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I was about 12. By this time I was totally and utterly hooked on machines like lineup and others. I met this kid called Mark Blackwell, bit of a tit really but he was a laugh. Well I remembered him saying how his dad was a arcade owner so went round his house to play outrun sitdown in his garage. When I got there I saw a fruit machine, and my pulse began to race.. could this guy actually get me a fruit machine of my very own? That night when his dad (doug) came home from work I asked him if he could get me a machine. "yeah, you name the machine and Ill get it for you" - of course I asked for lineup, but when he said he couldnt get that my very next choice was snappy viper. "yeah, give me a week or so and Ill get you your machine" he said. During that time I asked him how much it would cost, and he said that if I gave his son the casino keyboard that he had fallen in love with and 30 quid he would get me my machine, fucking deal I thought. I asked mum for the 30 quid, she gave it to me, I sealed it in and envelope and wrote "Mr Blackwell" on it and put it in my little safe I had, desperately waiting to get my machine. Well, 2 weeks went by and I phoned him, "no, not got one yet, will be really soon" 2 weeks later "yeah, got one coming in, will be a couple of weeks" 2 weeks later "yeah, theyre sending it over, couple of weeks" repeat for about 5 months. In the end my mum lost it, phoned him up and demanded that he return the keyboard, screamed at him for getting my hopes up and then messing me about, words like "hes a kid" come to mind. My dreams were shattered, I had worked my arse off to pay for that machine, the 30 quid had me washing cars for weeks and weeks and I was exhausted. I lay on my bed sobbing for about 2 hours, thinking that my hopes of ever owning one of these mpu3 barcrest machines were gone. Over the next few weeks I began to get over it, and time went by. Well one night my brother returned home from school and I overheard him talking to mum in the kitchen. I couldnt hear exactly what they were saying but I caught something along the lines of... "mumble, yeah, kingsley riggsby, my year at school, mumble, fruit, mumble machine, mumble 50 quid" I ran down to the kitchen and asked if this was a fruit machine for sale, they said yes and I was so excited I nearly shit myself. The first thing I asked my brother (who was obviously becoming annoyed by me dancing around going "woo woo") was "is it a barcrest, do you know if it goes "woo woo" "what would I bloody know" he said, "Its a fruit machine". I smiled and thought to myself "yeah, what would you know, yeah, right" -ROFL Over the coming days I again had to grab my little bucket and go out washing cars, I worked myself half to death doing that and the only thing that kept me going were my hopes of a fruit machine, and possibly even a barcrest coming into my bedroom for me to wank over (not literally). the following week my brother said to me "hey, youd better find someone to fetch it over now" and I was in a panic. The machine was in pollards hill and I was in streatham vale. Its only about 2 miles but how was I to get it there? So I ran up and down the street, pestering all my neighbours to help me ROFL By the time it was ready to be collected I had about 30 men turn up on my doorstep, which embarrassed the shit out of my mum ROFL. She sent most of them away and asked my friends dad les to stay around with his van, and pete from 4 doors away to help. The time had come to finally pick it up. I went upstairs to my little safe and opened it up. the cash in there had gone all soggy from where I had it from washing cars, but it was the first time in my life I had ever bought something, and Id worked *FUCKING* hard for it. The van pulled up outside, Les jumped out and pete met him and off they went. The hour it took for them to return took what seemed like forever. I was purched on the top of the sofa, sitting accross that and the window ledge with my nose pressed firmly against the window, pissing my mum off by waffling ON AND ON AND ON about what machine it was, it was like the mystery purchase and I really had no idea what machine it was going to be. "mum, if its snappy viper then Im going to be the happiest Ive ever been in my life mum, its weeeel cool, its got this big snakes and ladders thing and you get numbers on the reels mum, oh mum I really hope its a barcrest mum" - repeat with a description of every machine Ive ever played in my life up until that point. All of a sudden the van pulled up. I fucking *BOLTED* out to the front, ran up to the van and began jumping up and down. "fruit machine, fruit machine FRUUUIIIIIT MACHIIIIINE" (my neighbours mustve thought i was fucking nuts) Thing is, it was still backed away from me and I had no idea of what it was. It had began to get pretty late now too, it was about 8:30 in november and it was dark out, with only the street lamps sending down a shadow onto the back of the machine which was tied up in the back of a transit van. Mum came out and grabbed me, words along the lines of "get in here youll catch your death" - I was parading about the street with no socks on on a frosty november night lol. Mum made me wait in the living room, cow, I bet she did that on purpose :D I was literally ready to explode by the time I got to see it, which was about 10 minutes later when it stopped in the hall at the bottom of the stairs before it went up. I climbed over the side of the stairwell and turned around. "What the fuck is that ????" I remember saying to myself. "its not lineup......" "its not snappy viper........" "its not hyper viper.........." "OH BUT ITS A BARCREST" (cue huge relief) "its.... its......... its (ROFL, by now i hope youre as excited as I was) its........ Circle Skill..." It was finally dragged upstairs and I switched it on. Id never seen one of these machines before, and would never see one again either. I guess its because I lived in london, and only played machines when I went to bournemouth (see other story) , but I never did see this machine anywhere else either. According to fruitsim its a very rare machine, but trust me lads, if my memory is anything to go by this machine was one of, if not *the* best barcrest ever made. On the topglass is a massive target and 3 "ranges". I dont remember exact details (its been nearly 18 years since i saw this) but from memory one of the listed names that you have to fill out enable you to take a shot at the range (which is sometimes skill for a surefire jackpot) and it then moves over to the large target when you take a shot. The shot you hit will correspond back to the range, and that will be your prize. This game is *RAW* skill, and absolutely *superb* to match. It has so much to do that its unreal, which leads me to believe it was of a higher caliber than any other mpu3 machine from its era, even the mighty lineup. It didnt have lineups appeal, but it was a far more playable game imho. The good news is that Mike (fruitsim) is now the proud owner of this machine and we are simply awaiting delivery before I begin the DX. Ladies, gentleman, take off that caffeter bag (typo) and prepare to piss all in your bloomers, for circle skill is about to come home for good

