I was so worried when he slid it forward on the table just after getting it up there, that if was going to tip over towards the camera and smash onto the floor.
I met Lemmy in his dressing room Bristol back in 2010, and he had that very fruit machine, I saw it first hand. From what I can remember, it was picked up while on tour on Germany - Motorhead had a particularly fervant following there. Lemmy used to play it to relax before and after the show. For the record Lemmy was a very nice guy, and meeting him is one of my fondest memories.
@blake bishop you sir, are completely bang out on that. Lemmy worked for Jimi Hendrix, and was a man who believed in equality as this clip will testify th-cam.com/video/skGEBgePHtk/w-d-xo.html
@blake bishop no he fucking wasn't. Listen to 'sacrifice' and watch the video. Lemmy detested racists and fascists. He was actually a really nice down to earth guy.
@@ampedwales They had a very dedicated following in germany and often played in smaller places. They sold more LPs in germany than in the UK since the early 90s.
@blake bishop unless you can actually prove your idiot ideas, i would quit trolling and demeaning Lemmy, also in case you didnt know Germans HATE nazis and anything to do with them, they have laws against it, so go back to the bottom of the rock you were hiding under
@@LostInTech3D I use a tablet with Opera to watch TH-cam ad-free and you can copy any url or even just text by holding down your finger on it until 2 markers appear either side of the text, then drag the markers appropriately and copy/pasta.
I remember when i was a kid, back in 1993, me and my dad stopped at an Imbiss (similar to a diner) where they had one of those old-school machines hanging on the wall (with reels, not wheels). My dad never gambled, but while we had to wait for our food my dad thrown in 30 pfennig, which was the minimum amount to start a game, just for fun, and just some seconds later he'd won a bunch of free rounds, and they stacked and stacked and in the end he had won over 70DM, so our food was for free, so to say. He was happy about it, but never gambled again because he said such luck you only have once in your life.
When Lemmy played shows in Nuremberg, my hometown, he always hung out in a local rock bar before or after. There he sat with a whiskey and gambled on the slot machine occasionally taking a selfie with a fan.
I think you're making an important work in teaching history. History and advances in technology of enterntainment is often overlooked. While tech is maybe "just for fun" it is still part of our history who we are as a specie, and the same tech has affected our current technology in things like UI design. We might have the access to all of that knowledge, but gathering all of that does consume time and without you most of us probably would never consider, or even know, about all of these things. I really do appreciate your work. Besides hey, you've been entertaining me for hours an hours so far, so ALSO from a personal standpoint too: thank you!
I carried Lemmy's slot machines. I was a stagehand at a Motörhead gig in Berlin in the 90s. They were in a huge case that was not particularly heavy but hard to maneuver in small staircase etc. When we finally had the case in his backstage and the roadie opened it we were totally baffled. Got to do a couple of pinball games with Lemmy that evening - he was super nice.
A funny sidenote: there was a German in the 70's who found out how to win systematically on those Monarch and Mint slot machines which had a huge market share back then. He even hired people to investigate and stick their noses into smaller pubs to find all those machines and subsequently to empty them... :) In many cases he was considered as a hostile intruder because pub owners don't earn anything with empty slot machines and loose their share of the money in them... His nickname was Monarch and he was the subject of a documentation called "Monarch - der Automatenschreck" (th-cam.com/video/rWc45XPSYo4/w-d-xo.html)
Cool, as a pub owner (American, but makes no difference in this case) who has 5 of them it does really suck when someone hits a jackpot or people happen to win a lot some night because, like you said, you only have a certain amount of money actually at the pub and banks are closed. Jackpots or any large winnings usually get paid out the next day because of that. I do get paid just for the machine owner to have them there and it brings in more business of course. One of them is mine and it's an interesting setup because that's the one all the others are connected to and it can control all the rest in that I can make changes on just mine for each individual other one or how easy or hard to win (loose or tight), setting them to not pay out, all the stats and winnings for all of them are stored there, and some various other things . I've spent many mornings with all the machines opened up looking at all the circuitry, changing settings and playing them on a mode where they don't pay out (I can either use money then take it back when I'm done or set it to not require money, I use both ways to see if there's any difference) trying to figure out a way to beat slots (not beat my own of course lol) but I'm not having much luck short of opening them up, which you obviously can't do on someone else's. Maybe that Monarch guy will give me inspiration.
Holy crap. I saw that doc when it first aired on German television (I grew up in Austria) and was instantly flashing back to it during mat’s presentation. The bit towards the end where he sets off to play his favorite machine only to find that the ‘wirt’ (bar/eatery/gasthaus owner/proprietor) had thrown it out onto the curb was just one of those weird documentary scenes that have been stuck in my mind all my life...
I finally understand one of the lines in the song "Zero & Window Kid - Boozy". He wants to "put 2 grand in a fruity". I had no idea what he was talking about. Learning is fun!
This is Lemmy's second appearance in one of my videos and it's just by chance (the other was on Vinyl Video). Kenny Everett keeps popping up too - again it's not deliberate - but there's more with him to come.
Lol some real work. Back in the eighties I used to repair fruits and games machines. I still love retro fruits love to get one as miss them. I remember lugging these things around. I used to get the coins that missed the boxes as tips. The cash boxes used to make great parts bins as being metal.
This isn’t about fruit machines but back in 2007 I was the deputy manager of a large UK theatre when Motörhead came to play a gig. We were advised to have all of the opera glasses removed from all 1,800 seats if we didn’t want them torn off and thrown at the stage. That’s rock and roll! It took two days to remove them and more than a week to put them back. Sadly, I was too nervous to go backstage so I can’t tell you whether Lemmy had a fruit machine with him or not.
@@circattle I worked in Oxford and London and opera glasses were in all of the theatres. Maybe it was the company I worked for whereas Hull New Theatre’s always been run by the council. They probably weren’t interested in contracting in the London Opera Glass Company like the big boys do.
Fun fact: a famous german manufacturer of slot machines is "Merkur" who's logo is a smiling sun (also pictured on lemmy's machine). Because of that, the term for gambling became "sich in der Merkur Sonne sonnen" which literally means "to tan in the Merkur sun" or just "to tan"
yeah. maybe. but the manufacturer parts is plain wrong. the manufacturer is called Gauselmann and one of there gambling trademarks is "Merkur" and that smiling sun thing.
Throughout the entire section of you talking about how hard they are to import into your home country, the entire time I was thinking "of course he managed to get one, I'd expect nothing less from him". Great job, love the video.
The Sonderspiele: The background is that by law, a win was restricted to 3 DM maximum. So, instead of letting you win, say 50 DM, you won a series of Sonderspiele instead - this meant that the next games (according to the number won) had a standard win of 3 DM instead of a lower amount, so, if your series was long enough, you got eventually to a cumulative price of those 50 DM.
As a german it's kinda bizarre, that Techmoan haven't seen a "Geldspielautomat", something that standing everywhere in Germany, until now. Every Pub, many restaurants or Gas stations have them. Every city has "Spielhallen" (Gambling halls) filled with these machines.
