New Life Games Tech Forums

Way back in 1985, I founded Mikohn and designed the original CON1, CON1S, and CON2 controllers as well as the overhead and in-machine LED displays. Back then, I was even to blame for most of the documentation. I sold out of Mikohn in 1990 and didn't keep in touch much. With Mikohn's demise this year, I find myself wishing I had kept examples of those early designs. I write to see if anyone has working hardware, as well as any documentation that I could purchase at a reasonable price. I'd especially like to get a CON1, COn1S, CON2, CAM12, 1X2 (or 1X3), Gateway, Model 100 programmer (preferably with software) and any documentation and schematics you may have.

Thanks,

John Acres .

Welcome to NLG John! :88-  :3-  It's great to have you here; let me see what I can dig up. :79-

John where have you been  :131- ..... I could have used some of the bits and bytes that you might have rattling around upstairs.....

I have a bunch of the Mikohn CON1, LED5, LED4 parts....

Here is my first question .....

I have been able to create my sign to be a 2 x 2 (or any length x 2)......
Is it possible to make these any bigger than X2 ?

What is the possibility of using graphics with these ? in the self test mode I get triangles, squares etc but none are reproduceable from PSP ?

Holy Moly!
Welcome bigtime to New Life Games John!
We've been fiddling with all the stuff you designed eons ago for like forever here! :131-

It is possible to go taller than X2. When I first designed the system, we made a keno board that was, I beleive, 8 panels wide by 12 high. Kep in mind that the panels are really just a shift register. You create a memory image (actually two of them, one for the red and one for green) and then shift them out. The display panels have no idea how they're arranged. The trick is in the software that creates that memory image and sends it to the controller. I guess it is also up to the controller to decide how long a batch of dots it wants to ship.

The controller sends data in a muliplexed format. As I recall, each display panel is arranged to drive evey eighth column at a time. The controller ships its red and gren images out, for every eights column and then strobes that data, which causes it to latch into the driver and power the LED. If this is allowed to stay on for too long, the LED overheats and is harmed.

The controller's job is to make sure that dos not happen. After a couple milliseconds (maybe even less, I don't sepcifically recall) the controller shiifts out the next column of information, and latches that line. The prior column turns off. This is repeated 8 times and the whole display has been energized once. By running this over and again so that the whole display is refreshed 30+ times/second, the human eye sees it as if all columns are lit at once.

You really need 60 or 70 complete refreshes per second to get rid of the jitters, which you can most easily see by chewing gum or clicking your jaws while watching the display. That's the real limit of how many panels can be connected--how much jitter yu can tolerate.

Keep in mind that I left Mikohn in 1990 and by 1995 all the designs had been updated. Still, they kept the same philosopy of operation so this holds prety true.

Long story short, there's nothing too complex about all this. If I can get some documentation (schematics and manuals) I can provide more specific help. All the above is general info--as I recollect after 20 years, so forgive me if there are details missing.

John

 :172-

Hi John,

Thanks for your quick reply....

Here is a thread I created on the matter:
http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=3686.0 (http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=3686.0)

You will see by the hex dump of the 7.22 chip I had simply changed a 00 to a 01 to get it to go to a larger format 2x2 in this case. I had tried changing the 01 to an 04 and it didn't make any difference. Of course I am simply hacking a chip dump vs working from source code and a compiler.

Some of us have been toying with the idea of creating a NLG WAP over the internet using CON1 gear.  Your thoughts and insights into this would be invaluable.
As best as I can tell the CON1 -> Led4/5 is sending 2wire RS422 updates about 6 times per second and while I could probably hijack that output, convert it to RS232 and feed it back into a PC I am not too sure how I would then be able to use that to update other peoples CON1s with the info.

Also I am running a Mikohn gateway to get the jackpot amount to display on my PE+ - if you happen to come across a manual for that I would certainly appreciate a copy.

We look forward to having you as a member here.

