SAS Host controller DLL. What do you want to see?

[AndyP]

I am getting some questions about DCS and some machines. I dont know much about this stuff so can someone explain to me what DCS is and what the electrical interface is. Example schematics would be great.

My experience is failry limited to Australian based gear, and we dont have huge amounts of SAS enabled machines here. What we do have is fairly restricted to linked electronic table games like Vegas Star and the like.

[TZtech]

Hi Guys

The DCS (Data communication System - I had to look that up) is found on the S+,Pe+,S2000 and I Game machines. (Not to sure about AVP platform).
On S2000/Igame it talks to this port on channel2. On S+/PE+ this is your only comms options.

I have attached the schematics for I Game and PE+ backplanes showing the pinouts and circuitry. Most of the systems I have worked with have some kind of interface board or muodule to convert RS232 to DCS levels. I will see if I can get some more details on this.

Regards
Ian

[stayouttadabunker]

TZ,
Do you think you might be able to get this communicator to work with
the more widely popular S+ and S2000 platforms?

[Foster]

The S2000 has a Comm Board with RS232 on it.

[TZtech]

SB - The cable Pinout I poasted for the I Game will work on S2000 as the comms boards are identical.

Foster - Did you manage to get your S2000 working ? Not sure why you are not getting channel3 as an option. Do you have the PSR for your base maybe that will shed some light?

Unfortunately I dont currently have a S2000 or S+ to test on but if we get a usable interface to the PE+ (Which I do have) it will work on the S+.
I will document the settings for SAS 5 and SAS 6 and post that once done.
I can assist anybody with WMS Bluebird but agian dont have a machine to test - This one has a RS232 port so a standard crossover cable will work here.
Bally reels will work from S6000 upwards and Video from Game Makers upwards - Will have to check manuals for interface details.
Universals will work if equiped with a comms board. (I will document these as well as I have a mach)
Atronic Cashlines will also need a commsboard.

Ian

[Foster]

Here is the PSR for game chips I am using

I can not get communications will try it again in a few hours.

[stayouttadabunker]

Excellent answer TZ!
Like others, I'm watching with extreme interest and
only wish I could contribute more to help... 
Unfortunately, I don't know a whole lot about what you guys are talking about
when it comes to deciphering the signaling processes and
making them communicate with each other...
It's pretty neat though and I'm learning quite a bunch!

Earlier, there was a question of what info we wanted to see and of course
getting our TITO tickets to validate on our home machines would be very high on my list!
I would love to see the machine accounting statistics up on my
desktop LCD screen more than anything else as well...

It sounds to me that you guys are making tremendous progress towards this and
I must stand back in awe and watch it all transpire!
I will keep watching and see if I can help in any way possible! 
Great work guys! 

[TZtech]

Foster

Ok got the PSR - Did you do a keychip before setting SAS options?

7.1.5 Cashless
Controller Enables or disables the Cashless option and determines the Cashless
controller (SAS EFT, SAS AFT, or Bally Miser).

I suspect you machine is set to Miser - According to doc then

3.4.2.2 Miser Channel: Determines which channel is used by the Miser
communication protocol. The default is channel 3 (RS232 port on the
machine's communication board).

This would probably be why you cant select channel 3

Ian

[knagl]

Andy and Ian:

Thanks and K+ to both of you for your fantastic work thus far.  While I don't understand 100% of how you guys are making this work, it's really exciting to see what's going on here, and the possibilities that it can lead to for us home users.   

[AndyP]

Hi Guys

The DCS (Data communication System - I had to look that up) is found on the S+,Pe+,S2000 and I Game machines. (Not to sure about AVP platform).
On S2000/Igame it talks to this port on channel2. On S+/PE+ this is your only comms options.

I have attached the schematics for I Game and PE+ backplanes showing the pinouts and circuitry. Most of the systems I have worked with have some kind of interface board or muodule to convert RS232 to DCS levels. I will see if I can get some more details on this.

Regards
Ian

Just took a look at that backplane, but it only shows how the DCS port is wired to the motherboard. Need to see the interface on the motherboard. I suspect that it might be a current loop, which was fairly typical for machines of that era. If it is, its pretty easy to make it work with rs232 with couple pc817 optocouplers.

[Foster]

I did get a hopper low condition displayed in the test app
but that is all (I had the hopper out enough to disconnect it from the machine. Non secure hopper

I had to assume that pins on the RS232 are numbered left to right 1 to 5.
TZ to connect to the Comm board I grabbed a Netplex cable that either went to the BV or VFD display or who knows where (it was from the old Vision harnesses that I replaced with a set from a S2000)
I am getting reliable communications after I swapped the 2 data wires at the serial port.
I wonder if the FTDI chip auto detects RX/TX lines (like some ethernet cards and many switches do)

[AndyP]

ROM signature did not return any value and legacy Bonus seemed to multiply the value entered by 1000.

Found the problem with legacy bonus. Small bug when I convert it to BCD.

[Foster]

I forgot to mention that
I am running Mac OS X 10.6.6 Snow Leopard, using Oracle VirtualBox (a Virtual Machine emulation software) running Windows XP (32 bit) and using a USB to RS232 converter.
I get reilable communications between the computer and machine.