@@lunakoala5053 actually there is kind of a limit to loose. by law the machines can keep 40% of the incoming money and have to spit out 60% of the incoming money as a win. but of course you never know when the machine decides to let you win.
Who else was half expecting that when Techmoan lifted that Geldspielautomat onto his counter, it was actually going to be Lemmy's machine with the sticker on it? 😅
What a fantastic Techmoan tangent Matt. The story started years ago with keen eye and some rock music, and ended with a back injury and a puff of smoke; sounds a lot like my first marriage!
I can imagine that if Lemmy was addicted to playing the slots he would eventually reason that he might as well buy his own machine rather than keep giving his money to other people forever.
afaik he spend lots of time playing a machine at his local pup, I've heard they actually moved the machine to his home at the end when he got too sick to go to the pub
Fun fact: it's because of these things that we don't have any video game arcade machines in Germany. They were considered the same type of machine as the "Geldspielautomat", and thus were off limits to minors.
But we had them. I remember even back in the second half of the 90's i was playing Street Fighter 2 with my brother on an arcade machine. 3 rounds for 1DM (maybe it was just 50Pf, i don't remember that for sure anymore). It was right beside the entrance of a video rental. We were still minors so we couldn't go into the shop, but we could hang in the small lobby where the entrance was.
One arcade in Hunstanton, UK, slapped "not to be played by minors" stickers on every machine they had some time in the 90's, even the likes of Time Crisis and various racing ones.
@@worldcomicsreview354 Well, maybe the machine we played on had such a sticker on it too, but back in the day rarely anyone cared much about it. Not even owners and employees of stores and shops. I mean, if they get slapped on their fingers by authorities they started to care for a while, but not for too long.
My father ran a bar in the 80s with Defender and other arcade machines which were popular with kids and the only problem was that minors aren't allowed to just hang out at bars, so they had to buy a softdrink, since then they were there for food and drink. The problem thus wasn't the machines themselves, but where you found them.
The hanging on the walls were considered enough restrictions of younger (=shorter) people to use them. I remember that this was typically accompanied with some bar stools for convenience.
Extraordinary! I am a Motorhead fan, and have seen endless photos of Lemmy, so I must have seen his slot machine and never given it a thought. A great piece of rock'n'roll history! I hope someone watching can help you get this machine working. We are entering a period when some of this technology is being forgotten, and the people who worked on it are no longer with us. What you are doing, Matt, is helping preserve tech history. Keep it up!
After 35 years of being a German and of course growing up seeing those Geldspielautomaten in Pubs, Bars and takeaway shops - I finally learned how those work. Thanks Matt!! 😄
It was probably easier and cheaper to drag that thing around to keep lemmy from leaving the building than to search the local town for some random pub where he's hanging out and losing money. I've worked with artists and the last thing you want is to organise a search party 30 minutes before the show.
Can confirm when I saw Motorhead live in Hull, Lemmy was late because he was playing the bandit in Hull Cheese, we had a good chat to him, he was a good bloke
Thanks a lot for the slot machine history lesson. I do hope that your back survived from the lugging around and lifting of these clearly heavy machines! I appreciate all of the work and effort you put into making your videos for us. It's always a Saturday morning treat to click on a new Techmoan video sir! Thank you very much Mat... Fred
2021 - the year we discover that Techmoan is a slot machine connoisseur and LGR is a synthesizer afficionado - how did these two held these tech-related hobbies unmentioned for so long!?
It's incredible the attention to detail that went into the internals of these. You'd expect them to be a bit rough and ready but the way they're laid out with everything beautifully aligned is mesmerising.
@@6581punk That makes perfect sense, I think most often i've seen these kind of machines sat in dark and dingy corners of bars and pubs so never occurred to me that the insides would be so clean and well put together!
The last time I went into a casino, I was so confused by most of the slot machines. There were so many ways to win (or lose). Maybe after you've used a few of them, you get the idea of it? 🤷♂️ Very different from the simple slots I played in my younger years.
I worked for a company making slot games. They seem too complex now. But they're highly regulated, the RTP (return to player) has to be tested by an independent company and the code responsible get "signed" and has to be re-tested should that code change.
@@billr3053 while I understand your point when it comes to fruit machines, since the computer decides exactly whether you win or not; I’m not sure why you’re bringing pinball into it? Each pinball table is different but the rules are ultimately the same: trigger modes that want you to put the ball into different places to get points. (Different modes simply have different targets.) The reward is usually multiball, which itself is just fun by virtue of trying to juggle all of them as long as possible. It’s about getting the skill to reliably control the ball, moreso than it is about the lights or anything. For instance there’s almost always two outside loops that allow you to swap the ball from one flipper to another. The skill comes in when you can get the ball in a tiny hole as easily as you can get it on a large bumper, and fulfill the conditions of the mode. You don’t even get money for pinball, if you win you just play again, like any arcade game with a video game inside. While there certainly can be aesthetic similarities, pinball is most certainly not gambling. If anything, in terms of the experience you get out of playing, it has far more in common with snooker or pool or billiards.
Always so fascinating. Long ago I learned why gambling establishments always place slot machines at or near entrances and usually pay out more often: the idea is that as people walk by and see someone winning, they are more likely to go in and give it a try.... and then they get lured deeper in.... and lickety-split, they're broke in no time.
I feel that on cruise ships for similar reasons they set all the machine payout percentages high at the start of the cruise but then turn them down as the cruise ends to get all their money back (and more besides). Therefore if you plan on playing the slots on a cruise, only do it at the start.
@@Techmoan I've never been on a cruise, but as we all know, you have, and I should have asked you about it! That's a pretty ingenious method for people trapped on a ship for a week or more I've read up on some cruises that last more than a month that go all over the mediterranean. Makes me wonder how the gambling would work on more lengthy outings
To avoid these kind of manipulations of the payout rate some machines had their program sit in RAM only with a Lithium Battery in a hermetically sealed module acting as ROM only. If you open it, the tamper detection deletes everything e. g. by a photosensor in it, you will loose the program, bricking the machine. This was even enforced by several laws to prevent manipulations. See e. g. 'cra gaming machines'
Had many a shot with Lemmy at the Rainbow Room. He was constantly shoving quarters down those machines. He was a total gentleman and always had time for a good laugh. R.I.P. Lemmy!!!
In the 80s growing up, some of the more - shall we say "dodgy" lads - always had a knack for getting bandits to pay out with barely any money put in. Many years later as an adult I bumped into one of them in the local Chippy that still had a solitary old bandit in the corner, his Mrs got her purse out to pay for the chips with a tenner and he said "don't break into a tenner, giz a quid" he shoved it straight into the bandit and got it to pay out enough for the fish and chips before they'd even had time to wrap it!!
There was a big arcade in my town growing up and in it was one particular machine that I could get to pay out every time I went into town. It was a 10p machine with a relatively low maximum payout but I could put a quid in and get a fiver out everytime, there was a certain knack to doing it. You couldn't, however, do it multiple times in a row.