You've done some interesting work. If you don't mind my asking, what is your goal? Are you simply trying to restore older equipment or are you trying to build a display of a custom size? There are really only three categories of equipment in a progressive system; Display, controller and communication interfaces. It is well within the scope of your skills to customize any or all of those items.

When I first started designing the display control circuit, I used the parallel port of a PC to ship out bytes. That's how I developed all the first animations, etc. Multiplexing is the big consumer of CPU cycles. having to constantly ship bits out over and again 30-60 times per second for each column is a real pain. That's why you see the gate arrays (Xilinx) on the boards--they handle those sorts or routine tasks efficiently.

A PC can also serve as your controller. When I started Acres Gaming, we won the Treasure Island business (back when the casino was being built) by building display boards much like we used at Mikohn but connecting them to a central personal computer that was equipped with a whole bank of serial ports. Through those ports, the PC would get play data from each game calculate the jackpot and then send the amounts to the display, Additional software let you choose which games were connected to which jackpots and which displays would show corresponding information.

My point is, you can go far beyond what the controllers can do. After all, the controllers were built simply to reduce cost and provide reliability. Back then PC operating systems were not terribly reliable (but I guess we can still say that now!) Today, I'd think seriously about using a netbook to run a  very small bank--presuming the regulators could be convinced the code run on them was secure from being changed to an unauthorized program.

Anyway, if you don't mind sharing your goals, I can perhaps help a bit more. Please understand, I think ANY goal you have is a fine one. There are so many levels of accomplishment one can strive for. I spent a lot of time creating the display language in an attempt to make the display as flexible as possible. Unfortunately the tools of the day made that language a bit difficult to use. But Darrel Johns--who was the installation manager for Casino Signs, our distributor--spent weeks learning the language. He ended up able to make those displays show things I never dreamed possible, all because he was willing to dig deep into a protocol and spend many hours experimenting.

John

Hi,

Great question - you will find that NLG  most of us are just home enthusiasts and are picking up bits and pieces of casino memorabilia from many of the great dealers that sponsor the site or from EBay. In most cases the goal is very much like the theme of the board "To bring old games new life". I have 3 S+ machines, and a PE+ all tied into a CON1. I use that to drive a LED5 12 cell that I have mounted in the player tracking bars, a gateway so I can display the progressive value on the PE+, a 1x2 and a giant sign that I will finsh as a fall project.

To help with the casino theme - I also have a coin rolling machine, and although I run my machines off of tokens this gives one the sense of some loss rather than just having buckets of coins left around. I have stacks of the "Know when to stop" gaming pamphlets displayed in acrylic holders, coin cups from most of the major casinos before they went TITO. All in the name of good fun. I have managed to collect about 60 game kits for both the 16" and 9" machines so I am able to change out themes as they become stale.

Your probably right It would not be much to replace the CON1 with a PC and I could probably then just output on some inexpensive LCD screens or on panels that are designed to be PC driven but that would kind of lose some of the ketch of the era. I am just kind of enjoying taking what we have and then pushing that to the limit.

Its kind of like rebuilding a 65 mustang but then cheating by putting in a modern engine under the hood just cause you can. Its just not as much fun as making the old stuff work.

I know exactly what you mean and it all makes great sense to me. That's kind of what I am trying to do except I'd like to reproduce the era of 1985-1990 equipment as much as possible, since that was during my time there.

Your home casino efforts are prety cool!

Welcome, John, it seems the sensei has joined the dojo. :131- :131- :131- :131- :131- :131-

My name is Bill, and I'm a Mikohn addict. I only have 2 slot machines, but I have a CON1, CON2I, a CHAMII+ and a couple of Supremes along with several displays, including my new 2x3 (which my daughter said I needed like a hole in the head  :97-).

Let me know what docs you already have and I'll send anything you don't from my library.

By the way, if you're looking to purchase hardware, the sponsors' links at the top of each page is a good place to start. April at Lemans1969 Slot Sales has always been able to find me what I need as far as Mikohn goes, and the rest of the sponsors are stand-up operations, willing to go the extra mile for their customers.

