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Slot Tech MagazineSeptember 2006

Page 4Editorial

Page 6Get To Know An Atronic Technician - Part IIITerry McBride - International Man of Technical Service

Page 16Let’s Talk Tournaments

Slot Tournaments That is!

Page 22

JCawesoMe SoftwarePage 32

Unicum Starts Trade Show Season in Kiev

Page 34SiP’s Innovative Jackpots Solution Ap-

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Page 35Editorial Opinion

Page 38Subscriptions and Order Form

September 2006

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Inside Slot Tech Magazine

TechFest 14December 5-7 2006

Pechanga Resort & CasinoTemecula, CA


Slot Tech Editorial

Randy Fromm's

Slot Tech Magazine

EditorRandy Fromm

Technical WritersTed Befus

Michael BrennanJason Czito

Herschel W. PeelerPat Porath

John WilsonInternational Contributor

Martin Dempsey

Slot Tech Magazine ispublished monthly bySlot Tech Magazine1944 Falmouth Dr.El Cajon, CA 92020-2827tel.619.593.6131fax.619.593.6132e-mail

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Slot Tech Editorial

Randy Fromm

Hey Randy,

Scott Reynolds here. Sorry I haven'twritten to you in awhile but I'vebeen very busy. I still work for IGTbut have transferred to the Routedepartment, before, I installed/uninstalled games in casinos, nowI troubleshoot and repair them.

The reason I'm writing you is that Iwas speaking to a house tech at oneof the casinos the other day (I don'tremember which one, they all runtogether after a while) and we weretalking about Slot Tech magazine.He happened to mention that heheard about a seminar called Casino

Fest and he thought it was done byyou. I know you do TechFest everyso often but had never seen thisCasino Fest advertised in Slot Techso I Googled it. I found a link tothe International Masters of Gam-ing Law website and finally to theCasinoFest website. This seems tobe a casino management seminarthat is held at Casino Barona in SanDiego, CA (that's not too far fromyou I think).

The whole thing is kind of confus-ing, does Slot Tech Magazine haveanything to do with this or are youstill just on the technical side ofthings?

Scott

Dear Scott,

Nice to hear from you again, Scott.Nope! We’re still just technical hereat Slot Tech Magazine. Despite thesimilarity in the names and the factthat it’s being held in my own backyard, I have absolutely nothing todo with CasinoFest. As you noted,it’s a casino management seminar.TechFest and CasinoFest had co-located at Mystic Lake Casino lastMay but although TechFest 13 wasa great success, the experimentbackfired. I have no control overuse of the CasinoFest name, thereis no connection between the twoprograms and they will never be co-located again. Sorry for the confu-sion.

Hey, when are you going to startwriting for me again? You musthave some interesting stories work-ing a street route in Las Vegas!

Best Regards,

Randy Fromm

Had enough of buttons, harnessesand connectors? Now that we knowhow everything is all connected inAtronic’s e-motion machine, it’stime to take a break and meet an-other Atronic technician. This time,we’re going to take a trip to Europeand see how some slot techs get tofit in a little Austrian Alpine skiingbetween service calls. Meet TerryMcBride, International Man ofTechnical Service beginning onpage six.

Ready to talk tournaments? TedBefus and the gang at CasinoRegina have a neat setup that allowsyou to control a bank of machinesfor tournament play. Complete withwiring diagram and constructiondetails, the article begins on page16.

Jason Czito is back with anotheroutstanding contribution. This time,he takes us on a tour of some ofJCM’s really awesome diagnosticand exorcising software. If youhaven’t taken the time to plug yourWBA into a PC then you don’tknow what you’re missing. His ar-ticle begins on page 22.

That’s all for this month. See youat the casino.


Slot Tech Feature Article

By Michael Brennan

Atronic is a truly globalcompany, founded inAustria, with offices in

the UK, Australia, Germany,Austria, and other corners ofthe earth.

The US headquarters are inScottsdale, Arizona, and ourthirty-plus domestic techni-cians service over thirtystates. But what about allthe games located on fourother continents? That enor-mous expanse of territory isleft to Atronic's internationaltechs, and there are only fif-teen of them.

There are seven of thesegentlemen in Europe, andthey help out with service vir-tually everywhere. As anAtronic International techni-cian, one day you might bein France, while the next dayyou're in Egypt.

Probably the most-traveledAtronic Technician is TerryMcBride, a British chap bornin Singapore, working out ofLuebbecke, Germany. Terryhas been to, count 'em,thirty-six countries. I thinkthe list of these countriesdeserves its own paragraph.

Get To Know An Atronic Technician - Part IIITerry McBride - International Man of Technical Service

He's made stops in Argen-tina, Aruba, Austria, Barba-dos, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia,Curacao, Denmark, The Do-minican Republic, Egypt,Estonia, Finland, France,Germany, Gibraltar, Greece,Holland, Italy, Latvia,

Lithuania, Luxemburg,Macao, Morocco, MonteCarlo, Palestine, Panama,The Philippines, Poland, Ru-mania, Russia, Slovenia, St.Maarten, Sweden, Switzer-land, and The United King-dom. Whew, I got jet lag just

This is 42.85% of Atronic’s European Technical Support Team.Left to right, Guido Bessler (Technical Manager) Terry McBrideand Leonid Falke - No longer by Atronic.


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typing and alphabetizing allthose places.

Terry's background is in tele-communications, with four-teen years experience. Hewas in the British Army,Class 1, and has been work-ing at Atronic for seven years.I interviewed Terry about lifeas an International Man ofTechnical Service.

Tell me your scariest bordercrossing or customs story.

My worst experience has tobe an afternoon spent at TelAviv airport in Israel. Pales-tine is an Arab land and Is-rael is a Jewish land, and it'swell-documented how thetwo do not get along.

I had been in the Oasis Ca-sino Jerrico in Palestine andleft five hours (!) early for theairport, leaving plenty ofbuffer time for potential de-lays. I passed through sev-eral checkpoints, at one pointfeeling like royalty as I wasfast-tracked through in alimo.

But when I arrived at the ter-minal, I went from feeling likea king to feeling like a crimi-nal. I was ushered into a sideroom off the main hall,searched and grilled for twostraight hours.