Don't know about this guy but back in the day you could order printed guide booklets by anonymous writers that covered strategy for multiple specific fruit machines that could be quite effective, these were advertised in various dodgier places. I'm guessing these were produced by people who had freeplay access to the machines in order to test and optimise strategies.
"... But then I had an idea..." Found myself feeling slightly tense until I heard these comforting words. Not yet reached the end of the video, but I'll tell you now, I'll be mightily disappointed if I don't get to see a functioning demonstration.
Getting these "special games" is the goal of the first stage by going up the risk ladders on the sides. The special games are the real payout and you could get a hundred Deutschmarks or so out of it on a 'lucky' day.
digging into lemmys collections in general yields an apparent fascination with germany in just about all aspects. he had several large collections of all sorts of different german things. from the slots, to ww2 items (which some tried to paint him in a negative light over given the obvious historical snafu from the era, and said people got rightly put in their place) to a bunch of random stuff. he just seemed to find the whole of the country to be interesting.
I remember seeing those machines from a distance when growing up in Germany in the late 80s. They hung in pubs and other places where children usually wouldn't hang out. They always confused me. Gambling laws usually are very national and probably affected the design of such machines a lot.
1:38 Jesus, no image can probably sum up the happiest parts of my childhood in the 90's to early 2000's more than the seafront of scarborough. Above all 2 specific Amusements, one of which was Coney Island!
The chapters names are brilliant Mat..."playing hard to get". I love it. Your videos are so good. Thank you sir for kicking off the weekend right so often! 👍
Finally, I now know about the German slot machines. Always wondered about them after seeing them in Auf Wiedersehen Pet. It was about a group of UK brickies working in Germany and they would always play a wall mounted slot machine called "Casino" in the bar. Thank you!
An little anecdote from my teenage years, growing up in Germany: Before school (or when skipping school) me and my best friend often went to our favorite "Spielothek", which was open 24/7. Officially you were not allowed in if under the legal age of 18, but in the early nineties they just couldn't care less. We would spend hours a day there, leaning back in comfy bar stools with arm rests, lazily working the buttons with our feet. It was usually very quiet and dim in this place, except for the sounds of the Spielautomaten and some random background music - quite a calming, almost meditative atmosphere. Food was unlimited and free (grilled sandwiches, soft drinks and beer) and was served straight to your place - we never even had to get up. Obviously those machines were designed to make the Spielothek money in the first place, but we would occasionally walk out with a couple of hundred Marks in our pockets ourselves. After a win, we (and other players) would put about 5 to 10 percent in the staff's tip jar. It was considered good manners. My favorite machine was the Merkur "Disc 3000". Amazingly the place still exists today. Fun times.
They still make those too - but from what I've seen in casinos most customers want a bit more action for their money. The house still wins, but at least you get a bit of a show while you're losing.
Lemmys death came like a shock to me, I was taking a 17hour flight november 10 2015 and wanted something to listen to during it. I had not listened to motorhead for several years before that but for some reason I chose to download their whole discography as an offline playlist on spotify. Motorhead was the only thing I listened to during the whole flight and I think I didn’t even pause the music for the whole time. After finally landing I googled motorhead to see if they had any tour going on in europe at the time, they had! The 40th anniversary tour, the schedule said that they had a show in London January 29 and 30. Had to see if they still had tickets, when I went back to google i saw lemmy passed just 3 hours ago, while I was still on the plane. Felt like I was responsible for his death somehow by listening too much to his music... --- Awesome video as always Techmoan!
Great video once again. And an interesting story. Cool to hear you are into slot machines as well. I hope to get my hands on a Bally one armed bandit some day, the one which every so often plays a little tune from the speaker. I love all the sounds they make. From the moving of the wheels, to the coin mechanism, to the spitting out coins into the metal tray, to the little tunes. It's the whole experience, I guess.
I love that you have this hobby collecting these things and never even mentioned it on your channel (as far as I can remember). This stuff is fascinating! I wouldn't mind more videos about old gambling machines. :)
I was lucky enough to know the man in my younger years and he was always an absolute slot machine maniac!Sat up one night after a gig back at the hotel watching him clock one million plus on Asteroids! Lem could dominate ANY type of machine(even a silver one, lol)
Thanks for this. You do dig up some gems! My dad was in the RAF and was posted out to Germany back in '79. i remember him playing the Sonderspiel at our local schnelly (fast food restaurant) back then. I could never quite get what was going on with all the spinning reels....but then again I was more focussed on playing Moon Cresta next to him. ......was always terrible at docking.
It's worth mentioning that, while he collected old Nazi memorabilia for that reason, he also openly hated Nazis & white supremacists in general. His first girlfriend was black, beaten to death by white supremacists, he had no love of their ideology.
These machines were very common in German pubs until the late 1990ies. I remember seeing them as little child in the early 1970ies in station restaurants. I was somehow attracted by all that blinking and beeping but I never played one myself. Thanks for this great video and bringing back some childhood memories! Regards from Germany, Dirk
It's very interesting how serendipity works. Techmoan sees an image over five years ago, and here we are with a video on the slot machines. I have never been interested in gambling, but slot machines and older electronic machines of that kind have always intrigued me. A family friend of mine had quite a few mid 80s-mid 90s electronic poker machines (and the like) in his home, when I was a kid. I always found them rather interesting. As someone with two hernias, hats off to you for lifting those bloody things!
I honestly appreciate your taking the time to transcribe that. Also, if Lemmy could have seen this back in the 70s, we'd probably have the metal pilcrow today, instead of the metal umlaut. ¶ \m/
Been watching your videos for about 5 years now. Was drawn in by the coverage of old hifi and stuff like the Sinclair Pocket TV (my da, 7 years passed, had an amusing tale about a man in prison attempting to wire one to the light fitting of the cell). Also, big into Motorhead, as my dad was, so a welcome video to see. Keep up the good work
growing up in the 80ies these things were in every pub. i remember when the "lists" came out and you were able to determine the cycles of the pseudo-random intelligence. so you only had to play several games to see if that thing will put out within the next cycles or if you had to move on to next pub.
That’s interesting. That’s how “pros” in Japan work the pachinko and pachislo parlors too. There are magazines there dedicated to tips and tricks for winning or detecting if you’re going to lose - mainly tips related to pattern recognitions.
@Java Monsoon That's interesting. While I should have expected that these machines are created this way, I just assumed they were fully random before I actually started digging into them and learning how they work.