I have some of the CON 1 I S+ E Gateways if you need, I have a question for you, many years ago I was told by a guy that he was 1 of 3 founders of Mikohn, I always thought he was a BS'r did you sell out to a group of 3 and some were IGT sales staff at the time?

John,

If you don't mind me asking, are you the same John of the former Acres Gaming?

CaptainHappy :95-
 :nlg- ADMIN

That's me. My history in gaming goes back to 1972 when I was 18 and worked part-time at a little casino called Mr. Sy's while  stationed at Nellis Air Force base is Las Vegas. In 1981 I started a company called EDT, where I came up with the idea of player tracking. That company was sold to IGT and I started Mikohn (my wife came up with the name. Japanese companies were all the rage then and the word--back then--seemed Japanese. It was  concatenation of MIKe and jOHN. My partner's name was Mike Stone). After selling Mikohn, I took a couple years off and founded Acres Gaming (not a terribly imaginative name) in 1992. That company was sold to IGT in 2003.

I have always wondered why casinos opted to go TITO when it seems so much more obvious to transfer the $$ onto the player tracking card and then integrate these the cards into other aspects of their properties. For instance I am sure it would be valuable to the casino to know what time I eat, frequency, what $$ I am willing to spend at their steak house and generally encourage me to spend time and money in their property rather than walking across the street to a different casino. All the grocery stores do this through loyalty cards by perhaps giving pennies off off gas to encourage me to come back and buy my milk rather than going to another competitor. It just seems to me that they are in the dark as it pertains to what their customers are doing when not gambling. Also if you can get the customer to use your card like a debit/credit or gift card you would save in third party transaction fees. Assuming Visa gets you for 1% - a Circ-Ole ticket goes for 130++/head with a 1000 person audience (rather low) that's leaves $1300 on the table.... and we are only talking about 1hr of 1day... putting this into perspective that's about the same as what a casino would pay in labor costs for 4 dealers.

The other notion I had is that with Vegas being split/controlled by 4 gaming companies someone like Harahs could offer a inclusive resort experience much like they do in the Caribbean.

Then there was the idea of a Fast-Pass - This is disneys idea, you get a ticket, it tells you when to come back so your not standing in line all day. I have never seen what value any of the casinos get out of having people stand in line for their buffets ? don't you want the people playing the tables or machines ? give them a fast-pass and get them back out on the casino floor. Tie that into your player tracking card....

I have always wanted to install a player tracking / cash management system for my home stuff.
I can easily get the machine readers as these are stripped and tossed by most of the people doing secondary market sales but getting the server software has proven to be a bit of a bear.

Your idea about transferring funds to a card is a good one--in fact we offered exactly that product at Acres Gaming. Trouble is most players (by head count not total wagered) don't use cards, especially in tourist locations. Further, Nevada regulations were unclear about the matter and they wanted to avoid people using their ATM card directly in the game due to problem gambling.

This was all back in the mid-1990s, before Native American took off. Las Vegas was the main market for equipment companies and we all built what the majority of casinos would buy. Locals casinos often were not sure they even wanted player tracking. Stations casinos ran ads in newspaper and billboards showing a player card with a big red X through it. They claimed to pay jackpots, not points.

It was very difficult for us to convince casinos to use cards at all, much less store money on the account, even though our system worked well in Australia. Also, casinos were nervous about cash liability. Back then databases weren't as reliable as now and casinos worried about having a system failure that would lose player's cash balances.

IGT was able to sell TITO because tourists didn't have to get cards and the system included a full data storage system. IGT being a big company didn't hurt either. Even then, casinos resisted until they found out players really liked to play with credits (until the mid to late 1990s, many gaming machines only accepted coins, not currency and there was no stored credits meter. You wagered three coins and played 'em. Jackpots came right out of the hopper.

Bill validators got everone to realize players liked paper money. TITO was a safe (in the casino's eyes) way to eliminate hand paid jackpots and remove coins completely from the floor. Currency (or ticket) in and tickets out was a clean system.

