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I live in a state where any currency in/out of a slot is illegal. I was wondering if any company made "scrip" that could represent "x" credits so that when the scrip is inserted into the DBA you could easily load up your machine with credits and still stay legal. the machine would still dispense tokens of course. The scrip would also have to be really sturdy to stand up to use and abuse. Just a thought as a lot more machines now only come with DBA's. My Double Diamond slot was manufactured in 1989 and was in Trump World's Fair casino in Atlantic City and does not have a DBA. Even the original NJ. DGE stickers are on the chips!

EDIT: I found a website that has high quality play money. The bills are of green tint but realistic. They also have plastic coins as well (I wonder if you could plastic quarters in a slot????). maybe the DBA could be trained to accept the play money.

Some guys wanted to use "monopoly money" in their games.
but I think the bills were too small....
plus, you'd have to redesign the DBV chips to "see" it and recognize the bill amount...
The exact physical (size) ,metal composition properties of coins
and metal tokens is what's needed for coin comparators to work.
Plastic tokens I believe will never work in a coin mech.
...not easy conversions to perform for us everyday, home slot owners...
I'd leave that up to the JCM techicians....lol

reho33, we were discussing this very subject just a few days ago. Check out these posts (http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=4155.msg35128#msg35128).

The machines use a coin comparitor... it uses coils to determine if the coins are of equal metallic properties.... this way even a equal weight / sized slug would not work as a replacement to a quarter. By the same TOKEN ..... you can use Pachislo tokens. A Pachislo is a Japanese slot and the tokens are just about the size of a quarter. They are both abundent and cheap.  Simply replace the coin in the coin comparitor with the Token and your machine now runs off of tokens.
Plastic would not work.

Casinos use EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) to convert barcodes to credits. This uses a backend computer and database and the software is not available to us. THe other posts continue the alternate thoughts on this.....

Yes, I understood that. I already run my machine on tokens now. Just thought that I could have a handy solution if I bought a machine with a DBA I would be legally required to remove it........ :8-

Well, if the slots are in the privacy of your home, what you might be required to do and what might get done could be two different things... Let's just say that if you were to purchase such a machine, that you'd be planning on working on removing the dbv when you got around to having a chance to look into it, one of these days next summer, as soon as you... :79-  :30- :97- :97- :97- :97-

The cardinal rule is to NEVER let anyone gamble for real money on a machine that you own. That's the fastest way get in trouble with the law. If you use your machines, as we all do, for personal enjoyment, no one is going to bother you. It's a minor misdemeanor in most states and unless someone complains, they're not going to waste their time bashing in your door.

Since a DBV would allow your slot to accept bills, and the only output is tokens and the tokens are non-redeemable this makes your machine no different than a pin ball machine or other arcade platform.

If anyone has any issue with this go into any amusement park where they have a redemption arcade. The better you do at the games of chance the more tickets you get and the bigger of the prize you get to claim.  This is way more gambling than what you are offering.....

When I have purchased a machine with a dbv via vi ebay the rules state that the machine must be permanently altered not to take cash. Permanent is a term that can be interpurted in a lot of ways. My thoughts are that nothing is permanent. It more or less translates into a scale of effort. If you buy a house doesn't it come with all permanent fixtures ? does this mean you can't swap out the bathtub. Not a fun job but with some effort it can be done. Water taps are considered a permaent fixture but I can swap those out in under 1/2 an hour of effort. I am no lawyer but personally If you are using it for home entertainment I would not sweat it.

I lived in PA for 6 years and the rule was that slots newer than 1940 were forbidden. The question here is what is the legal definition of a slot machine ? Paschilos (japanese slots) were openly sold by Sams club and Costco. So how does a IGT S+ or equivelent differ once it is set out to use tokens ????. In some states the machine has to be 25 years or older. This means that slots 1984 and older are legal. California says all slots are illegal. Period. So it really comes down to what defines a slot machine. Pachislos are illegal in CA. So Is it cash or the spinning reels ?

Oh I understand Jay. 2 Police officers saw and went in 2 states that I lived in, saw the machine and just put a s__t eating grin on their faces and left without saying a word. I never let strangers use it and only family and friends use it with the tokens only. Honestly they are after bigger fish.....like Pot O' Golds with knock-off meters in bars. But if the DA of your county got up on the wrong side of the bed that day and has a name to make for himself/herself (think Mike Nifong) well it might be free room and board for a year and that nice S+ will be crushed with inpunity!