Great video about another one of my favorite things... slot machines. Years back I got a Tekken slot machine and I still have it. It's a skill based one where you control when it stops and can nudge the reels if you put it in that mode. The interesting thing is, it has the ability for you to change the level of difficulty, as in, you can slow the reels down so you can learn the blur pattern as the fruit and 7s go by so you can get better at stopping them. Mind you, it's still difficult to won, but with practice it can be done a lot more frequently. Theres an extra video screen toward the top just over the mechanical reels and when different sets of matches occur, it starts other games like a tekken fight or a tekken bowling game, both of which pay out even more coins if you win. It was the end of an era as it takes tokens and the sound of those tokens paying out when you win is just amazing. The lights and sounds are terrific too. Like yours though, it is HEAVY beyond belief. It has a wood exterior but it has a steel box chassis inside and the steel vault door with gorgeous gleaming chrome and piano black powder coated enamel. If you fill the coin hopper inside it can be impossible for even 2 people to lift by the side handles built into the unit. I got it on ebay years ago when it was still legal in some states for them to sell slots, but it was required that if you weren't a casino, they had to be converted to tokens before being sold. Anyway, here's hoping you can get yours up and running again. Keep us posted!
Fascinating video. Only type of arcade machine I used to enjoy in my youth was a continuous moving belt with lines drawn on it where you could roll coins. If your coin landed in a gap it would return to you whatever the amount was for that particular lane.
My uncle also bought one of these old Merkur machines for his home and they also have a huge bin full of old Deutsche Mark to play with it. Yeah, there is no point in having such an old machine and put coins in it just to win or collect them back afterwards, but it is better for the haptics and I find it better to play with those machines and to have the key to get the money back than to loose money. Nice video, hope you can get your machine working some day and greetings from Germany!
I never realized that our Geldspielautomaten could be unusual for the English. I'm really sorry that it was broken and you didn't get a chance to see your life in a new light. ;)
First up, excellent Video. I grew up with those things. I even had a bit of a Geldspielautomat addiction when I was 18-20. I had no money, and yet .. all I got I put into those things. They also were called "Groschengrab" which translates to "coin grave". I continued to be facinated by those maschines, never got one because they were expensive and bulky, but I bought a couple of my favorites from gwzo and from time to time I take a trip down memory lane, playing a couple of minutes, imagining being in one of my youths favorite pubs.
Man giving himself a hernia for our entertainment. Respect
There is a song about that th-cam.com/video/X8Ow1nlafOg/w-d-xo.html
@@bland9876 I knew it was weird al before I even looked😂
I was so worried when he slid it forward on the table just after getting it up there, that if was going to tip over towards the camera and smash onto the floor.
@@mbvideoselection I was worried he was going to pinch his fingers setting it on the table.
Don’t try this at home! I have a hernia and I think you’ve made it worse.
I met Lemmy in his dressing room Bristol back in 2010, and he had that very fruit machine, I saw it first hand. From what I can remember, it was picked up while on tour on Germany - Motorhead had a particularly fervant following there. Lemmy used to play it to relax before and after the show. For the record Lemmy was a very nice guy, and meeting him is one of my fondest memories.
@blake bishop you sir, are completely bang out on that. Lemmy worked for Jimi Hendrix, and was a man who believed in equality as this clip will testify
th-cam.com/video/skGEBgePHtk/w-d-xo.html
@blake bishop no he fucking wasn't. Listen to 'sacrifice' and watch the video. Lemmy detested racists and fascists. He was actually a really nice down to earth guy.
@@ampedwales They had a very dedicated following in germany and often played in smaller places. They sold more LPs in germany than in the UK since the early 90s.
@blake bishop unless you can actually prove your idiot ideas, i would quit trolling and demeaning Lemmy, also in case you didnt know Germans HATE nazis and anything to do with them, they have laws against it, so go back to the bottom of the rock you were hiding under
@blake bishop The iron cross is a Prussian national emblem, adopted by the Nazis. Comparable to the Swastika, which also wasn't their creation.
I love the old wall machines. There's a channel called supershotsbymanor that features a lot of them inside and out.
I imagine a crossover between techmoan and big clive I get giddy...
It's a great channel, he seems to have renamed it "supershotrollerbor" at some point.
@@LostInTech3D Take a screenshot.
@@LostInTech3D I use a tablet with Opera to watch TH-cam ad-free and you can copy any url or even just text by holding down your finger on it until 2 markers appear either side of the text, then drag the markers appropriately and copy/pasta.
You could add a voice synth to it :)
“I had a slot machine when I was 6”
Things are starting to make sense now
I did as well
there was one in the family basement growing up.
@James Rowden maybe
I remember when i was a kid, back in 1993, me and my dad stopped at an Imbiss (similar to a diner) where they had one of those old-school machines hanging on the wall (with reels, not wheels). My dad never gambled, but while we had to wait for our food my dad thrown in 30 pfennig, which was the minimum amount to start a game, just for fun, and just some seconds later he'd won a bunch of free rounds, and they stacked and stacked and in the end he had won over 70DM, so our food was for free, so to say. He was happy about it, but never gambled again because he said such luck you only have once in your life.
Your father is a smart man.
Your father is a wise man.
Your father is a fatherly man.
Wise words to live by.
A fathers father if there ever was one. Hands-on, reel world lesson taught to his son.
When Lemmy played shows in Nuremberg, my hometown, he always hung out in a local rock bar before or after. There he sat with a whiskey and gambled on the slot machine occasionally taking a selfie with a fan.
I think you're making an important work in teaching history. History and advances in technology of enterntainment is often overlooked. While tech is maybe "just for fun" it is still part of our history who we are as a specie, and the same tech has affected our current technology in things like UI design. We might have the access to all of that knowledge, but gathering all of that does consume time and without you most of us probably would never consider, or even know, about all of these things.
I really do appreciate your work. Besides hey, you've been entertaining me for hours an hours so far, so ALSO from a personal standpoint too: thank you!
Hear, hear!
I carried Lemmy's slot machines. I was a stagehand at a Motörhead gig in Berlin in the 90s. They were in a huge case that was not particularly heavy but hard to maneuver in small staircase etc. When we finally had the case in his backstage and the roadie opened it we were totally baffled. Got to do a couple of pinball games with Lemmy that evening - he was super nice.
A funny sidenote: there was a German in the 70's who found out how to win systematically on those Monarch and Mint slot machines which had a huge market share back then. He even hired people to investigate and stick their noses into smaller pubs to find all those machines and subsequently to empty them... :)
In many cases he was considered as a hostile intruder because pub owners don't earn anything with empty slot machines and loose their share of the money in them...
His nickname was Monarch and he was the subject of a documentation called "Monarch - der Automatenschreck" (th-cam.com/video/rWc45XPSYo4/w-d-xo.html)
Cool, as a pub owner (American, but makes no difference in this case) who has 5 of them it does really suck when someone hits a jackpot or people happen to win a lot some night because, like you said, you only have a certain amount of money actually at the pub and banks are closed. Jackpots or any large winnings usually get paid out the next day because of that. I do get paid just for the machine owner to have them there and it brings in more business of course. One of them is mine and it's an interesting setup because that's the one all the others are connected to and it can control all the rest in that I can make changes on just mine for each individual other one or how easy or hard to win (loose or tight), setting them to not pay out, all the stats and winnings for all of them are stored there, and some various other things . I've spent many mornings with all the machines opened up looking at all the circuitry, changing settings and playing them on a mode where they don't pay out (I can either use money then take it back when I'm done or set it to not require money, I use both ways to see if there's any difference) trying to figure out a way to beat slots (not beat my own of course lol) but I'm not having much luck short of opening them up, which you obviously can't do on someone else's. Maybe that Monarch guy will give me inspiration.
