AutomATic (revisited) and conversion?
I finally bought my first Pachislo machine at an arcade auction last week. $75 for an AutomATic. They were selling 100 tokens for $10, which was an okay price, but I decided to wait until I got home. I ended up getting my slot token from... Chuck E. Cheese! They ended up being the same price, but hey, they've got outside value now. (Wait -- is it gambling if you're playing with Chuck E. Cheese tokens?)
First off, thanks for the FAQs and the threads to date. I never would have figured out those operator switches, or how to take the volume down from ear splitting to only being ear banging. Not to mention the whole Diginavi and Digislo thing. A number of the threads, though, have URLs for information, manuals, and pictures. Unfortunately, it looks like link rot has gotten to them. Are there any good links for these?
Second, I wanted to self-customize my AutomATic. (That was even before I read that people were selling custom models.) I think I can fall back on my arcade background to handle the front panel work (although I wouldn't mind a link or two if someone has that handy). And while I've read the FAQ on removing the reels, I'm wondering what the best road to take it to either produce or purchase a custom reel? (Assume that I have the necessary photoshop and file handling skills.)
Finally, just a comment about Pachislo games in general. The American slot machines at least give the illusion that you're riding on the chance alignment of the reels. And the name "Skill Slot" given to these Pachislo machines seem to suggest the same thing.
But the illusion is so horribly broken with the bonus rounds (forced wins - can't lose if you tried). And outside of the bonus rounds, there are foreshadowing events that happen. There is one particular sound, even before I stop a single reel, which tells me that all three reels are going to end up being a blue replay circle.
It kind of makes me sad that the reels are only an illusion or a prop, and the winnings are purely on the CPU side. Then again, it also wants to make me hack the electronics to give it the appearance of being a horribly cheating shot machine by bumping the reels on a match, losing a coin count now and then, and other nefarious tricks.
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