P.S. I also got a DOJ certificate just to CMA. They issue them to individuals for in-home personal use and the are FREE (no cost).

I want to make it a project to get home gaming scrip for BVs. I'm pretty sure I can get the BV software done, but first I need a reliable and repeatable source of paper. Again, I've done it commercially and I know printers who can print it, but I'm not a business, so if I do it I can't shift it. I have it on good authority that certain members here do have a business, though... If anyone wants to look into it seriously, let me know PM.

NLG Bucks with pictures of....???

Doesn't American Banknote Corp do notes on rag paper with security? If we all pooled together we could come up with something and have them print it depending on cost?

I don't think we need anything that fancy, (or expensive).
Couldn't some artistic type person draw up something, create a PDF, and we could just print them at home when we need more bucks?
If the software was written to check only corners or something, we could all put are own picture in the center!

"King Edward"

American Banknote are a security printer - they would charge an arm and a leg, probably well over $1 a piece for a minimum order of 50,000. We don't need high security for scrip money. All we need is litho printing on repeatable quality paper with a design that's easy for a BV to recognize, like a pattern of black stripes or large dots. Edski, printing at home would be hit and miss because BVs are designed to recognize the paper, not just the print on it. You'd be surprised how different papers can appear in the infra-red light that validators use. If we teach them using Office Depot paper, they'd refuse Office Max.

So as long as we had litho printing on repeatable quality paper, portions of the bill could be left to our own design, and we could run these thru our own printers, and put whatever we want on them?

As long as the BV software was designed right. It could look for certain features that are always present to identify the denomination, and ignore the rest of the printing. But it might be necessary to restrict the own-print to certain areas.

The simple solution would be to use a nationally available paper from a stable source, like Epson or HP, for example, with a specific weight and brightness (and hence, a uniform chemical makeup and IR signature), so that everyone who wanted to use these script bills could buy the paper and print their own, confident that the paper would work with the software. I'd lean towards using paper made for laser printers rather than ink jet specific paper, but that's just my opinion.

Hey guys (by that I mean guys and girls), if you pull this off, I'll be throwing a celebration party, as I love the idea.  I was thinking of bills with stripes of various widths like a bar code at each end to determine value, and a space in the middle for personalization (gtaslots, for amusement only etc.).  I would be happy(ecstatic) with 1 bill at 100 NLG bucks value, so people could add credits without using real money.  Security lefel of software wouldn't have to be high, since it's for amusement only.  I would like this to be for the wba 12/13 both ID003 and ID024 of course.  This is a big wish list, and I thank all for considering this great idea.

  :3-  a round of K+ to all  :3-  Stat, I'll have to do yours after 12 hours, since I already hit you today.

Thanks,
Wayne

It seems to me that the industry already supports us to some degree here.
TITO blanks already appear to be a proven format for both in and out and will likely continue to be available for sometime.

Ideally I would like to be able to goto a printer and have them simply print up Jay Bucks to my specifications but if we used the basics of a TITO card then we have a supported format. So regardless if I buy the 500blank pack from Happ and use them in my printer or get some printed we would be able to provide a sample of the stock to our local guy.

Since I have an S+ that does not easily ticket out this does not apply to me but I am sure that the others who ticket out would appreciate the ability to use their tickets as an input. I am not sure how the output coding works or if its re-useable or not. My thoughts are the casino would use some kind of security environment to make it casino specific.

I also strongly believe in the KISS principal ...... Keep it Simple (stupid).

Correct me if I'm wrong, But doesn't Ticket out print a bar code equal to the dollar value printed on the ticket?

If were re-writing software, cant you just add the availability to read that bar code dollar value and convert it to credits without any validation process.  :103-

I thought the bar code just kept the reference number that gets validated with the server which holds the value.  seting up a thermal ticket printer to print from a PC would be interesting though....  Repeatable also.

Thanks,
W

I will make a good monetary donation to those that come up with some type
of converted software that will read the TITO barcodes as mentioned by Jay and Neonkiss...
If you guys need some money to try to get this endeavour off on the right foot contact me please...
I'm sure this research and development of making a DBV "read" the ticket printers' barcodes
will be just what the slot homeowners have had their fingers crossed for for years!
It will cost a little bit for parts and stuff...maybe we could all chip in on this project?
As a combined effort from our members, this would be fantastic to pull off! :89-

I'll bet Dollars to donuts (If that's the correct saying)   :148- to :161-
If you scan the bar code of the Ticket out using a hand held bar code scanner. It will read the dollar value.