Da wird die Gurke gefeecht!!
The mighty Monarch!
Holy crap. I saw that doc when it first aired on German television (I grew up in Austria) and was instantly flashing back to it during mat’s presentation. The bit towards the end where he sets off to play his favorite machine only to find that the ‘wirt’ (bar/eatery/gasthaus owner/proprietor) had thrown it out onto the curb was just one of those weird documentary scenes that have been stuck in my mind all my life...
Sounds like they really were a game of skill after all!
I finally understand one of the lines in the song "Zero & Window Kid - Boozy". He wants to "put 2 grand in a fruity". I had no idea what he was talking about. Learning is fun!
Did you think it meant he was buying a male escort?
I see Lemmy featured on a TechMoan video, so I obviously HAVE to click right away.
This is Lemmy's second appearance in one of my videos and it's just by chance (the other was on Vinyl Video). Kenny Everett keeps popping up too - again it's not deliberate - but there's more with him to come.
@@Techmoan I'm sure Kenny's appearances are all in the best possible taste.
@@Techmoan This is the strangest crossover episode I've ever seen.
Lol some real work. Back in the eighties I used to repair fruits and games machines. I still love retro fruits love to get one as miss them. I remember lugging these things around. I used to get the coins that missed the boxes as tips. The cash boxes used to make great parts bins as being metal.
Duh!!🤟
This isn’t about fruit machines but back in 2007 I was the deputy manager of a large UK theatre when Motörhead came to play a gig. We were advised to have all of the opera glasses removed from all 1,800 seats if we didn’t want them torn off and thrown at the stage. That’s rock and roll! It took two days to remove them and more than a week to put them back. Sadly, I was too nervous to go backstage so I can’t tell you whether Lemmy had a fruit machine with him or not.
I haven't seen opera glasses on the backs of seats since Hull New Theatre in the early 1980s.
@@circattle I worked in Oxford and London and opera glasses were in all of the theatres. Maybe it was the company I worked for whereas Hull New Theatre’s always been run by the council. They probably weren’t interested in contracting in the London Opera Glass Company like the big boys do.
Fun fact: a famous german manufacturer of slot machines is "Merkur" who's logo is a smiling sun (also pictured on lemmy's machine). Because of that, the term for gambling became "sich in der Merkur Sonne sonnen" which literally means "to tan in the Merkur sun" or just "to tan"
Cool, das hab ich nicht gewusst - klingt gut xD
I wonder if that's where mister metokur gets his name from
yeah. maybe. but the manufacturer parts is plain wrong. the manufacturer is called Gauselmann and one of there gambling trademarks is "Merkur" and that smiling sun thing.
@@m.r.7979 oh, my bad. I'm not that well informed on the firms and companies relating to gambling
@@finnjons3792 no problem. it's one of the larger employers in my region. hence a bit more knowledge about it.
Throughout the entire section of you talking about how hard they are to import into your home country, the entire time I was thinking "of course he managed to get one, I'd expect nothing less from him". Great job, love the video.
The Sonderspiele: The background is that by law, a win was restricted to 3 DM maximum. So, instead of letting you win, say 50 DM, you won a series of Sonderspiele instead - this meant that the next games (according to the number won) had a standard win of 3 DM instead of a lower amount, so, if your series was long enough, you got eventually to a cumulative price of those 50 DM.
As a german it's kinda bizarre, that Techmoan haven't seen a "Geldspielautomat", something that standing everywhere in Germany, until now. Every Pub, many restaurants or Gas stations have them. Every city has "Spielhallen" (Gambling halls) filled with these machines.
weird consumer protection laws limiting the amount to win but not to loose.
@@lunakoala5053 actually there is kind of a limit to loose. by law the machines can keep 40% of the incoming money and have to spit out 60% of the incoming money as a win. but of course you never know when the machine decides to let you win.
@@MrMP-en7vf Well, some did. Because of that law there must be some kind of algorithm. At it was possible to understand it.
@@lunakoala5053 The cost of a round was also limited to IIRC 20 Pf, maybe 30.
Who else was half expecting that when Techmoan lifted that Geldspielautomat onto his counter, it was actually going to be Lemmy's machine with the sticker on it? 😅
What a fantastic Techmoan tangent Matt.
The story started years ago with keen eye and some rock music, and ended with a back injury and a puff of smoke;
sounds a lot like my first marriage!
I can imagine that if Lemmy was addicted to playing the slots he would eventually reason that he might as well buy his own machine rather than keep giving his money to other people forever.
I was thinking the same thing. One way to deal with an addiction: render it harmless.
afaik he spend lots of time playing a machine at his local pup, I've heard they actually moved the machine to his home at the end when he got too sick to go to the pub
Fun fact: it's because of these things that we don't have any video game arcade machines in Germany. They were considered the same type of machine as the "Geldspielautomat", and thus were off limits to minors.
But we had them. I remember even back in the second half of the 90's i was playing Street Fighter 2 with my brother on an arcade machine. 3 rounds for 1DM (maybe it was just 50Pf, i don't remember that for sure anymore). It was right beside the entrance of a video rental. We were still minors so we couldn't go into the shop, but we could hang in the small lobby where the entrance was.
One arcade in Hunstanton, UK, slapped "not to be played by minors" stickers on every machine they had some time in the 90's, even the likes of Time Crisis and various racing ones.
@@worldcomicsreview354 Well, maybe the machine we played on had such a sticker on it too, but back in the day rarely anyone cared much about it. Not even owners and employees of stores and shops. I mean, if they get slapped on their fingers by authorities they started to care for a while, but not for too long.
My father ran a bar in the 80s with Defender and other arcade machines which were popular with kids and the only problem was that minors aren't allowed to just hang out at bars, so they had to buy a softdrink, since then they were there for food and drink. The problem thus wasn't the machines themselves, but where you found them.
The hanging on the walls were considered enough restrictions of younger (=shorter) people to use them. I remember that this was typically accompanied with some bar stools for convenience.
Extraordinary! I am a Motorhead fan, and have seen endless photos of Lemmy, so I must have seen his slot machine and never given it a thought. A great piece of rock'n'roll history! I hope someone watching can help you get this machine working. We are entering a period when some of this technology is being forgotten, and the people who worked on it are no longer with us. What you are doing, Matt, is helping preserve tech history. Keep it up!
You know I'm born to lose
And gambling's for fools
But that's the way I like it baby
I don't wanna live forever
Well apart from the first line that fits the fruit machine to a T
His rasp and energy were unbelievable.
And don't forget the Joker!
@@kosmosyche *air guitar ensues*
Never thought that line was so personal
A pocket full of shrapnel. I learned a new expression today :)
A very common Term in Australia also.
Also common in New Zealand. We sometimes called them pingers as well
It’s common north of England
I absolutely approve of this streak of making my Saturday mornings more enjoyable you have going here.