The man who was asking thequestions was tall, fierce-looking, and dressed in civil-ian clothes. I think he wasfrom the Israeli secret policeMossad. He kept repeatingthe same questions over andover, "Where have you been,

what have you been doing,how long have you beenthere, who did you speak to?"

After a while, this man wentthrough my paperwork andmanuals, and asked mequestions about the informa-tion they contained. Try ex-plaining to a foreign police-man (who is packing a piece)what a hopper is and what itdoes. Thanks to my interro-gation training while in theArmy, I knew how to handlehis traps and repetitive ques-tions.

This frightening experiencedforced me to be late for myflight, and I was told I couldnot board. Thankfully, therewas a technical problem thatdelayed the plane, and I rea-soned with the woman be-hind the counter. I barely goton the jet, and I was filledwith it an enormous sense ofrelief as we lifted off theground.

How do you cope with the lan-guage barrier when goingfrom country to country?

In every casino in the world,there is always at least oneperson who can speak En-glish. In fact, in one of themost remote casinos I've everbeen to, Tierra Del Fuego, Iwas met by a rather largewoman who was assigned tobe my translator during thetrip.

The casino is located in thesouthern tip of Argentina andboasts to be the southern-most casino in the world.Unlike everyone around us,she spoke perfect English.We began chatting, and Ifound out that she was origi-nally from Munich, Germany!

So there we were, thirty-sixhours away from Germany,in the freezing cold tip ofSouth America (in a placewhere adventurers stop ontheir way to the South Pole),

Terry McBride sometimes is forced to sit at a desk. He doesn’tlook too happy about it!


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talking about Germany forhours on end. As they say,"It's a small world."

For Atronic International andother manufacturers, a lot hashappened with the Russianmarket over the years. Relayyour experiences.

I was involved at the start ofthe "Russian Gaming Revo-lution." At the very begin-ning, it was extremely hectic,as we (and our distributorpartner Unicum) were one ofthe few large suppliers inRussia, just after they ini-tially became Capitalistic.

From the onset, the Russiangaming industry wasn't ex-actly "highly regulated." Ihave heard stories of "housejackpots," where the housewould win the progressivejackpot if a player did not winit within a certain time pe-riod.

All casinos there have metaldetectors, which are not funto deal with when you haveall your tools and spare partson you.

But, all "good" things mustcome to an end, and the Rus-sian market has now becomestagnant, due to recentchanges in the law that weredesigned to monitor the un-charted growth that occurredduring the boom. No manu-facturers are selling gamesthere now.

Specifically, I have hadhassles in the Moscow air-port, Sheremetyevo 2, onmore than one occasion.

Passport control can take upto three hours and the con-veyer belts and other equip-ment are usually broken.

But a particular experiencestands out. One time on myway to an installation, I sub-mitted my customs declara-tion (nothing to declare, likeusual), but was pulled asidefor more inspection.

Unlucky for me, this time thebaggage x-ray machine wasin good working order. Theyexamined the contents of mybag and detained me. I musthave one of those faces, be-cause they took me to an-other "side room." I thoughtI was heading for the Gulag.

They wanted paperwork forall my equipment, like my laptops. Since I didn't have anydocumentation, they talliedup the value for all my be-longings, and came up witha random amount of money

that I owed, like they do incases like these. The magicnumber was $600.

Not having the funds on me,I rang the casino that I washeading to, and they sent adriver with the money to pickme up. Four hours later Iwas graciously allowed toleave. God, I hate that air-port.

(And you thought driving intoCanada was bad).

What are some of the strang-est things you've seen in casi-nos during your travels?

One of the strangest thingsI've seen occurred in Estonia,and still makes me laugh tothis day when I picture it.Four casino employees wereloading games onto the floor,all without the help of dolliesor ramps. This may be pos-sible (but not fun) with somemachines, but an impossibil-

Terry McBride enjoying some skiing in the Austrian Alps withco-worker Guido Bessler


ity with others.

I walked outside to see theseguys trying to carry one ofour enormous Titan gamesoff a truck and through asmall doorway. As indicatedby their name, Titan gamesare very big, and not meantto be carried by hand. Thesight of these men waddlinglike over-loaded ducks,struggling as they tried tocarry the game and squeezeit through the door was prettyfunny.

Another odd experience oc-curred in St. Maarten, an is-land in the Caribbean. I wasthere to do some conversionswhen I received a call from anearby casino. They werehaving a problem with aSlant Top machine.

The game was down due to ahurricane that occurred morethan a year before. I askedthem why they waited 18months to contact us, andthey said that they had beentrying to fix it themselves!That's some stubborn deter-mination.

The hurricane had ripped theroof off the casino anddumped a meter of sea waterinside. The game in questionhad an on-screen "optic er-ror" message. I swapped ev-ery imaginable optic part, butto no avail. After two hoursof unsuccessful trouble-shooting, I took a step back,had a coffee, and ponderedthe situation.

When looking at the ma-chine, I noticed that the door

switch on the bill validatorwas all green and moldy. Ijumped out of my seat,shorted the switch wires witha paper clip, reset the game,and-- yippee-- it worked. Iwas shocked to see that acherry switch could cause anoptic error. And as a finale, Igot a hold of the moldy billvalidator switch, opened thewindow and threw it as faras I could into the sea, fromwhence it came.

What is one of the worst thingsthat happened on a casinofloor and/or with a casinopatron?

I was installing an "ActionJackpots" link in a casinothat shall remain nameless,and when I opened the firstgame about a hundred cock-roaches swarmed out. Obvi-ously, this wasn't one of myfavorite experiences-- I don'tlike creepy crawlies.

As for the weirdest interac-tion with a player, that wouldhave to be with a lady inBuenos Aires. I was helpingcolleagues with a TITO instal-lation on a bank of roped-offmachines that were in "outof service" mode. Despite allthe obstacles, one womanphysically climbed over theropes, ignored the "out of ser-vice" message, and depositedsome coins.

