Hi Lisa. There are many urban legends of people who could 'fix' slot machines by using 'Phreak', 'squawk' and 'Blaster' boxes. These were allegedly small battery powered gadgets which produced very large amounts of EMI, sometimes as simple as a small unsuppressed electromagnetic buzzer, sometimes a wild HF square wave generator, sometimes a variable frequency spot frequency generator, or a combination of those.
The principle was that a winning line was got up in the normal way, the Phreak box switched on, which locked up the processor or electronics, and from then on each pull of the (mechanical) handle obtained an identical win, regardless of the state of the wheels. Another system worked on the fact that one patricular machine always delivered a 3 plum win on switch on, as an automatic coin delivery gate check, so that the owner could be sure the machine was working properly. The phreak box reset the Switch On Reset latch after each pull of the handle and delivered a 3 plum win, whatever that was worth. The cure for most of these problems was a 0.1uF capacitor on the base of every BC108! Good old days.... Rumours abound of 'boxes' that could induce jackpot payouts etc, but it's always heresay, no hard evidence. Oddly, the machine manufacturers never seemed to put a great deal of effort into fixing these problems at the time. Construction was just plywood and chipboard with little screening in those days. Later microprocessor based machines seem to be effectively bomb proof,highly screened and grounded, but I am no longer involved in design of entertainment machines. Most 'hacking' activity nowadays seems to be pointed at ATM's, much more lucrative....... I found details of how to interrogate these things with a hand held terminal on the Internet once! As they say, it's all there - somwhere. Chris Dupres Surrey, UK.