After 35 years of being a German and of course growing up seeing those Geldspielautomaten in Pubs, Bars and takeaway shops - I finally learned how those work. Thanks Matt!! 😄
It was probably easier and cheaper to drag that thing around to keep lemmy from leaving the building than to search the local town for some random pub where he's hanging out and losing money. I've worked with artists and the last thing you want is to organise a search party 30 minutes before the show.
Can confirm when I saw Motorhead live in Hull, Lemmy was late because he was playing the bandit in Hull Cheese, we had a good chat to him, he was a good bloke
@@mrfavus I think we've found our answer, then! This is interesting. I'd love to know where that machine is now.
Now we know Techmoan has decades of more material he's an expert about for when there aren't any more obsolete media formats to review!
In this episode, Techmoan gets a hernia. 13:20
and the table damn near collapses.
*techmoan won't leave the 8-bit guy alone part 2*
It seems that Techmoan never did a manual lifting course ( remember to bend the knees ).
Hörnia please.
“Win some. Lose some. It’s all the same to me.” - Lemmy, Ace Of Spades
Well when you own the machine, yes.
I hope you didn't hurt yourself picking those up. Be careful lifting things like that.
Lift with your legs, not with your back, as they say.
Two people can carry a piano but one person can't carry half a piano.
I don't think I can lift a quarter of a piano. LOL
That.....
is very profound
I tried once. I think I lifted more than I octave.
@@nickwallette6201 ha ha ha \m/ ♪
One person with a saw can carry half a piano 😁
Not sure if this is resolved but at 20:40, the LED on the top left is on when it should be off, indicating a short on a bulb-matrix or missing signal.
+1
*There’s more information in the video description.*
@@Techmoan I´ve read that but didn´t see this specific error indicator mentioned there or in other comments.
Thanks a lot for the slot machine history lesson. I do hope that your back survived from the lugging around and lifting of these clearly heavy machines! I appreciate all of the work and effort you put into making your videos for us. It's always a Saturday morning treat to click on a new Techmoan video sir! Thank you very much Mat... Fred
Next episode of Techmoan, investigating spinal support back braces.
was gonna write this just now lol
Or we get a new review series of garage lifts.
I read your comment just as he was lifting that bastard, I laughed so hard I nearly gave myself a hernia.
2021 - the year we discover that Techmoan is a slot machine connoisseur and LGR is a synthesizer afficionado - how did these two held these tech-related hobbies unmentioned for so long!?
The more I hear about Lemmy...
...The more I admire the guy.
I've never found slot machines particularly exciting, but this video was quite interesting. Well done, Sir!
It's incredible the attention to detail that went into the internals of these. You'd expect them to be a bit rough and ready but the way they're laid out with everything beautifully aligned is mesmerising.
They were money makers for the people who bought or rented them. So they had to be easily serviced, a broken machine is lost income.
@@6581punk That makes perfect sense, I think most often i've seen these kind of machines sat in dark and dingy corners of bars and pubs so never occurred to me that the insides would be so clean and well put together!
The last time I went into a casino, I was so confused by most of the slot machines. There were so many ways to win (or lose).
Maybe after you've used a few of them, you get the idea of it? 🤷♂️
Very different from the simple slots I played in my younger years.
I worked for a company making slot games. They seem too complex now. But they're highly regulated, the RTP (return to player) has to be tested by an independent company and the code responsible get "signed" and has to be re-tested should that code change.
Usually if you walk far enough you can eventually find video poker, bj and classic slot games
The pay lines are now mazed
@@billr3053 while I understand your point when it comes to fruit machines, since the computer decides exactly whether you win or not; I’m not sure why you’re bringing pinball into it?
Each pinball table is different but the rules are ultimately the same: trigger modes that want you to put the ball into different places to get points. (Different modes simply have different targets.) The reward is usually multiball, which itself is just fun by virtue of trying to juggle all of them as long as possible.
It’s about getting the skill to reliably control the ball, moreso than it is about the lights or anything. For instance there’s almost always two outside loops that allow you to swap the ball from one flipper to another. The skill comes in when you can get the ball in a tiny hole as easily as you can get it on a large bumper, and fulfill the conditions of the mode.
You don’t even get money for pinball, if you win you just play again, like any arcade game with a video game inside. While there certainly can be aesthetic similarities, pinball is most certainly not gambling. If anything, in terms of the experience you get out of playing, it has far more in common with snooker or pool or billiards.
adding to the confusing, the video/digital slot machines have multiple virtual reels, hidden from the user.
Technology Connections: Look at my Jukebox that I have been restoring.
Techmoan: Have you been to the arcade in my garage?
You should see the arcade in my garage 😉
We need another edit like the 8-Bit Guy vs. Techmoan one but with Technology Connections
Man, I love actual machines. Thanks for sharing some more of what I wish I could own. And major props moving those machines around!
Always so fascinating. Long ago I learned why gambling establishments always place slot machines at or near entrances and usually pay out more often: the idea is that as people walk by and see someone winning, they are more likely to go in and give it a try.... and then they get lured deeper in.... and lickety-split, they're broke in no time.
I feel that on cruise ships for similar reasons they set all the machine payout percentages high at the start of the cruise but then turn them down as the cruise ends to get all their money back (and more besides).
Therefore if you plan on playing the slots on a cruise, only do it at the start.
@@Techmoan I've never been on a cruise, but as we all know, you have, and I should have asked you about it! That's a pretty ingenious method for people trapped on a ship for a week or more
I've read up on some cruises that last more than a month that go all over the mediterranean. Makes me wonder how the gambling would work on more lengthy outings
To avoid these kind of manipulations of the payout rate some machines had their program sit in RAM only with a Lithium Battery in a hermetically sealed module acting as ROM only. If you open it, the tamper detection deletes everything e. g. by a photosensor in it, you will loose the program, bricking the machine. This was even enforced by several laws to prevent manipulations. See e. g. 'cra gaming machines'
A legend demonstrating a hobby of a legend.
Had many a shot with Lemmy at the Rainbow Room. He was constantly shoving quarters down those machines. He was a total gentleman and always had time for a good laugh. R.I.P. Lemmy!!!
This proves it. I can listen to him be passionate about anything and totally be interested
In the 80s growing up, some of the more - shall we say "dodgy" lads - always had a knack for getting bandits to pay out with barely any money put in. Many years later as an adult I bumped into one of them in the local Chippy that still had a solitary old bandit in the corner, his Mrs got her purse out to pay for the chips with a tenner and he said "don't break into a tenner, giz a quid" he shoved it straight into the bandit and got it to pay out enough for the fish and chips before they'd even had time to wrap it!!
Wow!
Wait so how did he get it to pay out so often?
There was a big arcade in my town growing up and in it was one particular machine that I could get to pay out every time I went into town. It was a 10p machine with a relatively low maximum payout but I could put a quid in and get a fiver out everytime, there was a certain knack to doing it. You couldn't, however, do it multiple times in a row.
