That lock on the side... You give the money to the operator, then the operator uses the key to give you credits for you money. Those buttons on the front are there for servicing and testing. Everything is locked tight so people can't give them selfs credits or kess with the machine. I bet that thing would be placed in some bars or wherever allowed.
This device was used on charter tourist flights from Tokyo to Las Vegas in the period from 1992 to 1995. Namely, several travel agencies had this offer, for the weekend the Japanese would board a plane and go to Las Vegas, and as soon as they arrived in the US airspace they could start their weekend gambling, getting these devices from agency staff who accompanied the trip.
Also, I'm pretty sure it's based on the PC Engine hardware. At first, seeing the slot for the packs made me go "Hey, this looks like the expansion bus on the PC Engine!", then the screen, which looks like the same model used by the PC Engine LT. And finally, seeing the shape of the chips with this 60, 70, and 80 inscriptions was my final clue: They're the HuC6260, HuC6270, and HuC6280! - With the inscriptions erased prolly because NEC/Hudson didn't want to be publically associated with gambling. Obviously I might be talking out of my bum but I'm 99% sure it's based on PC Engine hardware
It does kinda look like that, plus the scratched out chip inscriptions are kind of shaped to cover where the Hudson bee would have been. Also, with two "70" chips, wouldn't that make it more like a SuperGrafx? (Which seems kind of overkill for a gambling machine...) edit: Actually... that may be the case, there's also an "02" chip there, aka the HuC6202 that combines the two 6270s on the SuperGrafx!
Yes, I was going to make this comment myself. Looked very much like PC-Engine... and that in-game font: very much what Compile (or SIMS) used in their SMS and PC-E games.
@@vectrex28 I am wondering what's in that cartridge. I'm not really an EE type, but I didn't think that the controllers were exposed on the expansion bus so I am wondering if signals were moved around so that the controls could be on the cartidge. Also the audio on this thing seems oddly primitive (sounds like an SN76489, or an AY-3-8910) so I am curious if it even uses the PCE's audio at all... or if they just did that lazy of a job.
@@MrKsoft I'm not familiar with the PC Engine specifically, but moving the controls to the cartridge probably wouldn't be harder than doing some simple memory mapping internally in the cartridge. It's also the more flexible option when compared to having some pre-defined controller scheme. The original PC Engine only had 8 buttons (directionals+2+2) and some of these games might want to use more than that. Also, I imagine these weren't optimized for cost of production (being not marketed at kids) so the cartridge could contain a lot of game-specific hardware not normally found in PC Engine games. They took a well-known, robust architecture off the shelf to avoid the development costs, then just stuck hardware in the cartridge until it did what they needed. Kind of like how modern gambling machines could probably run Call of Duty, but they are used to animate poker cards.
The most clever idea is that the buttons are on the cartridge, so you can get game-specific keys with each game. Much better than having all-purpose controls that are hard to navigate.
Also, you get just to buy or rent a single cluster of the same machine. No need to get several games: you swap carts in and out, and it's far less expensive
"Just thought you might want to see that.... you might not, but it's a bit late for that because the video has been made and you should have bailed a bit earlier than this bit." How can you not love the Techmoan?
I haven't played that model/brand, but I do remember in the mid 90's while living in Nevada that some bars had devices like these at the bar. There were the standard size ones as well, but these portable ones were there to bring to the table to play. I played that particular game mode quite a bit at the time.
Yea, I came here to comment on why the speakers were so big, for this reason. These were meant to be played in a loud environment, and on top of that, when you win big, the bar wants the other tables around you to hear it.
Whenever I see these rare and obsolete devices I think about the months of design and manufacturing that went into them, and how they probably hoped they were going to be hugely popular. There's probably some old Japanese guy somewhere mumbling drunkenly in karaoke bars telling people he designed the J.Cock.
A very clever device. Love how the buttons are on the cartridge itself so the different games can have different controls. Also the screen looked surprisingly bright and colourful for an early-90's device 😀
The less clever part is how everything is hidden and protected by keys ... but the power is a simple barrel connector. One yank and you lose all your credits.
