What type of Slot is this? (Bally EM 873)

[jdkmunch]

Hi a friend of mine sent me this picture of his slot to hopefully identify it.  Does anyone know what type of machine this is?

Thanks

[StatFreak]

It's a Bally EM model 873 with Lightning strips...

...& custom belly glass, a lowered top prize (of 1000 coins instead of 3000 - both of which would have been hand paid -- so no change internally), and a GI Joe trying to infiltrate the top glass. 

[jdkmunch]

You guys are good!  Are they difficult to fix?   It doesn't work and he would like me to buy it.

[uniman]

I have that same belly glass with mirror finish. Very nice!

[jdkmunch]

Is it worth anything?  If it requires some parts I would think that they are hard to find.

[StatFreak]

You guys are good!  Are they difficult to fix?   It doesn't work and he would like me to buy it.

Our resident expert would be Op-Bell.  
OldReno knew just about everything there was to know about these machines but doesn't post anymore.

I've always wanted one of the 5-line EMs, but personally, I'd get one with the fruit symbols.
I will tell you that the lightning strips usually had lousy payback percentages (like 76% - 85% for example) and because they were a "jackpot-only" design, they didn't pay very often either. (On the other hand, on a 5-line, you'll hit five times as often) If you can see the machine in person you can calculate the payback as well as how often you can expect to hit winning payouts simply by writing down the symbols and doing the math. They are physical strips - WYSISYG. Just remember to count the sequential blank spaces correctly.

[Neonkiss]

Not too bad to fix. Unless someone has been hacking on the wiring
See Gallery Slots (foxslots1) at the top of the page for parts. Barry will have whatever you need for that machine.

[jdkmunch]

That's pretty awesome.. I might make him an offer.   I think it would be nice to fix it up and make it like new again.

ADD>  Any idea on a pricetag?

[StatFreak]

Is it worth anything?  If it requires some parts I would think that they are hard to find.

If Op-Bell can't help you with parts, you might contact LA Slots. They used to have lots of EMs; the owner was partial to them. I don't know if they still do, and there may be better vendor choices for parts out there today. Hopefully Op-Bell will have some suggestions.

<ADD> Everybody's posting at once. I just read Neonkiss' post. Go with FoxSlots1 over LA Slots. Thanks Neon.

[jdkmunch]

It's a Bally EM model 873 with Lightning strips...

...& custom belly glass, a lowered top prize (of 1000 coins instead of 3000 - both of which would have been hand paid -- so no change internally), and a GI Joe trying to infiltrate the top glass. 

Don't mess with the GI Joe!!!!!! Lol

[brichter]

Joe's fixing to grab some "Spoils of War" out of the hopper!

[StatFreak]

Joe's fixing to grab some "Spoils of War" out of the hopper!

I thought of that, but someone gave him a poor reconnaissance report; he's in the wrong sector!  
 

[a69mopar]

Does G.I. Joe come with it, that would likely make it even more worthwhile. 

W

[Op-Bell]

The 873 is covered in detail (including schematics) in the Geddes/Mead "Owners Pictorial Guide". They use the fruit symbols as an example but this will be similar. Barry (FoxSlots) usually lists these on Ebay (in working order, naturally) for $500. I'm with StatFreak, I prefer the fruit version - it was my favorite Bally slot back in the day - these fetch a much better price.

The 873 series (and the 831 series 3-line) are a bit different from other Bally slots in that the depth of the slots in the stop wheels corresponds not to individual symbols, but to sets of three symbols. The strips are worked out so that there are at most ten different patterns of 3 symbols, each of the ten having its own particular column of studs, each column having a pair corresponding to each of the five paylines. The payline rows connect through the coin step-up unit which enables them according to coins played. The hopper disk has different tracks for all the possible payouts, so, for example, a symbol above the payline might connect to a different track than the same symbol on the payline if it happens there could be a multiple win. This needs more rows of studs than will fit on the wiper boards so there are a couple of relays down in the hopper, called the plum relay and the bar relay, to add some switching capacity. It's quite complicated to describe it, but the result is the payouts are worked out in advance for all possible combinations of sets of three symbols. This is obviously much simpler for lightning strips with only three kinds of symbol than it is for fruits with 7 different, but the case wiring and hopper wiring is probably the same, as you can confirm if this hopper has the plum and bar relays.

I have several boxes of parts in the garage, including relays, step-up units and hopper parts.

[StatFreak]

...
The 873 series (and the 831 series 3-line) are a bit different from other Bally slots in that the depth of the slots in the stop wheels corresponds not to individual symbols, but to sets of three symbols. The strips are worked out so that there are at most ten different patterns of 3 symbols, each of the ten having its own particular column of studs, each column having a pair corresponding to each of the five paylines. The payline rows connect through the coin step-up unit which enables them according to coins played. The hopper disk has different tracks for all the possible payouts, so, for example, a symbol above the payline might connect to a different track than the same symbol on the payline if it happens there could be a multiple win. This needs more rows of studs than will fit on the wiper boards so there are a couple of relays down in the hopper, called the plum relay and the bar relay, to add some switching capacity. It's quite complicated to describe it, but the result is the payouts are worked out in advance for all possible combinations of sets of three symbols. This is obviously much simpler for lightning strips with only three kinds of symbol than it is for fruits with 7 different, but the case wiring and hopper wiring is probably the same, as you can confirm if this hopper has the plum and bar relays.
...

