i386 based video poker machines

[Erant]

Hey all,

I've gone to DEFCON (Security conference in Las Vegas) for the past two years, and both times was tempted to play a round of Videopoker. I enjoy the games, but I'd like to get a little more skilled, so I can enjoy my money for a little bit longer. About two years ago I picked up an IGT ReelTouch topbox (http://newlifegames.net/nlg/index.php?topic=529.0) and managed to 'convince' it to ignore all the security mechanisms in place. Unfortunately, I never got it to fully run the original software, as it's more of a slave to an S2000 than a standalone slot machine. So I made it do something else.



Because I'm from Europe, and gambling is not as commonplace as it is in places in the states, I'd like to see if I can turn my casino equipment back into what it was intended to do, albeit probably a different machine. And this is my question, in order for me to be able to 'convince' that software like I did my hardware, it needs to be running on something similar to a computer in the first place. I've already seen that the Sigma UV1700 would be a good target, but not much else. In order for it to be feasible, I also need to be able to pickup the CDROMs, or EEPROMs fairly easily. Do you guys have any ideas, and places I can acquire the software?

Thanks.

[jay]

Hi,

The gaming platform such as the S2000, vision etc are not based on the I386 or other series of Intel chipset and subsequently can't quite be emulated in the same way.

Here are a few options you might want to follow up on.
Masque (do a search within NLG to find other references) sells a series of PC based games that look the same as the real deal.

You can also download MAME. Mame is an acryonym for muliple arcade machine emulator. MAME escentially uses the ROM binaries and then you get to play the orginal game emulated on a Ixx86 platform. In addition to all the cool 1980's games like Pacman, Galaga etc that you can play. You can also run the IGT PE+ code. The PE+ is the generation of video poker prior to the Game King. One our members Staz is one of the system developers for mame.

Unlike the PC software MAME has all the accomodations for lighted buttons, hoppers, bill validators etc.

Of course you can also touch base with many of the vendors on this site who would be more than happy to ship you a fully operational machine.

[Erant]

Thanks for the tips, but I probably should've been more clear in my initial post. I enjoy the game as much as I do finding ways of making them run on hardware they were never intended to. This includes circumventing whatever protection is there. I do this because I'm a security engineer, and practice makes perfect. I usually send a report of my findings to the manufacturer afterwards, to help them make their product better. (I also did this for Merit, when I patched their Megatouch software, and for IGT when I hacked the BIOS on that Vision topbox.)

So what I'm looking for is something a little different from your average user, I guess. I want original slotmachine software that was designed to run on normal-ish PC hardware. External dongles or plugin boards are no objection, I can reroute the IO fairly trivially. (Coinslot, operator menu and screen calibration on that Megatouch unit are rerouted to the parallel port, for example.)

[jay]

I think the WMS Williams machines are the closest to a Intel based platform as they boot a flavor of Linuix before loading their theme off a CF card.

for non intel based binaries such as the PE+ (Pre Game KING) or S+ (Pre S2000) the MAME software is going to be your best bet.

While MAME can handle PE+ games its not currently ready to do S+  although the architecture of the computing environment is pretty much the same.
Following down this road the S2000 boards can take S+ Chips so you have backwards compatibility to the older themes..... you could then jump to the conclusion that if you can get the S+ games emulated that the S2000 Simms are probably not that far off the beaten path.

[Erant]

The Williams games look interesting. The fact that they're Linux based makes hacking fairly simple, or at least easier than the Sigma UV1600, which is vxWorks based. The advantage being that Williams seems to land in a BusyBox shell the moment something goes wrong. Also, Williams seems to use the same touchscreen as in my IGT box, the 3M MicroTouch, and the CPUNXT platform is similar to the hardware in the IGT Topbox again.

Where would I procure a set of CompactFlash cards with the operating system, and a game?

[jay]

Check with any of the vendors listed on the banner page.