That Swiss army knife is ridiculous . It's got so much on it you need a cart to pull it along after you because it no longer will fit in a pocket. I always enjoy your videos Mat and look forward to the next Techmoan 👍
Is this the first time the knife appeared on camera? I remember wanting to get one of these when it first came out simply because of how ridiculous actually using it would be
Most bars in the state of Wisconsin have three or four slot machines (having five or more is a felony but less than five is a misdemeanor technically punishable by a fine if anyone cared to do so.) Those slot machines are labeled as being "for entertainment purposes only". That is, you put your money in for the pure joy of driving up the number of credits with no expectation of a payout. Good clean family fun! In theory, a bartender could come up and count the on screen credits before you end your game, record them on a piece of paper for no reason, and then you both go on your merry way. Then you could, theoretically, come back the next day to collect an unmarked envelope full of cash, which they give to you as a fun gift that's 100% unrelated to whatever you did the previous night. The Japanese may have had similar fun with these pretend gambling machines.
AFAIK is even simpler than that. Theoretically you can't win money, but also theoretically no one forbids the bartender or shop keeper to hand you pretty gifts because you were so lucky. I mean, you can't gamble for money, but a funny and wholesome competition in which if you get a certain amount of points in a funny and whole some competition someone hands you a trinket isn't just funny? You can then sell the trinket for cold and hard cash. It's your trinket afterall. And if you find a pawn shop really close, I mean *really close*, isn't that a lucky thing?
The Japanese did one better with Pachinko, though. Imagine if you will, basically putting in money to win tokens that you can exchange at a separate establishment next door for cash and/or prizes.
The key on the side is probably a standard feature - it would enable the bartender in your story to bump the credits by a standard amount without opening up the front and fiddling with the little buttons. The bartender takes the machine (and cash) from the customer, pulls the key out of his pocket, turns it the appropriate number of times, and hands the machine back to the customer.
The chap selling it did mention it as a modification from the standard spec done by the previous owner to him, but I’ve no idea if this is correct without buying another one.
@@Techmoan Perhaps the disabling of the tamper feature is the mod? I could see a tamper feature like, the machine locks up whenever the cover is opened until the credits are redeemed/reset. That would be quite annoying for a home user, but pretty effective for a bar to avoid tomfoolery.
@@Techmoan Does the original machine even have that key switch and the buttons, or were they added by that particular owner? I suspect the anti-tamper feature works in a way that it resets the credits to zero when you open the front by picking the lock (making the whole endeavor useless) but when you turn that particular key on the side, the game is frozen and the credits can be redeemed if the front is opened. That would mean you'd need two different keys, and picking the side lock would only appear the game to freeze up, which is enough of a deterrent for unsuspecting scam artists to not try it.
This is pretty interesting. Most forms of gambling in Japan are generally banned with a few exceptions. Horse racing, motor sports and there is also a Lottery. But there are also a few activities that fall into a gray area. Pachinko in Japan pays out in balls that can be exchanged for small gifts. Those gifts can be exchanged at a separate facility for cash. I imagine this worked in a similar fashion. This device could be loaded and if you won big it cold be returned to the host and exchanged for a prize. That prize could be sold to an associated shop for money. That's my guess any way.
@@Tim_3100 virtual or token money gambling is just playing for points, that's legal, hence the pachinko switcharound. technically they could at any time start busting up the pachinko places by just showing how the money changes between the pachinko place and the money changers, they just wont because it's cultural(and yakuza whatever). japanese are weird like that, strict but with exceptions.
I think I'm about your age and every time I watch one of your videos, I get this 'déjà vu' feeling. I couldn't place it initially, but it recently all came back: Your videos have a very 'Tomorrow's World"-like feel. It was a BBC show I used to watch as a teenager....(If I remember well: Thursdays after Top of the pops and was later moved to Fridays) Anyway, just to say, love your show Regards
You are dead correct about the way they were used. You would get them at hostess bars in The more seedy areas of Tokyo. You'd pay your girl and she would come back with the machine and she'd come back with the money when u were done. And if u won too much you get thrown a beating and told not come back
i thaught gambling for money whas not alowed in japan? thats why pachinko uses tickets to pay you out. would that also be the case whit these mashines?