Peter, I'm always learning something new from you.

The single K+ that I can give you certainly isn't enough, but will have to do. 
(It appears that I've already tithed today; you'll have to wait 'till morning. 

Stat 

[Op-Bell]

Peter, I'm always learning something new from you.

Thank you for the compliment! I wrote a computer game version of the 873, back in the day, just for my own amusement. I gave a few copies out to other people who shared it around, and after a while it got picked up by a distributor and sold 100,000 copies in the first three months. The first I knew about it was when a large unsolicited royalty check appeared in my mailbox. Then, someone in the gaming business picked up a copy and called me to see if I'd be willing to work on a project for them... And that's why I'm here today posting on NLG.

I'd put the game up for download here, but it only runs in MSDOS so nobody can run it these days.

[FOXSSLOTS1]

actually it is a Bally model 1099 - not 873 - both of which are 5 line machines - the 1099 with ghost strips - with the obvious cabinet damage - top glass is not original - not sure what all is wrong missing - not that hard to fixup - I have the wire diagram and all the parts (except the top glass).

[jdkmunch]

Thank you all for your help K+ to everyone!    I wish I could stay awake longer!   Remember I am all the way out in the eastern time zone... by the time the boards are getting hot I'm asleep 


Thanks again - I'll pass  this info along and make him an offer.   Then start looking into what could be wrong.  I think he said when he pulls the handle the reels only move a little bit and very slow. 

 

[xkey]

Op-Bell,

 What do you mean no one runs DOS anymore, I still have a couple of machines that have DOS as the OS, I find it much easier to use when I am working on routers and switches.

jon

[jay]

I use Hyperterm (puke) just long enough until I can get an IP address on them then telnet in.

Dos doesn't do much unless you are running an old old version of Procomm via serial only.
The windows one is pretty decent and it has Telnet too.

What kind of network gear ?

[xkey]

Jay,

  I was wondering if anyone would even notice that....  I actually use SecureCRT to ssh into our Cisco gear.

[brichter]

Hey, Peter, I can run DOS in a virtual machine on my MacBook Pro!

I also run DOS on the dedicated laptop I use for running PSP.

[brichter]

+1 for ssh. No reason to pass userid/password info in clear text.

[StatFreak]

Op-Bell, I was going to send you a pm but I was too tired. I didn't think everyone would jump in on the DOS challenge.
PM Sent.  Changed my mind.

I would love to have a copy of your program to play.

I have my own casino program, but the slot part is much more primitive. It is all drawn in ASCII and uses extended ASCII characters to represent the symbols, so it doesn't hold a candle to your program. I programmed two IGT slots: Double Dollars 3B/Ch 2cm with a progressive, and RWB 3cm.

I set my program up to read comma delimited ASCII text files so the user could design their own strips to override the built in strips. the program also output ASCII text files for each session and listed the buy-in amount, the walk amount, starting and ending cash, and the total amount wagered, and would start another file each month. It would also write out any jackpots hit to another file.

For all of that, the two slot programs aren't nearly as fun as the keno program I added. It, too, is all in ASCII but it looks cool and I still play it! I tied all three games together into one "casino" program so the money could follow the player. The only problem with the program nowadays is that the sounds gets all screwed up when this is run in a DOS window on a modern machine. The keno stop sounds on missed numbers were intended to sound like a playing card snapping, but now they sound weird. The two-tone bell that "rings" when a player is paid their keno win is accelerated and doesn't sound right either. The other issue is that if the DOS window is minimized for a while and then resumed, the keno will play super-fast -- all of the timers get messed up. Oh well.

[Op-Bell]

PM not received yet.

However, I searched out the program and idly clicked on it, thinking nothing much would happen, and to my astonishment it opened and ran just fine in Windows XP. This is bizarre, because the program thinks it's running in real mode and directly writing the registers and memory on the graphics card, which is quite impossible. So someone somewhere has done a first-class simulation of an olde-world ISA VGA card, intercepting and interpreting all the memory and register calls and mapping them to the modern hardware. The only thing they got wrong was the aspect ratio, which makes it a bit vertically elongated. It may be done in XP, or it may be on my graphics card (nvidia 8400). Whatever. Give it a try. If it works for you, it works, and of not, oh well. Don't mock the graphics, they were freakin' bleeding edge in 1986. Note, no sound except some clicks from the PC speaker. Not many people had a sound card back then.

http://www.wongattitude.com/peret/SLOT1.COM

If that one runs, so might this one - http://www.wongattitude.com/peret/MILLS.ZIP

This one has proper sound but only one control - space bar to play. ESC exits. It takes a few seconds of black screen to load up. Again, if it works, it works.

<edit> The second program calls up a font that isn't present on my machine, so there's a jumble of crap where the credit meter should be. Also the .EXE file and the two .BINs need to be in the same directory.
<edit> url corrected