Pachislos and PCs

[Compy]

I have noticed that the slot machines currently running in commercial establishments, at least the ones in Oklahoma, are running on a distribution of the Linux OS called Minix. That is because I assume that the modular kernel is easy to code (with process scheduling) to tend to real-time tasks involved in the reel machines. I have also seen and read about a guy that had interfaced his old pinball machine (an Evil Knievel) with a computer using an I/O board.

I have also read about battle/stat counters for pachislo machines that were run out of the interface stat board (I guess using either CD rom audio pin connectors or something else) to the computer with a parallel port interface. In fact, the Pachi Battle PC source code is very interesting, I know C# since I code in it for my job, however I don't know how that specific system was set up to run from the board back to the parallel port on the PC. I have the schematic and can read it, however the instructions denoted that there were detailed specs on creating the cable, but the website is now defunct (this was back in 2006).
This was discussed in this forum:
Battle counter PC version - Page 3

I was wondering if anyone here had those detailed specs. I am a very proficient C# programmer and I am picking up more and more on IC programming, I am very interested. I know many attempts have succeeded (like the one I listed above), now I am just tracing more about HOW they succeeded so I can extend that technology.

I would eventually like to get where the other gentleman got when he interfaced his pinball machine with a PC, but I know that pachi machines are kept under very tight lock and key, so we have to figure out how to operate each individual subsystem externally if we cannot reprogram the ROM chips.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Random_Hajile]

Hey there Compy!

Wonder if this helps. The system basically read the active pins on the LPT port and parsed them against a table for a specific status. The beauty part was the LPT port supplied enough power through the line to be able to send feedback and it was that which enabled the system to read the port. I'ts by no means perfect, and debouncing the port was especially important... Oh yeah... and the Big Bonus rounds did some funky stuff...

I did get the system tracking my two pachislos, but the code for that vanished in a hard drive crash. This version shows the connections for one pachislo and two pachinko. The pachislo was connected with CDROM audio cables soldered to the breadboard with the circuit on.