Back then, most casino companies were more focused on expansion and they didn't bother to compare products or really think things through. IGT could be trusted to deliver a working system (eventually anyway) and a couple of casinos bought off on TITO. Most casinos are followers, not leaders, and they simply copied what was working.

Once the major customers committed to TITO, there was no way an equipment company could afford to continue developing an alternative and TITO won by default. Another hidden selling point is breakage. With money stored on account, the casino must keep track of it for a very long time. With TITO, you have 30 or 60 days to use the ticket or you lose the money. Some California casinos only give 48 hours. The amount of money casinos earn from this "breakage" is quite substantial and players never complained much.

As to the rest of your thoughts, they all have merit. Regarding credit cards, remember though that casinos hate liability. The laws on credit cards weigh heavily toward the consumer. Lose a credit card and any money charged to it a loss to the merchant, not the consumer. Casinos were rightly afraid of fraud--and regulators were afraid of the black eye casinos could get if mom and dad drained the bank account through their debit card and the kids didn't have milk or school clothes.

These were--and are--valid concerns. The best technology doesn't always win. Product dominance is often ceded to the company that is largest and can do the most financing. Once a system works somewhere, others prefer to buy what is already proven, not try to get something better.

There are so many non-obvious liabilities to casinos--including having points, chips or tokens run afoul of counterfeitting laws, (that's why you can't pay for dinner with chips from the table anymore)-- and casinos are so large and complex (thousands of employees, lots of turnover, 3 shifts a day 7 days a week) that they simply cannot go very far afield from standard.

These are just some of the reasons why casino technology is so far behind Internet technology. It also creates a huge liability going forward. Casinos simply cannot react with new products very quickly because of regulations and internal attitudes.  Above all, casinos could make huge profits in the past without taking risk. They were more about getting higher transaction volumes than serving players.

This current recession may help change that.

I don't mean to say there was or is a conspiracy or that casinos were dumb: far from it. Casinos focused their attention wherever the biggest gains were possible. Until very recently that was in getting prime locations, expanding to new jurisdictions, building more hotel rooms, restaurants and shopping facilities.

It will be interesting to see how that changes over the next decade. As to seeing your ideas implemented--don't hold your breath:)

Wow, THE John Acres - legends walk among us. Welcome!

We have met, many years ago. You won't remember me, though. I used to represent JCM for the Gaming Standards Association.

Hi, My memory is infamously bad and that'd be 11 years ago. But without knowing oyur name or what you look like, I cannot know if I remember you or not.

My apologies if I do not and thanks for your efforts at GSA. In any case, I hope the past decade has been good to you.

John

Hi all,

I have a few Mikohn controlers CON1, Gateway, CON2, ChamII and ChamII+ but its in use in machines with different Mikohn displays.
The guy that works with this conntrolers is in pensions.
I'm new with this controlers and I need any instructions manuals, service manuals, schematics for it.
What is the difference about the displays?
I have the program PSP for DOS, manual for ChamII+ but for the older controlers I don't have anything.
Exist software for Windows? If exist wher can I found it or anyone can send it to me?
Can anyone help me found this manuals, schematic, etc. for controlers and displays.
I'm from Slovenia (Europe) in Europe Mikohn don't exist any more, has been purchased from Progressive Gaming International and they don't have support for Mikohn products anymore.

I appreciate any yours help.

Thanks.
Elvis

The story of Mikohn's founding is fairly short. I sold a prior company--EDT--to IGT in 1984 and stayed on there as President. That didn't work out and i left. A friend in the electronics business showed me a new product concepts--LEDs arranged in a 4x4 matrix of dots, with each dot holding a red and green LED. Lighting both LEDs at once gave yellow. I thought it'd be a good way to do progressive jackpot display, as I had done them at EDT and once built a sign for Lady Luck from individual red LEDs. It worked but was difficult to assemble.