Hey! Does anyone have one?
Maybe I'll take one of my TITO tickets from the S2000 and bring it up to Walmart's....lol
No seriously though, it would be neat of someone could try this for us and post your results!! :89-

Deja vu!

I've already done it and posted my findings about a year ago.  Check out this thread...

http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=1009.msg21846#msg21846 (http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=1009.msg21846#msg21846)

Just a quick review - the bardcode is the validation # on the ticket.  So for the ticket below, the barcode equals "000000000098211498" - no dollar amounts....sorry!

Dan #2

OK then!

How much interest do we have in this?
I think lots! :89- :89- :89-

How many denominations do we need?
I'd be happy with just a $100 note.

I think it would be nifty if potions of the bill were left blank, and we could each run them thru our own printers to personalize them.

Anybody good a graphic design?
We should come up with something very unique.

How many BV types do we need to support? 12/13, 145/200, others?

Do we need one side or both?

What color?

Let's get some thoughts together and get this rolling!!!

Ed

Found this!

I used to work in the printing business and I think that we could use Cranes paper at 25% rag content. It is illegal to get the same paper that US currency is printed on but 25% is close. What I don't understand is if companies make metal tokens for certain applications why can't they make scrip that is used for certain applications. I mean I would like to have a 100 dollar bill on hand to load up my slot machine with credits but daily expenses would eat that up in a heart beat. I also understand that the tickets could be printed but no back end acct. software exists for home users to read the ticket back and credit the machine. But the barcode generates numbers and those numbers could be read by certain logic to correspond to a credit amount. One thing that life has taught me: if people as a whole contribute, the overall product can be better than commercial products.(look at Linux Ubantu). Maybe we could invent something that casinos could use and if it was widespread enough, SAS might be a thing of the past. This is an example of how "people power" really works.

Just throwing this out there for whatever it's worth... Casino Royale in Las Vegas has a bank of promotional machines (anyone who visits gets "$50 in free slot play!").  They're IGT S-2000s, and they take scrip tickets via their dollar bill acceptors to credit them up.  From what I remember, they have $50 and $100 tickets that almost appeared to have a magnetic stripe built into the ticket, which was the same size as a dollar bill.

If we're making our own bill and having software to read it developed, why think inside the box? We could create a $500 or $1000 bill instead of a $100. Of course, that might create too many credits for some people's setups. Just a thought. :79-

My suggested format would be to simply divide the end of the bill into 24 fields that are either on or off leaving the rest of the note to have whatever other info, colors  logos etc that we want.

ie:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|                                                                                                                       |    
|                                                                                                                       |          
|                                                                                                                       |    
 
If we simply used each of the  3 x 8 bit bytes to specify a value between 0 & 255 (256 choices - simple binary)
We could represent any value we wanted on the bill by simply multiplying the 3 numbers together to represent a value.
256 x 256 x 256 = 16,777,216 combinations.

The next decision would be how to use this number. The simplist would be to make this represent credits.
However that means when I put a Credit ticket of 500 into my dollar slot it would worth 500 dollars but if I put it in my penny slot it would be worth 5 dollars.
Not very equitable and certainly if one was to mint their own currency they would need to know the specific denomination of thei machines they were used on to be able to make this even seem right. As soon as you have two different denomiations the minting rationalle goes out the window.

My next thought would be to do this in pennies, but that would make the largest ticket only be worth 16K, enough for a W2G but if smeone is running $100 tokens it might be a bit limiting.

Finally to denote it in dollars seems to offer the most balance. This would allow a ticket of $167,772.16

Deffering to OP-Bells intimate knowlege of the DBVs perhaps the end of the ticket might not be the best placement but the point of my post was to come up with a very basic, easily printed universal note for home use vs worrying about any kind of special paper, security features etc that would tie us to an expensive and possibly scarce source.

The biggest hurdle is going to be getting the machine to accept something other than currency.  Until you get that figured out - you might as well not even worry about what kind of bill or ticket you want to create....

From what I can tell - there are 2 options.