@@floortjetjeertes3898 Emphasis on "seedy". This sounds like it would be in use in the early 80's before the bubble burst. The yakuza were a much stronger and more present force then and could get away with a lot more.
@@floortjetjeertes3898 There's very much a "look the other way" perspective on a lot of gambling in Japan. In pachinko parlors, you can use your winnings on a worthless prize, then take that 'prize' around the corner to a window that'll pay you real money for it. It's a way for the authorities to only have to enforce it when they actually want to prosecute someone and they can't make any other charges stick.
@@whompronnie this is also the way a gambling parlor in the Pokemon Gameboy games works 😂 at the time I had no idea, but it's fascinating to know the reason behind the separate prize shop in the games.
I used to work in the adult gaming industry and this type of poker game was/is very popular in the arcades we serviced over in Northern Ireland but as a full sit-at cabinet with coin/note accepters and dispensers. I can see how this unit would work as a supplemental entertainment at a bingo hall or pop-up type event in the UK, as we're not so hot on Karaoke bars here :)
This is one of my top watched channels. Thank you for all your effort in finding all these unique pieces of history and I’m a huge fan of your audio set up for music.
I really enjoyed these videos. I am an electrical engineer and have been for 25 years. I really enjoy seeing how far we have come with technology. And seeing some of the things I have worked on in the past. Keep up the good work. Brad from across the pond.
This is actually pretty common, Japanese uses a lot of loan words for tech and gaming stuff and most Japanese people can read enough English to understand simple things like this. Could also have been they wanted to try and sell it overseas too since it's completely in English rather than written using katakana.
Very impressive for 1991, this feels like a mid 2000's kind of thing by the screen resolution and sharpness alone. I like how this is in incredibly good condition too.
Gotta love how the game cartdrige looks like a VHS tape, with the plastic welded case and the sticker label. You always find something we've never seen before, thank you for sharing it Mat!
The cartridge serving as interface/controls itself just blew my mind - to me that’s the most peculiar thing about this device! …well, after how people in Japan is trustworthy of taking away a device that can “generate” money by opening a very low-security lock underneath 🤔 I wonder if there is any indication the “Bar-man” could check that the front panel was opened (a counter, a flag… a timestamp since the last time it was opened…). It doesn’t need to be impossible to be opened - it just needs to be impossible to not know when it was 😁
@@cheeseparis1 ha ha, yeah! But for the purpose of this device to operate as a gambling machine, the “bar man” needs to know if the machine remained closed - so, there is no problem if someone is able to open the device (lock picking or with a key)… it just needs to properly “zero” the credits when it happens. Such mechanism must be impossible (or very hard) to be tampered.
The flipperless gambling-oriented pinball machines in the mid-20th century worked almost the same way--they took coins but there was no payout mechanism, but they would accumulate a lot of "replay" credits, and you could show that number to the bartender and they'd pay out and use the hidden button that took the credits off the machine. That was why gambling regs in many places prohibited pinball machines from giving out replays, so the companies had alternate versions that didn't (these days it's just an operator setting).
@@thesledgehammerblog Some places just tried to ban the ones that were obviously for gambling, and there was this bizarre dance where manufacturers would skirt the regs in various ways. So, for instance, they'd ban "single-ball" machines where you got one ball per credit, because the bingo pinballs were like that. But the manufacturers would then give you five balls for a credit, but the way to play was to have a token "skill lane" that you could shoot four of the five balls into by just pulling the plunger all the way back, and then the fifth one would be for the actual gambling game.
This device is fascinating. I had an LCD active matrix TV in 1991 and it cost an absolute fortune. The game devices cited (Lynx, etc) all had terrible passive screens, so the J.Cock device really stands on its own. Also, gambling for money is illegal in Japan. Chances are a patron would pay for points, and those points would be loaded onto the machine. Any winnings would never be paid in cash, but in token prizes. Those prizes are then taken to a separate building to be converted into cash. Clever way to get around the gambling ban.