Anyway, I got a display working using turbo-pascal under MS-DOS to drive the LEDs through a IBM PC printer port. I showed the display to two friends: Mike Stone and Ben Maze. Mike has been in charge of sales for IGT but left shortly I quite EDT.

Both Ben and Mike were enthused (Ben ran a Las Vegas sign company called Casino Signs). They asked what it would take to start the business and I figured about $70,000. Each agreed to put in $35k for 1/3rd each. I was left with 1/3rd for contributing the prototype design and agreeing to turn it into a product while getting paid from the $70k.

We drew up papers and were to meet to sign them and collect funds. On the night before the meeting, Ben called saying he couldn’t stand the risk and was backing out. Mike ultimately agreed to put in $70k for half of the business. That’s when my wife came up with the name MIKe & jOHN. It took about 3 months to finish the design and sales took off immediately. We were small but profitable.

Later, I sold my share of Mikohn to a guy named Dave Thompson. A year later, Mike sold to Dave too. Dave eventually combined several companies into one. This happened, I think, in 1993. The companies were Casinos Signs South (Ben Maze), Casino Signs North (Denny Garcia) and Peterson Signs out of South Dakota I think. The combined company was called Mikohn Gaming. They went public in 1994. I don’t think they ever accomplished a profit after that.

So who founded the company depends on your perspective. I did the design. Mike and I started the company, with Ben Maze as our distributor. Dave, Ben, Denny and whomever owned Peterson Signs essentially remodeled the company. Russ McMeekin remodeled it again and now it is a part of IGT.

From my perspective, there were only two founders, not that it matters much.

John

Jay, you asked about a manual for the Gateway. I've been reviewing the documentation people on the forum were kind enough to let me look at. It was fun because I wrtoe the original manuals and was thrilled to have a"fat" Mac with 1 MB of memory and pg layout software. Drawing those diagrams was an achievement for the time but printing them on the original HP laser printer (cost was $6K) was a pain. We did double-sided by printing on one side, carefully reloading the sheets and then printing on the other side.

Anyway, there was no separate manaul for the Gateway, as I recall. The full extent of documentation is found within the controller manual. In the CON1 manual that I have, Gateway info is found on pages 34-36.

John

Ok - Thats I had read to hook it up..... Just thought there might have been more good stuff to know.

Here is a question you might be able to answer....

What is the serial port for on the ChamI (LED4/5) when these are link devices ?

John - Great to see one of gamings innovators on NLG.

For those of you that would like to know more about Mr Acres

http://www.gamelogic.com/Articles/CasinoJournalAcres.php (http://www.gamelogic.com/Articles/CasinoJournalAcres.php)
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2008_August_6/ai_n27971347 (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2008_August_6/ai_n27971347)

Let us know when you open the Mikohn Hall of fame   :96-

Regards
Ian

Wow I am very impressed with your career in the gaming industry, and enjoyed reading the posted link on your achievements, welcome to a very friendly family at NLG.

I got to work with Mikohn equipment before they opened up in Europe (Holland). When they opened in Europe (I forgot the Year) their office was about 30 meters away from our company and we all used to go there and they would come to us. Just for fun and games. To be honest, with the little experience I had, I even helped training their new technicians and some of them I am still in contact with. From the original group there was the Technical Director called Lucien Verlinden who started the company called GAMING SUPPORT afterwards and the two brothers Jan and Martin Spies who created the company called SIGNS4U (S4U). In my humble opinion it was a great idea to start Mikohn but the arrogance that came later killed the company. Like you said yourself John, I don't think the ever really made a profit.

I will start cleaning my shop very soon and I think I have some old manuals and boards from the era that you liked.

Very happy to see you on board.

Tom

Welcome Tom, this is one of the friendliest sites I have ever been on the guys are always quick to jump in and help.

Regards Sharron  :88-

Hi Tom, If you do find any original manuals or equipment, I am very interested in purchasing it. So far, not much has turned up from pre-1995. I guess that's just too long ago to be found.

Your photo shows some great-looking Caille games. Are they yours? If so, I am jealous!