For those that want to know
This is connections I am using
I did turn off the Bally Miser stuff.
RS232 Computer      S2000/I Game J82 (RS232) on the Comm Board.                     
2 RcD     <--------------   1 TxD
3 TxD     -------------->   2 RcD
5 GND   <------------->   5 GND

RcD = Receive Data
TxD = Transmit Data

I now it is easy to forget that TX is output and RX is into that device.
Yes you have to use channel 3 on the S2000 or else it will not work.

I even got Legacy Bonus to work only if I enter multiples of 100  any other value the machine does not get the bonus or is ignoring it. I can not tell which is occurring.

I was finally able to get a picture of he VFD and LED showing the Legacy System Bonus being won and awarded.

[AndyP]

I forgot to mention that
I am running Mac OS X 10.6.6 Snow Leopard, using Oracle VirtualBox (a Virtual Machine emulation software) running Windows XP (32 bit) and using a USB to RS232 converter.
I get reilable communications between the computer and machine.

For those that want to know
This is connections I am using
I did turn off the Bally Miser stuff.
RS232 Computer      S2000/I Game J82 (RS232) on the Comm Board.                     
2 RcD     <--------------   1 TxD
3 TxD     -------------->   2 RcD
5 GND   <------------->   5 GND

RcD = Receive Data
TxD = Transmit Data

I now it is easy to forget that TX is output and RX is into that device.
Yes you have to use channel 3 on the S2000 or else it will not work.

I even got Legacy Bonus to work only if I enter multiples of 100  any other value the machine does not get the bonus or is ignoring it. I can not tell which is occurring.

I was finally able to get a picture of he VFD and LED showing the Legacy System Bonus being won and awarded.

Another mac user. I vowed after discovering windows 7 that I would toss my macbook in the bin. Alas, the crashbook wont die. I like apple hardware, but I am beginning to hate mac os. Anyway..

The problems you are having with legacy bonus may well be because of a bug in my dll. Hoping to have a new version up tomorrow, but I still have a bit of work left to do yet, so may not be till next week yet.

[Foster]

Have you done any updates since the first version that is posted.

I noticed that ROM Signature takes a while to respond. I am thinking it is because the machine has to calculate it but not sure.

[jdkmunch]

I'm thinking that once we have a working DLL and hookup, we could use MSAccess or MySQL as a back end database to generate and store the ticket records and any other interesting machine-specific data that we can poll.

If we code this in C#.NET and/or VB.NET, we could make it a web (browser) based front end app.

Lets do Something easy to start - if it is in fact true that if the bill validator trys sas if it doesn't recognize the bill inserted let's just have the code add 100 credits for anything inserted. 

[AndyP]

Have you done any updates since the first version that is posted.

I noticed that ROM Signature takes a while to respond. I am thinking it is because the machine has to calculate it but not sure.

Yup. The ROM Signature is the only asynchronous poll in SAS. You send of a request and wait for the machine to calculate the response. The newer the machine, and the bigger the software set the longer it will probably take. The AVP I have takes minute or 2.

[Foster]

Lets do Something easy to start - if it is in fact true that if the bill validator trys sas if it doesn't recognize the bill inserted let's just have the code add 100 credits for anything inserted.  

The BV uses Netplex to interface to the machine.
The BV does not report every rejected bill
If the BV rejects the bill and sends an error condition to the machine then the machine will send that error via SAS to the the computer that handles SAS.
If that error occurs it could be coded to call the Legacy Bonus Function with a preset value as you suggested.

I save time and just use the Legacy Bonus in the Test App and do not have to use any cash or tokens.

The best FreePlay system for the S2000

The only thing is if I enter 100, I get 10,000 credits on the machine
Andy knows about the 100 times bug in the legacy bonus code

[jdkmunch]

This is so cool.

The reason for the bill would be for the wife to shove in her ticket and get some credits - not to use real $$

[Foster]

That would be Ticket In Ticket Out

I am not a C# programmer by any means but with the right people on here, and a SAS DLL with the features we want implemented.
We home user might be able to do TITO, read accounting data, and maybe a few other things.

[AndyP]

I am starting too lose interest in this... All the fun parts of the code are done and now its just boilerplate coding adding in all the message definitions... Sooo boring.... Getting there slowly though. I am about halfway though adding in all the messages from the montana spec.

Once I get this done, I will line up a couple of you who have working TITO machines and see if we cant get something working via my test app.

[stayouttadabunker]

How are you accomplishing this "boilerplate coding" ?
Just copy and paste method?

[Foster]

My S2000 can do TITO easily as long as I can figure out what settings would be the easiest to set it for.

There is some stuff under communications and key chip that I will need input from TZTech and others that deal with them regularly.

[jdkmunch]

I can't wait to try this dll

It should work on reel touch right - it's nothing more than an s2000

[AndyP]

How are you accomplishing this "boilerplate coding" ?
Just copy and paste method?

Nope, manually typing it all in! I got 4 messages left to add, then I need to add in all the mechanisms to handle the messages.