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Once again forgive me, these are personal observations so I’m bound to figure in them. Ok, so early to mid 1970’s. Flairs were the in thing, that and turtle neck sweaters, bright flowered shirts and JPM were reinforcing their early beginnings. We seemed to have found a recipe for machine development that combined decent technical detail and popular game play. Most of this was the brain child of Alan Parker, Howard Parker and Ron Watts the latter being the one that combined the ideas of the others into great artwork design. At this time I had moved from reel build and test onto the Control Board test and from there a step, literally a step, through a newly opened break in the wall and onto the final machine test area. In reality this was taken quite soon after I had begun my employment with JPM and I was one of only a few individuals to have worked full time in all the areas within the JPM test area although others had obviously done similar with other smaller companies. Alongside the production staff’s motley collection of vehicles, the car park was beginning to be populated by vehicles that displayed, quite rightly, the recent success of the company. BMW 5 series, Rover P6 3.5, Aston Martin ( ok second hand ) and Mercedes. Visitors regularly turned up in equally high class vehicles and it was not unusual to see the odd Rolls or Bentley parked out front as the larger than life operators and distributors, sometimes with their secretary's ( nudge nudge ) came to look around. Let me necessarily outline at this point a little about the culture at JPM. It was a Team. That is no hyperbole or unrealistic exaggeration. That phrase has been hi-jacked over the years by wannabe’s with no real substance behind their claims, but it was used as a slogan in the JPM Marketing Strategy ( photo to follow ) and quite honestly, it was the truth. There was just not an us and them. The directors had a job to do as much as we all did but they often joined in with conversations at the factory door or came to have a chat and ask how things were and if anything could be improved, and they quite often were as a result. They also bought Fish and chips ( no Domino’s in those days ) when there was a need to work late, sometimes all nighters, and it was far more that just ‘trying to stay with the boys’. One of the biggest factual statements of the team culture was the payment structure. As memory serves we were on about £30(ish) a week, now that wasn’t a lot of money and certainly less than I had been earning as a time served Joiner and latterly a Ceramic tiler, but I had to give it all up due to an injury which is why I took this temporary job in a factory! (Nothing as permanent as temporary eh) If you worked a flat 40 hours then no bonus was payable ( as I remember ) needless to say I never found out and when the shout of “Bonus is up” was shouted out, the top wage earner on the huge paper chart pinned to the wall was either Gary G, Gary P, or me or one of very few others. I have recollections of monthly pay slips boosted by over £1,000 but 70-80 hour weeks were not unusual, and you were never, never ever, late. I also have vague recollections of going over to the Plymouth Arms on bonus day, but I don’t remember going home. That is not to say that this was a constant, I remember vaguely being asked to go the cabinet shop which had a large open area that was usually filled with cabinets but on this day was ominously empty. As we all circled Jack Jones he explained about the huge downturn in business and that he had to lay off 30% of the production staff, turning around he apologised individually as he picked every third person, I did the maths and the head count pretty quickly and stayed exactly where I was but filled with fear at the possibility of being laid off for the first time in my life. A few months later most of those staff that were laid off were back anyway. However it was just a little time later when a position was advertised internally for the development department and although I had not long been married and taken on quite a mortgage, the idea of a constant flat salary, but admittedly at a considerably lower wage, appealed to me after all I could still earn a few quid on the weekend tiling if I needed to! And so it was that I left the production area and climbed the stairs ( and not just metaphorically ) to claim my bench in the development area and join a bunch of new colleagues and disciplines. L These were the TEAM ( printed on the back) give away T shirts - one was in each Cash box for a period L -> R Rob Higgins, Me, Ernie Beaver, Rob Old, Howard Parker, Huw Thomas

I posted the roms at fruit-emu, but here they are in case you missed them, sounds also included. indy 6 quid roms.zip

It's a payslide assembly. Hoppers are different. Pull it out and there should be a diode on the back of the blue plug. When inserted this makes a switch so the machine knows it's fitted. Put the machine into test and switch test. Pull the payslides out and in and you should see it on the dot matrix display (Strobe X Data X) . Make sure all tube switches are open or they will show too.

The diode is there because the switch matrix is multiplexed, diodes are also fitted to each lamp in a multiplexed circuit to prevent ghosting. When strobe 5 goes high it will flow through the diode and then presumably through a loop back in the payslide connector and back to the switch data input

I removed the label to get the at the chip number for fruit58. I have put the label back on.

Winbond W27C512-45Z 512Kb - 64K x 8 Flash EEPROM Burn works 100%. Great way to move away from Old School UV EPROM's. Can now confirm Sys Error 96 seems to be a money hopper issue that at least two forum members pointed out. Could be an issue with the 16 Way Plug interface, Hopper Diode or Hopper Solenoids, we will see... Will be taking a look at the Hopper today at some point , would like to thank everyone for there input, will post my results and upload the cause photographically.

After eighth wonder,blue moon and cloud nine barcrest made sunset boulevard which did payout 50p’s,which I always wondered why they had gone back to a 50p tube.

Finally got some free time, so have updated the layout, and hope to have it ready in a week or so, please note it will run in v19 only.

In the early days at Bell Fruit it sounds very similar (1994). There were temps that often got laid off as soon as the work dropped. Good week we was doing 600 - 800 machines a week and overtime was unlimited. We got an attendance bonus which worked out at around £500 which was a lot of money back then. I started on £120 a week bit could earn £300 with overtime. At 16 and being used to £5 pocket money was a huge boost

there is a set dills on the mpu 5 board and there will be a set on the program card

No but it's easy to burn the one in the folder with the Roms... I always like to do a matching set in case anything is different personally.

Change to bigger ram move link to 8k position plugs maybe different way round can't remember but it'll fit

Glad to hear its running again

Press Adverts Criss Cross in November 1985 Treasure Trail January 1986 Give us a Break October 1986 Suit Pursuit October 1987

Still going... plastic's all 're finished

Here's one for you... Development team. The older gent was Charles Weekes, a mentor, what a guy, we've all grown used to stepper reel units? They were his brainchild. More in future stories. Left to right. David Mead, Tony Braggins, Ron Watts, yours truly, Charles Weekes, Charles (Bingham) Hazel.