1.  Modify the acceptors EPROM to include a fake bill as if it was a real bill.  This is the hardest way if you ask me.  Someone would have to figure out how to modify the existing code in the eprom to include these new types of bills.  And you would have to do it for multiple bills, multiple brands of acceptors and multiple versions of the code.  You would also have to update this modified code when new versions of the eproms are released to support new bills that come out.

2.  Create a backend TITO like system that is able to take a validation code from a barcoded ticket that is read into the machine.  I think this makes the most sense (not that I think it is going to be easy).  The front end of this is already done for us.  Machines already have the power to read the barcode and pass it to a server for validation.  Wouldn't matter what brand of acceptor is in the machine of even what kind of machine it is.

So - where to start.  Seems like you have to figure out how to connect a machine to a network, get it to talk to a server and use some monitoring software to watch what the machine says to the server when a ticket is inserted into the machine.

Anybody know how to connect a machine to a network??

Dan #2

The DBV does not do credits.
When you set up a machine for a BV, you specify what the machine denomination is.
The machine translates the BV amount into credits.

Ed

Op-Bell has offered to rewrite the eprom code.
That's where we're at!

Ed

Dan, Thanks. I owe you some Donuts. :161- :161- :161- :161-
I guess I was wrong. Too bad this did not hold true.
Any chance in changing that software in the thermal printer to print a bar code that corresponds to the ticket value?
Then have the DBV read  the bar code and convert it back to credits.
If were changing software maybe we need to change it on both ends.

Oh - opps.....cool!

 :25-

Dan #2

<EDIT> Lots of people posted while I was tying -- so I've added Jay's post as a quote since I'm no longer right after him. :79-

I may be wrong here Jay, but I think that in order to have a flexible system whereby the machine can read any type of code and interpret a dynamic value would require a dbv with the special hardware capable of reading bar code-style information: i.e., capable of reading tickets.

In such a case, I'm still not clear why the standard bar code (3 of 9 or whatever is being used in the S2000 ticket printers) can't simply be used to represent a decimal number of pennies instead of a serial number? That string of numbers is long enough to represent millions of dollars in pennies if simply read as a single value, no binary required, since a bar code would allow the representation of all digits 0-9. No serial number record to look up in some database -- just a straight forward number that represents a dollar figure in integer form.

On the other hand, if we get back to the primary focus of the discussion at hand, which is to create a user-defined bill for a normal dbv that does not have the extra hardware, i.e., can't read bar codes, I do not believe that my above suggestion, nor Jay's ideas would work; we would be designing a fixed pattern (which, in essence, could be anything at all) that would be hard-coded into the validator's software to be interpreted as a fixed value, just as currency of a specific denomination is valuated.

This brings us back to where we were: creating a single piece of paper ("bill") that has specific markings (any unique set of ink markings along a horizontal line at some specific vertical point along the length of the paper unit, just as is done with a dollar bill) and a specific IR paper signature, that will be read by custom software burned onto the chip/flash of the dbv and translated into a fixed dollar value to be sent to the slot.

We use the KISS method and create a very simple ink pattern (e.g., something that looks like a simple bar code), assign a desirable fixed value (e.g., $100 or $1000), and use universally available paper stock (e.g., HP Laserjet 24lb 92bright paper) to come up with one "bill" and a matching "chip" that everyone can use and print at home on their own printer.


What can get confusing here is that the phony "bar code" that we would be using here would not be the same as a true bar code. The machine's standard dbv (including one on an S+) would not be capable of reading different combinations of bar code "patterns" and interpreting a value, but would rather be reading ONE specific phony "bar code-style" pattern that the custom software would then interpret as being a $100 or $1000 bill.

<ADD> It looks like I'm on the same page as Op-Bell at this point.  :71-

Using a series of dots along the bill is about the same thoughts I had.
Using the dot method is no different than what I am suggesting.
My thoughts were just to make if flexible to represent any value.

Well, Op-Bell can correct me if I'm wrong, but if it's going to work in dbv's as a unit of currency rather than a ticket, then the physical limitations of the validators will preclude making them flexible. And, as I understand it, making them flexible instead would exclude any dbv that could not read tickets, and would require a quantum level increase of difficulty in designing the software, as the simple model would only require the insertion of static data to represent the input read from our new bill and the static value to output in pulses to the slot upon reading that static data, whilst creating a flexible system would require writing a completely new piece of software to run the dbv since their extant software is not currently designed to interpret bar code values directly in any way.