Since the games do not ac-cept funds when they are inthis state, she walked over tome and started to complain,in Spanish, that the machinehad stolen her money. I triedto reason with her in English,

but she got really worked up,and started to flail her handsaround. She was really go-ing at it, getting more andmore frenzied to the pointthat I simply had to walkaway. I guess nothing couldstop her from getting at thoseinviting Atronic games.

Atronic and its various relatedinternational companies havebeen around for a while.Have you been called to ser-vice any really old, bizarregames?

I think the oldest machine Iever had to fix was a VolcanoIsland game in our old Nar-row Body Cabinet. The moni-tor was dead and we don'tmake spares any more, sothe casino technicians and Ifound an old fifteen-inchcomputer monitor, removedthe housing, made some ad-justments, and installed it inthe game. It fit great and isstill working today.

Tell me more about yourself.What's your favorite sport?

That's easy, my favorite sportis skiing, since it's the onlyone I am good at. As an ex-ample of the communal/friendly company atmo-sphere we have here acrossthe pond, Atronic hosts a skiweekend in Austria everyyear. About 150 employeesshow up for plenty of laugh-ter, fun, more laughter, anda little actual skiing.

I am fortunate to have beenable to find time to ski formost of my life, and I took myski instructor's test with the


Austrian Ski Federation. SoI really look forward to thiscompany event.

In fact, it was at this com-pany ski trip that I performedan encore to one of my morepublic moments at Atronic.This moment took placeyears earlier at thecompany's Tenth Anniver-sary celebration, when I wasgoaded by a female colleagueto get on stage and sing asong with the live band.

Coming from a musical fam-ily (my mom was a profes-sional singer), I'm partial toan occasional odd night onthe stage. But I had neversang in front of so manypeople-- more than four hun-dred guests and co-workers.

Having enough "Dutch cour-age" inside me, I said "whynot?," got on stage, andbelted out "Let It Be" by TheBeatles, followed by "Knock-ing on Heaven's Door." I re-ceived a standing ovationfrom the crowd. Robbie Wil-liams eat your heart out (ormaybe everyone was drunkand/or tone deaf).

What's your favorite food?

By far, my favorite meal is awell-done pepper steakserved with chips (fries) andmushy peas, followed by rhu-barb crumble and custard fordessert, and a cold Germanbeer to see it all down.

What are your favorite thingsfrom the US?

Music, films, CSI and 24 (TVshows), peanut butter andTom Clancy novels.

What do you think are theworst things to come out of the

US?

McDonald's, rap music, andthe way Americans try tospeak "English."

Favorite movie?

Monty Python's Life of Brian


is funny in any language.

When you are angry at a mis-behaving machine, what aresome key British or Germanexpressions of anger thatwould be good for an Ameri-can technician to know?

I have never had a machinethat has beaten me yet, buton some occasions the"sparks have started to fly,"as they say. I usually useRussian swear words that Ihave learned on my travels.The most common anger ex-pression in Germany is"scheisse," which I won'ttranslate, but "this gamesucks" in German is "diesesspiel ist sheisse."

Why do you like being anAtronic technician?

From day one I was made tofeel welcome, not just as an-other worker, but as a partof a great team. As an indi-vidual, I am trusted to orga-nize my working day and toplan all service trips fromstart to finish. Yet as a team,everyone really strives towardthe same goals. I know thatif I run into any problemswhen I'm out there on myown, help from my friend-col-leagues is only a phone callaway.

- Michael [email protected]



If there is one thing that brings out theemotions in the gang in our shop, it hasto be when our company has slot tour-

naments. I won’t mention which emotionsI’m talking about here.

Now, on our gaming floor space is at an ab-solute premium. What does this have to dowith tournaments you ask? It means thatwe don’t have a home for these games. Ev-ery time we have a tournament, we drag themachines out of storage and blow the layersof dust off of them. Then we’ve got to plugthem all in, fire em’ up and then pray to theslot gods that everything is working the waywe need them to.

Our games are older S-Plus cabinets so ifsomething goes wrong, we don’t have lots ofparts on hand to repair them. Fortunately,if there is a major problem with them, theboards are easily repaired.

These aren’t just any old S-Plus gamethough. We dress them up with our own reels

and glass to make them “ours”. Our firstattempts at reels were quite a little disaster.We didn’t have actual reels made. Instead,we had a full length Lexan overlay made thatwe installed over top of the reels and thencut to the correct width and length. Thatcertainly was interesting. We made morethan a few mistakes trying to get all the sym-bols lined up.

As time went by, management came to usand informed us that they wanted to “jazzup” our tournament slots. This time we didit right. We had actual reels made instead ofthose overlays. Of course, it took a few pro-totypes of material until we came up withsomething that wasn’t too thick or thin ortoo flexible or brittle. I wish I could remem-ber what it was but it’s eluding my right now.

In this article, we’re going to cover how toset up the S-Plus and S2000 games for SlotTournament play. I realize that the S-Plus isobsolete but we’ll cover it anyway as I ambeing paid by the word. We’re also going tobuild a controller to control both the spinbutton and reset features of the games.

We’re going to need a few things to accom-plish this. We’re going to need a housing forour controller, all the associated hardwareto build it and a wiring diagram. Here’s theBOM for the parts we need. I bought all theseparts at our local electronics store, so I’ll tryto give you the manufacturer’s part numbers.Our controller is built to handle 20 gamesso the enclosure is large enough to accom-modate everything.

Bill of Materials:

Hammond Chassis 17x12x3 Hammond p/

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n#1441-36 Hammond Bot-tom Plate Hammond p/n#1431-36 Releco Relay24VDC C7-A20-X (20) RelecoRelay base S7-M (20) 24VDCTransformer SPST ToggleSwitch (2) SPST on/off switchAMP CPC 24 pin Plug (4) AMPp/n# 206837-1 AMP CPC 24pin Receptacle (4) AMP p/n#206838-1 AMP CPC 4 pinplug (20) AMP p/n# 206060-1 AMP CPC 4 pin receptacle(20) Pin (crimp), 20-24 AMPp/n# 66103-2 Socket(crimp), 20-24 AMP p/n#66105-2 Extraction Tool AMPp/n# 305183 Crimp ToolHAPP Controls p/n# 92-0032-00 Assorted wire (vary-ing colours)

Now that we have our partsassembled, we can put thecontroller together. You mayhave noticed that I’m onlyusing 20 relays, even thoughI must control 40 inputs. Ihave two inputs to control permachine, but the C7-A20-Xrelay has two sets of contactsso I can run two inputs off ofone relay output, enablingme to control 20 spin buttonswith 10 relays, as well as 20reset switches with the other10. The wiring diagram onlyshows one machine connec-tion.