John

I apologize, I thought I had answered your question about the serial port earlier but perhaps I simply did not post it. When the Cham1 was originally developed, I was not sure of how big the market might be. The serial port was put on there in case we ever wanted to sell the display for general signage. THinking back then was to allow a standard computer to attach to the display and program it.

We soon found ourselves very busy with gaming applications though but the serial port remained for a very long time.

John

I don't get any response from the port when I connect it to a computer.
Was there ever a guide or a program that was designed to talk to this port.
I have procomm which is capable of sending out strings with non printable characters and the like.

Well John, just give me some time but whatever I will find is yours and please don't think I will charge you for anything. Just wish me luck and some spare time to look for them.

Tom

By the way John, those machines are not mine. My old boss has one of the biggest collection of Juke-Boxes and Slots in the world. (to be honest, he collects everything even up to all types of radios, whiskey's and so on.) I will look up his adress and I will put on this forum.

Hi All

Bit off topic but when John mentioned what the machines were in Tombas profile pic did a search and came up with this.

http://www.danielsantiques.com/vintage_antique_slot_machines.asp (http://www.danielsantiques.com/vintage_antique_slot_machines.asp)

Wow - Wish he had some pics of the internals but it looks like some real workmanship in those machines.
Makes me wonder what slots will look like 100 years from now (Direct to brain download  :91- ?)

Regards
Ian

I suspect there is no longer any code within the software to support that port. I could be wrong though. So much time has passed, it is hard to know what's been placed into newer software and what's been removed to make room for the new features. There wa code written for the port originally but by originally, I am talking 1985-1987. I'm guessing you won't get very far with the port. Sorry I couldn't be of help.

John

As

That's quite a collection.I am no expert but I went to a slot auction a couple of years ago and a Caille Roulette game like that off to the right went for around $200,000. That triple Caille wheel would probably go for around that too. Triples are pretty rare. They are beuatiful pieces but played slow compared to today's games and could not handle any appreciable volume of money.

They were often rigged to not strike certain awards too.

Still, they are great examples of late-19th centruy craftsmanship and are ingeniously designed. I couldn't even begin to  think in terms of how to implement a game without electricity.

I do wish you luck but it would be unfair to take something you took time and effort to acquire (and find again) without compensation. Anyway, let me know if you find anything pre-1995--especially if it is pre-1990!

Thanks,

John

Allow me to bring back a couple of memories...

(http://i35.tinypic.com/14e7x2h.jpg)
(source (http://www.whenthemobranvegas.com/slideshow.html))

(http://i38.tinypic.com/2rf8nrt.jpg)
(source (http://www.flickr.com/photos/my_vegas/2124310920/))

(http://i36.tinypic.com/2mnhshk.jpg)
(source (http://www.casino-tokens.com/images/MrSys80.jpg))

(http://i35.tinypic.com/dnmrmt.jpg)
(source (http://www.cscasinocollectibles.com/images/mrsyscupn.jpg))

Those are great photos. I have not seen fun books, or Mr. Sy's tokens for 30 years. I appreicate the signage photo too. Do you have higher resolution versions available?

THanks,

John

Interesting post-I never seen this one.  Caught my eye because I am to pick up/purchase a good bid of mikohn "equipment" from some one that worked there for years and I went to grade school with.  Hopefully there will be some older stuff there as well.  I have a lot of the newer and somewhat older mik. stuff and "dabble" with it and use that term loose -Hope to get some interesting data/tools and componets.  Will post status soon I hope.  B.

Click on (Source) under the first photo!

Very neat stuff!!

Ed

Hi, John.  Unfortunately, what you see on the post is all I have.  I had been looking through the slideshow from "WhenTheMobRanVegas.com" and had seen that first photo just about a week ago -- when I stumbled on this topic and saw that you said you worked at Mr. Sy's, it rang a bell in my head that I had just seen a picture of it not long ago.  None of those photos are mine, rather just what I found on the Internet in a quick search.




Indeed, that site has a lot of good old pictures of older Las Vegas.