To add, this was also a time when fish and chips cost less than a tenner, obviously.
Don't know about this guy but back in the day you could order printed guide booklets by anonymous writers that covered strategy for multiple specific fruit machines that could be quite effective, these were advertised in various dodgier places. I'm guessing these were produced by people who had freeplay access to the machines in order to test and optimise strategies.
There's a whole arcade full of "allwin" style machines in the Wookie Hole park, went there 18 months ago and it was honestly the best part.
Motorhead performed "Ace of Spades" on The Young Ones
Done because the BBC gave you a bigger budget if your show was classified as a "variety show", having a band allowed them to meet that criteria.
Now it's stuck in my head..m
“To the station”, “Music!”
"... But then I had an idea..." Found myself feeling slightly tense until I heard these comforting words. Not yet reached the end of the video, but I'll tell you now, I'll be mightily disappointed if I don't get to see a functioning demonstration.
That was a big deal even here across the pond.
I never thought I'd be interested in gambling machines, but the passion for the topic comes across in this video.
Your pronounciation of "Sonderspiel" was on point :)
Getting these "special games" is the goal of the first stage by going up the risk ladders on the sides. The special games are the real payout and you could get a hundred Deutschmarks or so out of it on a 'lucky' day.
digging into lemmys collections in general yields an apparent fascination with germany in just about all aspects. he had several large collections of all sorts of different german things. from the slots, to ww2 items (which some tried to paint him in a negative light over given the obvious historical snafu from the era, and said people got rightly put in their place) to a bunch of random stuff. he just seemed to find the whole of the country to be interesting.
I remember seeing those machines from a distance when growing up in Germany in the late 80s. They hung in pubs and other places where children usually wouldn't hang out. They always confused me. Gambling laws usually are very national and probably affected the design of such machines a lot.
I live in Pennsylvania. These are called "games of chance" to skirt the law's.
Your comment makes me wonder if the wall mount design was in part a simple mechanism to stop children from using them.
That is actually how you can find a good Frittenbude these days... they will still have one of those- but it is only plugged in about twice a year...
@@P07dreadnaut And more space for the mark's legs sitting in front of it on a bar stool.
@@Breakfast_of_Champions yeah that's a good point!
Two of the best frontmen and a slot machine in the thumbnail, how could you not like this
1:38
Jesus, no image can probably sum up the happiest parts of my childhood in the 90's to early 2000's more than the seafront of scarborough. Above all 2 specific Amusements, one of which was Coney Island!
good thing you didn't go to the real coney island during the 90s. the game of chance was leaving without being fleeced by 2 armed bandits.
The chapters names are brilliant Mat..."playing hard to get". I love it. Your videos are so good. Thank you sir for kicking off the weekend right so often! 👍
Collaboration with Big Clive needed!!!!!!
Finally, I now know about the German slot machines. Always wondered about them after seeing them in Auf Wiedersehen Pet. It was about a group of UK brickies working in Germany and they would always play a wall mounted slot machine called "Casino" in the bar. Thank you!
I used to love those Allwin games, a reminder of my childhood. From the days of "if you can reach the money slot, you're old enough to play."
Lemmy, what a legend. Saw him many times. Another cracking video!
I ran into Lemmy in the Rat Trap after one of their gigs in Glasgow, he thought it was still the Cat House. He gave me dating advice, it was surreal.
I saw a great impersonation of Lemmy as a testimony in >Teach yourself Freddie Mercury< by Stevie Riks here on YT.
An little anecdote from my teenage years, growing up in Germany: Before school (or when skipping school) me and my best friend often went to our favorite "Spielothek", which was open 24/7. Officially you were not allowed in if under the legal age of 18, but in the early nineties they just couldn't care less. We would spend hours a day there, leaning back in comfy bar stools with arm rests, lazily working the buttons with our feet. It was usually very quiet and dim in this place, except for the sounds of the Spielautomaten and some random background music - quite a calming, almost meditative atmosphere. Food was unlimited and free (grilled sandwiches, soft drinks and beer) and was served straight to your place - we never even had to get up.
Obviously those machines were designed to make the Spielothek money in the first place, but we would occasionally walk out with a couple of hundred Marks in our pockets ourselves. After a win, we (and other players) would put about 5 to 10 percent in the staff's tip jar. It was considered good manners. My favorite machine was the Merkur "Disc 3000".
Amazingly the place still exists today.
Fun times.
Wish slot machines were as simple as they were back in the day. It's like you sit at one now a'days and feel like you need to look up the user guide.
They still make those too - but from what I've seen in casinos most customers want a bit more action for their money.
The house still wins, but at least you get a bit of a show while you're losing.
@@Techmoan some new Machines are Crazy.. sometimes worth the 5 bucks to get screens to spin,and all the Other Stuff Stacked on top
Lemmys death came like a shock to me, I was taking a 17hour flight november 10 2015 and wanted something to listen to during it. I had not listened to motorhead for several years before that but for some reason I chose to download their whole discography as an offline playlist on spotify.
Motorhead was the only thing I listened to during the whole flight and I think I didn’t even pause the music for the whole time.
After finally landing I googled motorhead to see if they had any tour going on in europe at the time, they had! The 40th anniversary tour, the schedule said that they had a show in London January 29 and 30. Had to see if they still had tickets, when I went back to google i saw lemmy passed just 3 hours ago, while I was still on the plane.
Felt like I was responsible for his death somehow by listening too much to his music...
---
Awesome video as always Techmoan!
I never for one moment thought I'd be watching a Motorhead inspired video on this channel.
Your dedication is just inspiring. You never give up on these projects and always do the best you can.
"You know I'm born to lose.. and gamblin's for fools.. but that's the way I like it baby, I dont wanna live forever" - Lemmy.
Wow what a way to wake up. I’ve been binging all your content the last few weeks. I’m enamored by the retro tech
Such a legend! Very happy to say I have seen him play live several times. Great video Techmoan
Great video once again. And an interesting story.
Cool to hear you are into slot machines as well. I hope to get my hands on a Bally one armed bandit some day, the one which every so often plays a little tune from the speaker. I love all the sounds they make. From the moving of the wheels, to the coin mechanism, to the spitting out coins into the metal tray, to the little tunes. It's the whole experience, I guess.
There's a Clive near you that could probably figure this out. Invite him for a pint.
I watch Joes Classic Video Games on TH-cam, they're in the US and show all sorts of pinball and arcade machine repairs.
@@23Scadu He's a bit on the big side of things
That would be a great crossover
He's on a different island though. Might have to wait till after the bug.
@@SierraLimaOscar oh yes, large clive i think I've heard of him!
You built it up so good that I was expecting you to have gotten hold of one of Lemmy's own machines :)
I was terrified of you dropping it, or the table collapsing.
This is a new turn for your channel (well, since I've been watching anyway) and I am super excited for it.
Hmm I can see a very special techmoanish use of the machine: Using the "Sonderspiele" light rows on the right and left side as VU meters ;-)
You hit the nail on the head. We come here for the stories and maybe leave learning something new. Or possibly just enjoyed a story...