A couple of things to note onthis diagram: We are tyinginto the machine spin buttonand reset switch in parallel,not series. This is becausewe want the buttons andswitches to function in caseour controller fails (not thatit’s going to, but you neverknow). Note that I didn’tshow all the relay outputs

connected. This diagramwould have been very clut-tered if I did. The finishedcontroller is shown in figure2. Notice the 6-pin MinifitJr® connector. It is con-nected to the top panelswitches (Power, Spin andReset).

Looks pretty doesn’t it? Themachines are connectedthrough the main machineharness to the controller.The main machine harnessconsists of four, 24-pin AMPCPC square flanged recep-tacles. Each 24-pin plug hasfive individual machine har-nesses run from it. At theend of each machine harnessis a 4-pin AMP CPC plug.There is a square flanged re-ceptacle screwed to the backof each slot base. It mayseem like overkill, but itcleans up and stores nicelywhen not in use.

After all the machine connec-tions are made, we need tolook into what we need forsoftware and setting up thesoftware for tournament play.The S-Plus and S2000 havethe capability of havinggames that can be played onyour slot floor with the abil-ity to turn on the Tourna-ment feature when it isneeded. This isn’t an optionon ALL games, so you’ll haveto look on IGT’s website forspecific software to handlethis. If you go to the PSRand PAR sheet searches ontheir website www.igt.comyou can search out the pro-grams you need. The S-Plusprograms will start with anSTxxxx designation (in place

of the SS eprom) along withan accompanying SP (spoo)chip, the S2000 program willbe designated with SBTxxxxx(used in place of the SBeprom) with the accompany-ing SG (GME1 and GME2)eproms. One quick thing tonote here: If you’re lookinginto S-Plus eproms, youshould see that they’re al-ready GLI approved for yourjurisdiction. IGT will not sub-mit an S-Plus eprom for GLIapproval.

We’ll start with the S2000. Iassume most of you have setup an S2000 game before, soI won’t bore you with how toget into the options menu.Here are the important set-tings you’ll need to know fortournament play. These op-tions can be found in theOptions menu under Tourna-ment options (menu 3.9 de-pending on your SG version).

Option # and description

3.9.1; Enable/Disable: Al-lows you to enable/disable atournament game

3.9.2; Timers: Determinesthe time available for Tour-nament play. The options arestart time limit, pause timelimit and end time limit.

3.9.3; Play mode: This menuallows you to select the typeof game play; the options arenormal, auto bet, auto spinand auto bet and spin3

3.9.4; Credits: Determinesthe number of credits at thestart of tournament play.Maximum is 9999.


3.9.5; Flash Lamp: Deter-mines the candle operationon winning games. The op-tions are Lamp flashes for 3seconds on top wins, lampflashes for 15 seconds on topwin, lamp flashes during thepayout of top wins and lamp

flashes on payout of all wins.

3.9.6; Payout rate: Deter-mines the rate that creditswon are paid to the player.Options are instantaneous orincremental.

For a complete explanation ofthese settings and what theymean, consult your ProgramSummary Report (PSR).

The S-Plus is set up some-what similar to the S2000and again, I will assume that


you know how to get in andout of the menus to find thesesettings.

[Option #], <setting> and de-scription

1. Tournament option [20]<1>:, Only displayed if theoption is coded into the SPChip and can only be enabledif non-tournament creditsDO NOT exist on the game.Enabled = 1, Disabled = 0

2. Initial Credit [21] <1000>;The initial number of creditsgiven at the start of the tour-nament. Maximum is 9999.

3. Autobet Selection [23] <0>;If Autobet is enabled thegame automatically wagersthe maximum number ofcredits allowed at the start ofeach game. Enabled = 1, Dis-abled = 0.

4. Autospin Selection [24]<1>; If Autospin is enabledthe game automatically spinswhen Maxbet is reached.

5. Jackpot Lamp Flash time[26] <0>; Determines candleflash for winning situations.Flash 3 seconds after topaward is hit = 0. Flash 15seconds after top award is hit= 1. Flash when paying anywin = 3

6. Time display [27] <0>; De-termines whether or notgame display scrolls betweencredits and time. Credits andTime alternate = 0. Creditsdisplay only = 1

7. Variable payout rate [28]<0>; Shows the speed at

which credits are awarded tothe player, ranging anywherefrom 0 to 200 (per second).If set to 0 the total win is paidat once.

8. Start time limit [40]<1200>; Time limit for eachround of play.

Once the games are set upproperly, all they need to getstarted is the correct se-quence to load the tourna-ment credits in and reset thetime. To do this, you hold thespin button and toggle thereset key. The credit displayshould be set to the creditand time parameters thatyou’ve already set (it’s pretty

easy with the control boxrunning the show). All theplayers need to do is pressSpin to get the timer startedand then use the Maxbetbutton to play. To keep play-ers from prematurely press-ing the spin button, I recom-mend using the spin buttonon the controller to get every-thing started. One last thing:Make sure you have sparebutton assemblies on hand;they’ll take a real beatingduring play.

Till’ next time….

- Ted [email protected]



JCM has recently addedtwo new software pro-grams for troubleshoot-

ing their WBA units that areseriously helpful for trouble-shooting, both of which areavailable for download fromJCM’s web site. The softwareis an emulator that lets a PCdrive a WBA by sending andresponding to the same com-munication signals that a slotmachine would, allowing youto ‘field test’ a WBA in theshop. The emulator comes intwo flavors: ID-024 and ID-003 for driving WBAs withthe respective firmware ver-sions. From the downloadpage:

“This application allows thecomplete communicationstesting of a JCM Validatorusing a PC as a host. Thisapplication is specific to theID003 protocol. See the Ba-sic Driver Documentation fordetails on running and usingthe Basic Driver program (in-cluded in the ZIP file).”