I was even able to get a replacement plastic button piece so cheap too!!

Still going on the m1s #7 U2 interfaces with the cpu and had failed and caused all sorts of faulty readings around the board. Found this very hard to find but got there in the end. Used a few sockets to test out some bulk brought Ics. Massive learning curve (Green dots are new IC's lol) solid board after. #8 Originally had faults on the switch matrix and 'playing itself' Was the TMP82c79 causing that . The board had a bad reset issue too so I replaced the U1 the cpu with an eBay cpu.... which failed after half hour. Once again took me ages to find as I thought it was 100%. Symptom: 1.5v on all the data lines. Caught out on this one so brought an oscilloscope to help fault finding. #9 green m1b (Single track repair pic) The easiest board I've ever done. A single broken track going to u10 which begins controlling the reels. The reels just shuffled awkwardly. Q1 the reset transistor was fault too- it wouldn't reset when I closed the doors up just lock the machine up. Easy fix. #10 another green m1b. This one was straight forward battery damage. Replaced the four 74 chips near the battery. The ram had 2 crusty legs so changed it too just to make it a stronger board in the long run. That's 10 M1s... happy with that 😎

Hey guys Hope you're all keeping well 🙂 recently purchased a great club machine Club Climber of course with its faults!! Did resolve some minor problems with it, but as you will see from the video the issue with it. Sulzerned kindly swung by mine again for a catch up and a brainstorm on this one. Its very odd, my MPU4 turned out to be faulty although it was working. The machine had a "door open" issue, with wires swapped around had the same issue, swapped out the MPU and replaced it with one Nick bought down and life! In the video you will notice no sound which is due to a missing sound chip, but the machine has more life in it than before. The issue is the attract mode isn't fully working, and when a coins inserted it automatically plays! When either a win or feature happens it then locks up. Disconnected the G for George button and still the same issue. Checked the wireing to the buttons, one looked odd to us, so swapped the wires to match the other buttons and still the same odd error. I did swap the start button thinking that was the issue, but still the same. We were both scratching our heads and couldn't understand why, Nicks way more knowledgeable than me and also hit a dead end. If anyone has a Club Climber machine, would it be possible to zap a load of pictures of the wiring to the switches, buttons etc as that will be super invaluable and I will be really grateful!!!! Can then cross reference to what mines on, as really in a pickle as to what the issue could be. Any help or advice would be amazing! As myself and Nick were stuck to what it could be Cheers guys really appreciate it I'm about to a dive out to small works leaving do, so will pick up any replies later 🙂 Thanks again all Rob 20200924_162459.mp4

thought I’d bump this as I’ve just come across this on the net. https://segaretro.org/JPM_International#Softography It says JPM was sold to whitbread in 1988 i always thought the original owners sold out to SEGA in the mid 90s. ive always thought JPM started to lose the plot around the late 80s and this probably explains why that was. if frank ever returns it will be a good read to see what changes they made(good and bad)

nice work matty and thanks for sharing

As Amot says!! Avoid eBay as soldering tips on there ARE fake and you won’t get the good soldering experience you should get!! you can also buy Spares and tips direct from pace!

Try farnell or rs avoid ebay as theres alot of fakes out there cheers

I would be happy too, that’s good work, and 10 boards saved! 👏👏👏

last one, I will delete the eBay email search for these now https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Pace-MBT100E-Desoldering-Station-w-SODR-X-TRACTOR/254728919210

happy days .... oh and 10p is fair , not because they have a face value but because somefolks have to have jpm 10p tokens, if i had a machine it would accept anything i am sure . soi wouldnt care .

This is one i thought i had uploaded to here, but for the sake of me i can't find it on here. anyhoo thanks to dave ( mr p) for the roms this version is set on 10p play with the jackpot @ £6 runs in 2.1 or 3,2 ALWAYS 9 FINAL.zip