I understand where you are going with this. You are saying that there are set images vs interpertaive code.
RATS.

So lets work this backwards what changes between a DBV200 that can and those that cant ? is it another board, different head etc ?
Would the entire WBA series be able to ? or were there versions that could not.

Hmm, I've been reading this, and I find it very interesting, but the bottom line is this.
As long as there is no watch dog watching the DBV, and or integrity checks, and providing OP-Bell
is a decent enough coder, I don't see any problem at all. BTW, when debugging, reversing, or coding at the machine level
it's all binary.

So the 4 options are these:

1) Reverse engineer the code for DBV's to accept scrip.
2)Use Zimababwe currency as it is dirt cheap and make the DBV recognize it or
3)Continue on the way we are doing : using US currency in the slot and promptly removing it from the cash can.
4)Using a card reader/writer to add credits via a mag strip card forgetting about the DBA altogether.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm................................

This is a more complicated matter than many of you understand. To start with, if we restrict it just to JCM and the models people use on NLG, there are five different validators that would all need software - DBV145, DBV200m WBA10/11, WBA12/13 and UBA. If we include Canadian head models, there are seven of them.

Then there are four different interface types in common use - ID023, ID024 Netplex, ID044 and ID003. Leave aside for the minute that the first two are claimed as proprietary by IGT, who would have to give permission for ID023 and ID024 to be made and may want to be paid for it. That means there are 28 different firmwares that have to be made. This is a lot more complicated than (say) hacking a new pay table into a game ROM. The validator firmware is a closely guarded trade secret because it's a financial instrument of interest to regulators, and getting it compromised could mean getting the company's validators banned from many jurisdictions. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm not going to do it. The only people who can make new firmware for JCM validators are JCM.

A new currency firmware is made by loading up special software in a head and feeding representative samples of currency, recording the data patterns that come out, then working these patterns down into recognition tables and compiling them into the BV firmware. This takes some time, say a man-day. If it has to work with both NLG-scrip and Edski-scrip, more work is needed to make sure it ignores the differences, which is why I'm in favor of one common design made by a commercial printer who knows what he's doing. In order to get the firmware made, you have to offer enough money to a stone-faced accountant to convince him he'd make more money by doing this job for you than he would by having his man work on something else.

That's why, in my opinion, this is a commercial project for a dealer or a consortium of dealers, not a home-made hack.

As long as you have a  compiler sutible for the processor you can pretty much work in any language.
C, and assembler typically creates more efficent code than that of other languages.
To work from scratch you also need intimate knowledge of the hardware so you know what registers to load etc.

What we are talking about is more than simply dumping the contents of the eproms into a hex editor and shifting some bytes around.
OpBell has a long history with this hardware and software. 

So you would be decompiling adding in your snip it of code and then recompiling.
BTW, I said a Debugger such as IDA or Olly not a hex editor. Two entirely different things.

Totally understand what has been said so far. OK well if someone wants to take a stab at it then do so and report your findings here. If not, well I guess I can get used to the DBA though I do not have room in my S+ for one. But now for any machine that I buy in the future that may have one I guess I will just use it.

  We don't need to do Canadian heads, as they cost to much to use anyway.  As for myself, only one bill (100 slot bucks) would be fine with me, made commercially sounds fine too, although, I wonder how much that would cost ber 1000 bills.  ID003 covers a few manufacturers, and it alone would be awesome to get done. as I previously mentioned, wba 12/13 would be great.  .  K+ op.

Thanks,
Wayne

It's a great idea to have the tickets validated - but I thought once again this information was proprietary to IGT. 

SAS?  :79-

I think I remember from another thread that all other slot manufactures must lease this from IGT in order to make TITO work for their machines.

 :7-

Why not just tokenize the machine.  Set the token value to 99 credits (max value on an S+).  So you only have to put 1 coin in for ever 99 credits.  No bills, no validators, and no currency in/out.   I do this with my WMS video machine, putting in 300 coins to spin the reels once is out of hand, even a $100 bill goes fast when you are betting say $15.00 per spin. So I set my token value to $2,000.00.  One token and I can play for a while.

What are the menu steps to set the credit value?

You need a token compatible game chip and set chip.  See this thread for all the information.

http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=4242.0 (http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=4242.0)