This article will cover thisnew software as well as touchon their other software offer-ings for the WBA: DownloadApplication, AccLoad, andVersion Check. Visit http://tinyurl.com/nwsoo to down-load this software.

To use this software, theWBA will need power and acommunication line to a PC.We use JCM’s PS15-006,which provides power and aserial cable for connection tothe PC serial port, andadapter cables 400-100109and 400-1001100 to get fromthe power supply to the WBA.The documentation onlymentions that these pro-grams are “Windows based”

and doesn’t refer to a specificversion of Windows. Oursetup uses XP (Service Pack2) and needed Microsoft’s.NET framework (version 1.1or later is fine) for one of theemulators to work. If you’rehaving serious problems get-ting the software to work witha functioning bill acceptor,check the device settings forthe COM port on the PC. Seefigure 1

Before getting started withthe emulators, the commu-nication process between themachine and WBA should beunderstood, as you’ll manu-ally be providing these sig-nals to the software.

JCawesoMe SoftwareBy Jason Czito

Figure 1. If you’re having serious problems getting the software towork with a functioning bill acceptor, check the device settings forthe COM port on the PC.


1. The bill acceptor may be disabled by themachine. Machines will disable the bill ac-ceptor during game mode, service mode, tilts,etc. There’s an “Enable” and “Disable” but-ton on both emulators that mimic this sig-nal from the machine.

2. The bill validator will take the note in andread it. The bill or ticket is now in “escrow”,and is held here until it hears from the ma-chine. a. Bills are checked against the defi-nitions of good currency in the firmware, andthe bill type is sent to the machine. b. Tick-ets are read to get the validation number outof the barcode, which is sent to the machine.

3. The machine takes this message from thebill acceptor and makes a decision to eitheraccept the note or reject it. a. Bills arechecked against machine settings for billacceptance. For example, $2 bills may notbe accepted by the machine. b. Ticket vali-dation numbers are sent to the host systemfor verification against the database.

4. If the note is acceptable, the machinesends a message to the bill acceptor to stackthe note. The “Accept Bill” button will sendthis signal to the bill acceptor.

5. If the note is not acceptable, the machinesends a message to the bill acceptor to re-ject the note. The “Return Bill” button willsend this signal to the bill acceptor.

6. The ID-024 emulator includes some extrafunctionality that is probably specific to theNetplex protocol.

a. The “Reset” button will cause the bill ac-ceptor to resetb. The Version Check button will display thefirmware version of the connected bill accep-tor.c. The Auto Setting check boxes will set thesoftware to automatically accept or rejectnotes.

To begin, put the bill acceptor into a work-ing frame with a working cash box. Connectthe bill acceptor to the power supply and to

The ID-024 emulator includes some extra function-ality that is probably specific to the Netplex proto-col. The “Reset” button will cause the bill accep-tor to reset. The Version Check button will displaythe firmware version of the connected bill accep-tor. The Auto Setting check boxes will set the soft-ware to automatically accept or reject notes.


the PC. Put all the DIPswitches in the normal oper-ating position (all off) andstart the appropriate emula-tion software. Click “StartCommunication” to begin. Ifyou get “No Response” or “NoCommunication” verify thecommunication cables, asthis is could be the culprit (asopposed to a dead bill accep-tor). Clicking “Start Commu-nication” once communica-tion has already been estab-lished will give you a “COMPort Already Open” error.

Once you’ve established com-munication with the bill ac-ceptor, the status box shouldshow “Disabled.” The ID-003emulator will automaticallybring up a window showingthe firmware version. The ID-024 emulator will show theversion if you click the “Ver-sion” button.

Enable the bill acceptor byclicking the “Enable” button.The unit should cycle at thispoint. If everything is work-ing so far, the status shouldchange to “Idle” and the billacceptor will be ready to takea bill. Inserting a bill willchange the status to ‘Accept-ing” while the unit checks thebill against the firmware ordecodes the barcode of theticket.

If the note was good, the billacceptor puts it into escrowand the status changes to“Holding.” The unit is now


BV connected

to PC and

power supply

Click “Enable”

Bill is

checked for

validity

Click “Start

Communication”

No

ResponseDisabled

Check communication cables,

port settings. Possible dead BV.

Idle

Insert

bill or

ticket

Ready for note

Accepting

Initializing

Note held

in escrow

Note

rejected

Firmware

Version

Rejected

Accept or

reject note

Accept

Reject

Accepting

Rejected

(Command)

Holding

Note is

stackedStacked

Click Version

Check

Time Out

(Bills Only)

Rejected

(Time Out)

Check

automatic

settings

Accept

Reject

Reject Rejected


BV connected

to PC and

power supply

Click “Enable”

Bill is

checked for

validity

Click “Start

Communication”

Failure Disabled

Check communication cables,

port settings. Possible dead BV.

Idle

Insert

bill or

ticket

Ready for note

Accepting

Initializing

Note held

in escrow

Note

rejected

Reset

power

to unit

Power UP

Firmware

Check

Firmware

Version

Rejecting

Accept or

reject note

Accept

Reject

Accepting

Returning

Holding

Note is

stacked

Stacking

Vend Valid

Stacked

Click OK


waiting for input (to eitheraccept or reject the note).Click the appropriate buttonof the emulator to accept orreject the note. The Netplexprotocol apparently has awindow of several secondsduring which it must receivesome input from the ma-chine/emulator at this point.If you wait too long, it’ll timeout and reject the note. You’llsee “Rejected (time out) in thestatus box in this situation.

If you choose to accept thenote, the bill acceptor beginsthe stacking process. TheNetplex protocol appears tobe pretty cut-and-dry with itscommunication at this point,

and will tell you when it’sdone (assuming there wereno errors). The ID-003 emu-lator will show its status gofrom “Stacking” to “VendValid” to “Stacked” as it goesthrough the process. If thenote stacked successfully,the status will return to “Idle”and the denomination (orcoupon) will be displayed inthe Denomination box, de-pending on what kind of noteyou inserted.

