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**Reel Slots** Gaming Machines => Bally Reel Games => Topic started by: ramegoom on November 13, 2022, 08:49:11 AM
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I have no casino tech experience, but am into electronics, and have a number of E2000 Bally machines in my game room (my state -CO- has weird rules regarding possession of slots). So I'm limited in what I can play with. And I've developed a pretty good working knowledge of these relics from the past. VIsitors who play the games get bored easily because of minimal wins. I have the slots running on tokens, all free play, but still, more wins would make them more interesting. Just want to add a little more excitement to these antiques.
Anyway, the payout odds appear to be programmed into the P1 PROMs that are in the machines, mostly between 84% and 93% according to the display. I realize this is based on RNG and the number of winning combinations on the strips. So, my goal is to figure out a way to get them to present higher payout frequency by adding extra win symbols and modifying the lookup tables to match. There's no data out there that I am aware of that would assist in my goals, but maybe the experts here would have some ideas. Now I'm assuming it's all in the P1 chip and not on the M1-3 game play chips, but I'm probably wrong in that....
In the tilt error codes, there's one that comes up where, if the commanded symbols miss the mark in 2 of 8 pulls, a tilt is generated. So, my first thought is to "delay" the commanded stop on one or more of the three reels by a symbol or two, but only do this once out of every eight pulls which would, in my thoughts, alter the payouts to a (probable) better payout while side-stepping a potential tilt, as it would satisfy the 2-of-8 error rule. I can build a circuit that does this but need to know if there is another way to make the payout more to the liking of the player by modifying the data.
Software edit within the PROMs is my most desirable way, but without knowing where to look and what to change, I'm limited to doing an add-on circuit which *might* do the trick. My question: Does anyone have any knowledge of early 80s software that can be changed to my liking, or is this some closely held stuff that only the commission and/or retired technicians have or had access to? Million dollar question, I realize, but putting it out there. If it means adding more win symbols to the reels and modifying a chip to know about those symbols, that's where I want to explore.
Thanks for any comments and reading my old and boring observations.
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Barry Fox would be the one to answer this post but he passed away a while ago.
A long time ago he showed me how to find the look up tables for the 3 reels and how to find the 6 digit M7 number.
There are standard hex numbers for every common symbol on the tapes.
The look up tables for the reels are in line with no code between them.
Look for rows of HEX symbols with the same count of what the reels are. 25 stop or 22 stop are the most common sizes.
For the one we worked on the related symbols for a fruit 7 was
ch=0AH, org =11H, plu=12H, bell = 13H, mel = 04H, bar = 24H, seven = 85H
You will have to print out the M7 binary code and find a common theme for the symbols to discover the tape relations.
If you change the symbol positions you need to also generate a check sum to balance out the new modifications.
Then program the M7 chip, test it to make sure it works, then save the new working binary file by copying the M7 code back onto the hard drive.
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I've found the 6 digit in HEX which shows the last two digits being the payback odds. That's the part in the chip that displays on the LED display.
But now I need to look at those hex bytes and make sense of them. I assume by modifying them, it will then look there as if the reel had that in its position, and it makes sense that modifying some of them would bring the payoff odds up significantly.
The checksum can be "rigged" by adding data to an unused part of the chip to equate to the checksum required. I have dozens of different M and P series chips whose data I can experiment with. I would think there's a "checksum bypass" somewhere in the chip that is used by development engineers to test and tune the programs. They always keep the back door stuff accessible.
Someone out there has that info! Pretty sure long since retired from the industry, but there's always a chance. Too bad about Barry - he was always a good one to turn to for information.
I'll search for those symbol hex equivalents and see how they match up with the reel symbols. If I can find a match, bada-bing, first step to hacking the data.