Cheers.
Could you imagine being invited to his house? You would never want to leave with his collection of gadgets
I love that you have this hobby collecting these things and never even mentioned it on your channel (as far as I can remember).
This stuff is fascinating! I wouldn't mind more videos about old gambling machines. :)
I was lucky enough to know the man in my younger years and he was always an absolute slot machine maniac!Sat up one night after a gig back at the hotel watching him clock one million plus on Asteroids! Lem could dominate ANY type of machine(even a silver one, lol)
I love how you paid respect to a rock legend with this video, even if it didn't go to plan. Thank you.
"Argh! I've done me leg in!"
I'm sorry for laughing at this. I hope you're all right.
Thanks for this. You do dig up some gems! My dad was in the RAF and was posted out to Germany back in '79. i remember him playing the Sonderspiel at our local schnelly (fast food restaurant) back then. I could never quite get what was going on with all the spinning reels....but then again I was more focussed on playing Moon Cresta next to him. ......was always terrible at docking.
Lemmy collected German military regalia because he liked the aesthetics so perhaps he saw something similar in those machines.
@@danielktdoran he banged them? Is that why they called then "slot" machines?
@@danielktdoran where in the hell did you hear that?
It's worth mentioning that, while he collected old Nazi memorabilia for that reason, he also openly hated Nazis & white supremacists in general. His first girlfriend was black, beaten to death by white supremacists, he had no love of their ideology.
@@JaredConnell 🤣
These machines were very common in German pubs until the late 1990ies. I remember seeing them as little child in the early 1970ies in station restaurants. I was somehow attracted by all that blinking and beeping but I never played one myself. Thanks for this great video and bringing back some childhood memories! Regards from Germany, Dirk
13:18 always lift with your legs, not with your back, you can end up hurting yourself
True! I think the beeped curseword said it all - It hurt ...
Always lift with your roadies!
Yes you are right. Unfortunately I lifted 150ah Battery and got back pain. I am facing problems. Maybe life long.
I winced when I watched that.
You'll save your back, but you'll wear out your knees and joints. Back injuries are much harder to treat than knee injuries, though.
It's very interesting how serendipity works. Techmoan sees an image over five years ago, and here we are with a video on the slot machines. I have never been interested in gambling, but slot machines and older electronic machines of that kind have always intrigued me. A family friend of mine had quite a few mid 80s-mid 90s electronic poker machines (and the like) in his home, when I was a kid. I always found them rather interesting. As someone with two hernias, hats off to you for lifting those bloody things!
1:07 ah yes, Motörhead, truly a band of their time
Character encodings belong to the things in life where theory and practice are extremely diverged from each other.
Ah. Your thingy got a little mangled. Try this:
ⶸδ𝜋öгҥㅌ𝛼⠙
@@DeathInTheSnow That's even more screwed up
@@Mosblinker what's that wooshy noise i hear?
I honestly appreciate your taking the time to transcribe that.
Also, if Lemmy could have seen this back in the 70s, we'd probably have the metal pilcrow today, instead of the metal umlaut. ¶ \m/
Been watching your videos for about 5 years now. Was drawn in by the coverage of old hifi and stuff like the Sinclair Pocket TV (my da, 7 years passed, had an amusing tale about a man in prison attempting to wire one to the light fitting of the cell). Also, big into Motorhead, as my dad was, so a welcome video to see. Keep up the good work
growing up in the 80ies these things were in every pub. i remember when the "lists" came out and you were able to determine the cycles of the pseudo-random intelligence. so you only had to play several games to see if that thing will put out within the next cycles or if you had to move on to next pub.
That’s interesting. That’s how “pros” in Japan work the pachinko and pachislo parlors too. There are magazines there dedicated to tips and tricks for winning or detecting if you’re going to lose - mainly tips related to pattern recognitions.
@Java Monsoon That's interesting. While I should have expected that these machines are created this way, I just assumed they were fully random before I actually started digging into them and learning how they work.
I never thought I would see Motörhead-related (or Metal related video in general) on this page. So cool! Keep up the great work!
Did you measure the wow and flutter of the sound effects on the machine when it did originally work?
Great video about another one of my favorite things... slot machines. Years back I got a Tekken slot machine and I still have it. It's a skill based one where you control when it stops and can nudge the reels if you put it in that mode. The interesting thing is, it has the ability for you to change the level of difficulty, as in, you can slow the reels down so you can learn the blur pattern as the fruit and 7s go by so you can get better at stopping them. Mind you, it's still difficult to won, but with practice it can be done a lot more frequently. Theres an extra video screen toward the top just over the mechanical reels and when different sets of matches occur, it starts other games like a tekken fight or a tekken bowling game, both of which pay out even more coins if you win. It was the end of an era as it takes tokens and the sound of those tokens paying out when you win is just amazing. The lights and sounds are terrific too. Like yours though, it is HEAVY beyond belief. It has a wood exterior but it has a steel box chassis inside and the steel vault door with gorgeous gleaming chrome and piano black powder coated enamel. If you fill the coin hopper inside it can be impossible for even 2 people to lift by the side handles built into the unit. I got it on ebay years ago when it was still legal in some states for them to sell slots, but it was required that if you weren't a casino, they had to be converted to tokens before being sold. Anyway, here's hoping you can get yours up and running again. Keep us posted!
That gives a whole new meaning to the Motorhead song "The Ace of Spades."
Fascinating video. Only type of arcade machine I used to enjoy in my youth was a continuous moving belt with lines drawn on it where you could roll coins. If your coin landed in a gap it would return to you whatever the amount was for that particular lane.
Why is there smoke coming out of the slot machine, Techmoan?
That's not smoke, it's steam! Steam from my wife's ears after she saw the joint account.
Your production quality is so good! Sound, lighting, camera etc...
Techmoan struggling with a heavy fruit machine made my day
It was priceless :-D
My uncle also bought one of these old Merkur machines for his home and they also have a huge bin full of old Deutsche Mark to play with it. Yeah, there is no point in having such an old machine and put coins in it just to win or collect them back afterwards, but it is better for the haptics and I find it better to play with those machines and to have the key to get the money back than to loose money. Nice video, hope you can get your machine working some day and greetings from Germany!
I never realized that our Geldspielautomaten could be unusual for the English. I'm really sorry that it was broken and you didn't get a chance to see your life in a new light. ;)
Geld?... that's optimistic...
Thanks for putting so much effort both mentally and physically into this video. I eagerly await the next video.
Same reason potheads stare at lava lamps? Lmao, gotta remember the guy knew how to party.
First up, excellent Video. I grew up with those things. I even had a bit of a Geldspielautomat addiction when I was 18-20. I had no money, and yet .. all I got I put into those things. They also were called "Groschengrab" which translates to "coin grave". I continued to be facinated by those maschines, never got one because they were expensive and bulky, but I bought a couple of my favorites from gwzo and from time to time I take a trip down memory lane, playing a couple of minutes, imagining being in one of my youths favorite pubs.