By allowing you to manuallyrecreate the communicationbetween machine and billacceptor, you can test theunits’ full operation in theshop. A WBA may test fine

using the built-in tests on thebench but if there’s an issuewith its communication sig-nals, this will help identify it.This software will also giveyou error codes in the statusbar if something goes amiss.If the cash box is missing, forexample, the status box willsay, “Stacker Box Open.” Theflowcharts on the previoustwo pages show normal op-eration of the two emulatorsto show how they work andthe differences between thetwo.

To check the firmware ver-sion on a WBA-12, run JCM’sVersion Check software. Justput the BV into download

WBA 12s and 13s record their activity internally, which you may view with JCM’s AccLoad software.This software tells more about bill acceptance rates than may be practically useful! Every bill recog-nized by the bill acceptor will have an acceptance rate for each direction that the bill can be inserted.


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mode and click “Read Ver-sion/Calculate CRC.” If youaren’t looking to verify CRCs,you may find the versioncheck in the emulators easierto use. Version Check, for ex-ample, requires read/writepermissions in its installationdirectory. If the administra-tive lockdown is too strict,you’ll get errors.

If you happen to have one ofyour firmware masters on thePC (IGT may send their up-grade on a disk, for example),you can use their DownloadProgram to flash a WBA-12from the PC. Set the BV to

download mode, select thematching baud rate in thesoftware, browse to selectyour firmware download, andclick Start Download.

WBA 12s and 13s recordtheir activity internally,which you may view withJCM’s AccLoad software.

This software tells moreabout bill acceptance ratesthan may be practically use-ful. Every bill recognized bythe bill acceptor will have anacceptance rate for each di-rection that the bill can be in-serted. Have you ever won-dered how well your bill ac-ceptors take those old fives


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face-down, black seal first asopposed to face-up, greenseal first? Now you can tell.It does give useful statistics,like error/failure rates, andwill let you record your ownserial number or tracking in-formation into the bill accep-tor for tracking purposes.This software is, however,firmware-specific. You mustuse a version of AccLoad thatcoincides with the current li-brary of valid bills. For ex-ample, at the time of thiswriting, JCM has not yet re-leased a version of AccLoadwith fields for the new $10sreleased with firmware ver-sion 3.60. Bill acceptors withthis software version thatconnect to older AccLoadsoftware will not communi-cate.

If you’re seriously into this,you can name each bill ac-ceptor when you purge theinformation by clicking “Ini-tial” and entering the infor-mation. We record the datethe unit last had preventativemaintenance done so thenext time the unit shows upon the bench, we can tell howlong it’s been. Each unit’sperformance information canbe saved as a text file for fu-ture reference. The “Read”button will load information

from the WBA into the soft-ware. If the bill acceptor hasbeen on the floor for sometime, the major acceptancerate totals may not match up.The total number of notesshould equal the acceptedplus the rejected. If they don’tmatch, you’ll get a warningwhen you load the data. Ini-tializing the meters will clearthe warning up.

Of all of JCM’s software of-ferings, I find these new emu-lators easily the most useful.They’ll give you the versionof the software in question soyou don’t need VersionCheck. They’ll let you testticket barcode recognition.They will tell you bill denomi-nation and, to a limited ex-

Note: Sencore will bepresenting a full dayLCD repair class at

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tent, what’s wrong with thebill acceptor in text format.They let you send machinesignals to the unit to fully testcommunication. If youtroubleshoot WBAs on thebench, do yourself a favorand download these emula-tors.

- Jason Czito - [email protected]


Slot Tech Press Release

Unicum Group, the major distributorand supplier of gaming equipment inRussia and CIS countries, announces

its participation in the international casinoexhibition “Entertainment Industry”, whichwill take place in Kiev on September 20-22.

At the traditional Kiev trade show Unicumwill feature a slot portfolio that the companymarkets in Ukraine and CIS countries:Unicum’s Adventures and Celebrity, AtronicHarmony and WMS Bluebird. The exhibitionattendees will also see a launch of interna-tional sales of Unicum’s latest gaming prod-uct – Sensation slot machine.

Unicum Sensation is the latest generationvideo slot developed by the company for bothdomestic and international markets. The ma-chine presents innovative games technologyimplemented in a modern cabinet design andsupported by a variety of attractive features.High hardware/ software compatibility andexceptional components flexibility makeUnicum Sensation an optimal solution for aslot operation of any size.With the launch of SensationUnicum introduces its Sap-phire platform, the ultimatesource of unique featuresthat make the slot machineone of the most reliable, saf-est and profitable gamingproducts worldwide.

The platform was released inthe Russian casino market inMay 2006; the company de-layed its international launchuntil the exhibition season tomake the marketing cam-paign more efficient. In Sep-tember, Sensation slot ma-chine will be available for in-ternational sales worldwide.

The product is manufactured by UnicumGroup at its facilities in Riga, Latvia.

"Unicum continues to focus on gaming so-lutions tailored for specific market needs,"said Alexandra Soroko, Unicum MarketingDirector. “The Ukrainian market is becom-ing more developed and we hope thatUnicum’s diversified slots will find its play-ers and operators in local gaming sites andcasinos, providing a competitive advantagewithin market segments demanding newquality products and looking for affordablesolutions."

Unicum’s trade show and promotion activi-ties will go on with the company’s participa-tion in the main Russian gaming exhibitionEELEX 2006, when Unicum will bring a com-plete assortment of its slot products.

Unicum gets ready for EELEX with doz-ens of new products and announces ONYX

For the third year in a row Unicum’s stand

Unicum Starts Trade Show Season in Kiev

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will spread across one thousand squaremeters and this time it become a home for120 slot machines. Numerous products fromAtronic International, Bally Gaming andWMS Gaming will include the most populargaming titles and brand new games that re-cently came out from the development de-partments. New items for Atronic’s Harmony,Cashline and e-motion, WMS’s Bluebird andBally’s M9000 will be granted a special at-tention and will make 80% of Unicum’s part-ners slots.

