Programming (or troubleshooting?) Assistance - CHAMII/CON2

[Slotster]

After a few years of my machine collecting dust in the back room, I've brought my IGT S+ out and got it running once again. One of the things that died from non-use was my CHAMII/CON2 programming. Although modern technology has been working against me, I've got it once again communicating with PSP and can send commands and message files. Unfortunately, either my memory is failing me, or something isn't working quite right. Possibly both.

I can display my own messages without issue, but when selecting an effect like Flash or Dance, they neither flash nor dance. Dance does color each letter a different color - but it doesn't rotate colors like I thought it used to. I'm thinking I need to include a speed command or something (else?) or perhaps have the sequence wrong - but all of my attempts have failed so far.

My second (and perhaps bigger) issue is that the progressive display shows nothing. Just comes up blank. I've tried shift-F1 followed by 0, 8, 00, and 08 - all of which result in a blank screen. Again I'm assuming I'm just using it wrong, but a little guidance would be appreciated. I don't recall having these sorts of problems when I set it up initially several years ago, and I know none of the dip switches or anything have been changed since it was last working.

[knagl]

My brain is a little dusty on this stuff, too, but here's what I remember.

- The Flash function did not work on my ChamII+.

- Try placing the Dance function on its own and make sure you don't have any other commands in there.  While you're experimenting, maybe start with it at the beginning of the jpot.do file so you know it's not getting messed with.  From the manual:

When text is in Travel, Flash, or Throb mode, [the dance command] causes each character in a word to alternate colors

NOTES: 
The Dance command works uniquely with Travel Motion in a CON1/CHAMI progressive system combination. With Block and Scroll text, the pixels that make up the characters alternate between red, yellow, and green (hence, dancing). With Travel text, however, each character of the text to which the Dance command is assigned takes one of the three colors and holds that color as it travels across the display. In multiple-character messages with Dance and Travel, the colors alternate red, yellow, green. For example, the word JACKPOT in Travel mode with Dance assigned to the whole word would cause the letter J to be red, the letter A to be yellow, the letter C to be green, the letter K to be red, and so forth, as the word traveled left to right across the sign.

To get your jackpot amount to display, I believe you need a jackpot token (Shift + F1) (it should display a playing card suit "spade") followed by the number 8 (with no space between the spade and the 8, as I recall).  Make sure your jackpot amounts are programmed correctly, too, ie. that you have a current amount, a base amount (which is not higher than the current amount), a limit (which is higher than the current amount), an increase percentage, etc.