicates that the machine pays back 93.45% with optimal play and a machine functioning properly.

Stat :31-

P.S. I see the locals are up late tonight! :200-  :260- :208- :208- :208-

The Ron Harris keno thing was with their "live" keno drawings where you'd buy tickets in advance and then wait for the numbers to be drawn.  Instead of using ping pong balls, they used a computer with a RNG, but unlike modern slots where the RNG is constantly picking numbers until the player starts a game, the old technology on the keno machine in use by the casino would basically just move forward one notch in the number selection process and display the next set of numbers from the RNG each time.  The outcome was still random to a player who didn't have inside knowledge, but Harris realized that he could accurately determine what the next set of keno numbers to be drawn would be, based on the previous numbers.  He then sent his accomplice (Reid Errol McNeal) to buy a ticket for an upcoming drawing using the numbers that would be the next ones out of the machine.  Greed caught up with them.  If he had just picked 6 out of 10 correct or something, it likely would have gone undetected.

It also didn't help that his accomplice used one ID to check into the hotel and a different one to claim the prize. That raised a very large red flag.:58-  He also told the hotel desk that he was expecting Ron and used Ron's real name. :52- :25-   Ron Harris might have been intelligent and thorough, but his sidekick might have had a shot at winning a prize on "America's dumbest criminals". :279- :99-

Hey, I was a little bored today and decided the machine would look cute with a topper  :97-. I had an extra topper laying around and the re-wiring change was just the little project I need today . Not the correct insert but who cares :200- Can't say I have ever seen a topper on one of these.

What do you think
 :103-

Looks good Coors!...it's...uh...taller!

That's, uh, creative?  :)  You're right, I've never seen a topper on a Fortune I before.  :)

As much as I like toppers, it's almost too flashy for a machine of that vintage.  Just one guy's opinion, of course.

nice to see