This year Unicum continues a tradition tocelebrate EELEX with a showcase of a newplatform, featuring Adventures at EELEX2004 and Sensation in 2005. The company’sstand #343 will become a premier stage forUnicum’s newest slot, ONYX. Based on Sap-phire platform, the machine offers a widerange of functionalities typical for premiumclass products but targets middle-marketoperations. It is another consecutive step inUnicum’s strategy to create a diversifiedproduct offer and to meet the distinct needsof each operator. Unicum ONYX will inheritthe most popular titles from the Adventuresgames library and will build its own gamesportfolio during the next year.

"We are committed to support the needs ofall our customers around the world - fromlarge gaming operators and regional compa-nies to individual customers, says AlexandraSoroko, Unicum’s Marketing Director. WithONYX we introduce new products to addresschanging customers and players needs. Wewill continue to deliver advanced technolo-gies, innovative products and solutions toboth traditional and emerging markets."

EELEX 2006 is also the second event in thestart of the international sales for Unicum’sSensation platform. The trade show is ex-pected to boost the product’s success rateamong Unicum’s foreign customers. On a

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separate stand the company will also fea-ture its self-service kiosks, which recentlyhave become extremely popular in Russiaand bring additional value to gaming, retailsand hospitality operations. Being the topproduct launch venue for Unicum, with over100 new products being introduced this year,EELEX helps the company to demonstrateits maximum offer to the maximum businessaudience.


Slot Tech Press Release

Systems in Progress, Graz, Aus-tria, August 10, 2006--Systems

in Progress (SiP) has received ap-proval by Gaming Laboratories In-ternational (GLI) for its completeJackpots solution according to theGLI-12 standard. The certificatecovers SiP’s entire range of localand wide area jackpots and accom-panying reports, as well as thecompany’s jackpot controller(SMIB) and Multimedia JackpotDisplay application.

"On the basis of the GLI certificate,SiP is now optimally prepared toroll out its jackpot-related productsto regulated markets as well," saysSiP’s Managing Director HelmutSteffenini. "As we have been rec-ognized as a technology leader bymajor operators in GLI-regulatedmarkets, obtaining GLI-12 ap-proval was just a first step in ourcompliance program. We willprogress with submitting our otherproducts to GLI so that any SiP so-lution a customer decides to imple-ment will provide him with thesame top quality and reliability."

Setting up and administering any ofSiP’s jackpot types is very straight-forward and convenient, both lo-cally and across multiple sites. Thewide variety of criteria-based jack-pots offers operators maximumflexibility in regularly creating newwinning experiences for their cli-entele and to fine-tune prizes for aspecific geographical area or typeof patron.

All certified parts of the Jackpotssolution are well proven with SiP’scustomers, with two of the largestand most prestigious wide area

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As SiP is celebrating its first GLIcertificate, Stephan Freiszmuth,who is managing the company’ssubmissions for regulatory ap-proval, looks into a busy near fu-

SiP’s Innovative Jackpots Solution Approved by GLI

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ture: "We are preparing to apply forcertification of all SiP features, fromAccounting to the brand-new Cash-less and Player Tracking option.Full certification will give SiP ac-cess to exciting new markets, whereour easy-to-use solutions have a bigpotential for success."


Slot Tech Editorial Opinion

To: Peter Meade – PublisherCasino Enterprise Management Magazine

Mr. Meade,

I have received the August 2006issue of Casino Enterprise Man-agement Magazine and I readwith interest, your statement onpage 75 in which you profess tospeak for my contributingwriter, Pat Porath. The state-ment expresses regret for an “in-accuracy” in your publication ofhis “Quick & Simple Repairs”article, originally published inthe November 2005 issue of SlotTech Magazine. In an attemptto somehow spread the blamearound and mitigate your re-sponsibility for publishing anarticle to which one of your ad-vertisers has objected, you haveincluded Mr. Porath in thestatement. He is the only per-son mentioned by name. Youdon’t even sign it with your ownname.

Mr. Meade, I strongly protestthis very public statement in thename of my contributing writer,Pat Porath. There was abso-lutely nothing inaccurate aboutanything that was written inthis article. Mr. Porath has noreason to be regretful as his re-port was 100% accurate at thetime of writing. A slot tech’sreputation is everything in thisclosely-knit business. For Ca-sino Enterprise ManagementMagazine publicly to attack Mr.Porath’s reputation and labelhis article “inaccurate” is com-pletely unacceptable.

Mr. Meade, I am dismayed byyour actions. I am aware thatthe manufacturer under discus-sion is one of your advertisersand that this advertiser con-tacted you, expressing displea-sure at the publication of whatthey viewed as outdated mate-rial. Instead of contacting me di-rectly to discuss the situation,

you contacted my writer, Mr.Porath, at his place of employ-ment and, under color of au-thority (if I may be allowed tobastardize the term just a bit),proceeded to browbeat himabout the “accuracy” of his re-port. In my subsequent discus-sions with Mr. Porath, he ad-mits to being left with the dis-tinct impression that he haddone something wrong, so muchso that:

a.) He offered (and you ac-cepted!) his offer to write a nicelittle testimonial about howswell the games mentioned inthe article are, seeking to patchthings up a bit with your adver-tiser. He did this within hoursof your telephone call to him.

b.) He was too upset andworried by the event to contactme about it.

That was July 13th. I had tolearn about this nearly a monthlater when I read your supposed“combined” statement in theAugust issue of Casino Enter-prise Management Magazine. Itarrived in the mail on August10th.

So, Mr. Meade, let’s examinejust why it is that you blameMr. Porath and Slot TechMagazine for your dilemma. Insupport, I quote you from youre-mail to me of August 5, 2006in which you (finally!) expressyour displeasure with me (butconveniently fail to mentionanything about the public state-ment which you know will bedistributed in the coming days).This is a cut-and-paste job, withonly personal data edited.

------- begin --------It was my understanding that ourinitial agreement was that youwould have supply CEM with ar-ticles to reprint only one monthprior to their appearing in Slot

Tech magazine. The agreementwas verbal and not formal. It wasa gentlemen's agreement. If itwas going to change I shouldhave been notified and alerted tothe possible problems it mightcause CEM. I had assumed thatthe articles you were supplying[my employee] with were not out-dated. I would also assume thatyou can easily understand whyprinting an article that alertedreaders to a technical glitch couldbe problematic if the article ap-peared as current after 10months went by. Most manufac-turers address such issuesASAP.------- end --------

So, you seem to be “pissedoff” (your words, not mine) be-cause you think I pulled a fastone and sent you old materialin violation of an agreement.You confessed to me in the samee-mail that you were embar-rassed when confronted by youradvertiser. And this is why youseek to punish and embarrassMr. Porath, a working man

Speak for Yourself, Mr. Meade

This statement was published inthe August 2006 edition of CasinoEnterprise Management Magazine

A Public Response to Your Assertion of Inaccuracy in the Matter of Pat Porath


who does his very best eachday as a slot tech in a casinoin Michigan? Because you wereembarrassed and you want tospread it around? What the hellis THAT all about?

First of all I can’t possibly sup-ply you with articles prior totheir publication in Slot TechMagazine as you mention inyour e-mail. They don’t existbefore they’re published. If youmeant to say "subsequent totheir appearing in Slot TechMagazine" then you're com-pletely wrong.

I offer the following e-mail as in-controvertible proof that youknew (or should have known, aspublisher) that the specific ar-ticle under discussion was origi-nally printed in the November2005 issue of Slot Tech Maga-zine. Notice the date.

--- begin copy of e-mail ----From: Randy Fromm[mailto:[email protected]]Sent: Tuesday, January 31,2006 11:16 AMTo: [CEM employee]Subject: Re: Slot Tech Magazine

I will offer you my "Quick &Simple Repairs" column for a littlewhile because I want to put a bitmore distance between the initialpublication in Slot Tech Magazineand the subsequent reprint inCEM. We're only a month apart.I'd rather it be six months.

On the upside, I can send you thenext six month's contributionsright away. I'll put them in yoursub-dir and let you know whenthey're there via email. ThanksRandy---end of e-mail ----

So there you go, Mr. Meade.You can’t possibly say that Ididn’t keep you fully informedas to when these articles werefirst published. I point out aswell that by accepting for pub-lication this six-month seriesfrom Mr. Porath, you were fullyaware that the sixth installmentwould be published in CasinoEnterprise Management a fullyear after it first appeared inSlot Tech Magazine.

I even provided you with .pdfversions of the articles as theyappeared in Slot Tech Magazineso you could check the layout Iused. The original publicationdate is printed right on the copy!In addition -- do I really needmore proof? -- you pick the filesoff of my server and the nameof each subdirectory is THEDATE OF ORIGINAL PUBLICA-TION. E.G. “June05, Janu-ary06, etc.

It is disingenuous to suggestthat you didn’t know the origi-nal date of publication. Bring-ing this up now and claiming,ex post facto that we had a quidpro quo for the provision of ma-terial no more than one monthold, is inconsistent with thefacts.

And regardless, why would youdrag Mr. Porath into things? Ifyou felt that Slot Tech Magazinehad let you down by allowingarchival material to be reprintedin CEM, your beef was with ME,the publisher, not a contribut-ing writer. What the hell wereyou thinking? Your behavior isthat of a school yard bully.

Mr. Meade, here at Slot TechMagazine, we spend a lot of timetalking about how things fail inall types of equipment. Often,our articles come many monthsor even years after the problemhas been resolved at the factory.However, unresolved issues stillpersist in the field because sometech in some far away townhasn’t heard about it.

Not every operator receives theCNs (Customer Notifications)from the OEMs. If an operatoris not an “authorized customer”they will not have access to thetechnical website and will re-ceive neither CNs, software up-dates nor technical bulletinsdirectly from the OEMs. Theseoperators (from across theglobe) depend on independentslot tech message boards(internet) and, yes, Slot TechMagazine in order to obtain thedata they need to repair andoperate the machines.

I have never been threatened byany manufacturer and I’ve beenpublishing these types of ar-ticles for 30 years. In fact, thecontrary is mostly the norm,where manufacturers cooperatewith me in disseminating accu-rate repair information. Theseare the same manufacturersthat are my current advertisersby the way and I salute themand appreciate their support inthis regard. Speaking as a tech-nician, it means more to methan the advertising revenue.

But I guess the advertising rev-enue is more important to youand I respect that. That’s whywe’re all in business and I’m notgoing to suggest otherwise. ButI will not have my technical writ-ers spooked by the possibilitythat there will be some sort ofretribution if they do somethingas straightforward as describ-ing a repair that was made to aslot machine.

This is reportage, Mr. Meadeand on a technical level at that.We’re not evaluating anythingand we’re not making subjectivecomments about “quality.” Thiswas simply a report about howa repair was performed aroundthe time of November, 2005. Thetechnical articles in Slot TechMagazine are meant to be edu-cational and, as such, are validno matter when they are pre-sented.

Perhaps if you had printed thedate of original publication, allthis might have been avoidedbut that was your editorial de-cision to make, not mine. Youcertainly knew the date of origi-nal publication. To mention Mr.Porath at all (especially in thesame sentence as the word “in-accuracy”) and to make it ap-pear that he is somehow toblame is unconscionable. Youreally owe Mr. Porath a promi-nent apology in Casino Enter-prise Management Magazine.

Randy Fromm - Publisher

Subscriptions & Back IssuesWhy back issues of Slot Tech Magazine areimportant to own . . .

Slot Tech Magazine is strictly technical. As such, themagazine's contents are not time critical. The repair

information and technical data contained in past issues is justas valid today as it was the day it was published.

Additionally, current and future articles more-or-less assumethat readers are already familiar with what has been covered inpast issues. This editorial policy assures that Slot Tech Magazine'scontributing writers are not limited to "writing down" to the level of a novicetechnician but are free to continue to produce the most comprehensive technical articlesin the gaming industry.

Randy Fromm'sSlot Tech Magazine ispublished monthly by:Slot Tech Magazine1944 Falmouth Dr.El Cajon, CA 92020-2827tel.619.593.6131fax.619.593.6132e-mail [email protected]

Subscription rates:

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All single issues of Slot Tech Magazine are $10.00/ea.For further details on the contents of each issue,please refer to the website at slot-tech.com

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