Looking at the software, I think this is a case of not the machine being made to play different kinds of games, but rather the software being compatible with different kinds of gambling machines. There were probably proper sized machines with coin slots this game could be inserted into, and then it could be put into this small device for scenarios where you couldn't have a large console, and I think I know the use case for this particular device: Capsule hotels. As someone who has stayed at several capsule hotels, there are usually amenities built into or attached to the capsule itself such as a portable TV or a clock radio, and others that you can rent at the front desk to use in your capsule. I could see the scenario where a business man wants to gamble on a business trip, but doesn't want to head to a pachinko parlor, so instead rents one of these and cashes out as he checks out in the morning.
This brings back memories auf a transatlantic flight I took with American Airlines in 1987 (as a 10 year old). In the aircraft, you could swipe your credit card through a machine which would then release a similar handheld videogame device. You could take the device to your seat and play Frogger and maybe PacMan on it.
Japan has some 'creative' loopholes around gambling. For example, Pachinko is insanely popular where you buy x number of balls, play the game to win more balls, then when you're done you can exchange the balls for prizes... but then you take those prizes to a nearby 'absolutely under no-circumstances affiliated with the pachinko arcade in any way' store which will buy those prizes from you. It wouldn't surprise me if these worked in a similar way. You're gambling with credits for fun or prizes, which you can then exchange for the cash in some 'legal' way.
That is an absolutely incredible display for 1991. Vivid colours, no ghosting... was this an early active matrix TFT or something?! I didn't even know they HAD LCD screens that good back then; I'm impressed.
I remember years ago in Poland the the law changed and stopped the machines pay out money without a licence (they would still take money in as a payment for the game), they way around it was to replace the coin hopper with a board pretending to be a coin hopper, once a player was ready for a pay out they would call a member of staff to get paid and clear the counter on the machine, I think the pay out button was replaced with a key so only a member of staff could use it after paying out.
The ultimate consumer society statement "I'm not sure what I've bought". Appreciate your content, love it. It looks like a neat hobby. I hope you enjoy it. It looks like you do.
So brave of them to call the company j-cock xD The sounds are so cool...I wish there was a slot machine like that :) I could give it as a present to one of my friends, lol
I'm finding it more and more halarious when you pull out that Swiss army "knife" with enough "tools" to maintain the entire Swiss armed forces, just to open a cardboard box.......it has a certain Monty Python surrealist feel to it! Is this going to be your new lead in to your videos from now on? LOL!!
It's like a super advanced version of the Milton Bradley Microvision where the controls are on the game cartridge and the display is part of the main unit. The difference with the Microvision is each cartridge had almost all of the electronics in it, including the processor. The display was mostly just the display.
I still know bars running similar devices in similar ways. If you see "free" gambling machines, you can often ask the establishment for the payout version, and thereby running the actual gambling in paralell, but not on the device itself. It clears you of half the laws against gambling devices.
Not gonna lie, pretty excited about the merch and of course the one with the EQ meter and VUE meter and Nixie clock made me chuckle. True Techmoan gear 🤣🤣
At the same time I was using a massive NiCd video camera battery (it actually came with my mom's Tandy car phone) to run the 9V of juice into my Sega Game Gear because otherwise you only got an hour or two off of 6 AA batteries. There were no dollar store batteries back then that I knew of. They were all worth like $10 for a pack of 4 IIRC. They weren't cheap anyway. So yeah in order to *really* have a rechargable console, you needed a big NiCd battery back then. (Even the official NiCd GG battery was pretty big. It was a separate brick you had to carry around.) BTW of course I soldered and wired up the video camera battery myself. Yes I was like... 10 at the time.
I had the official Game Gear battery pack and it was sure a great thing for car trips or just being plugged into the cigarette lighter, but that was not always available if we were using the CD player. Since of course said era was also the one where only a Discman(or well the knockoff from KOSS) was how you played CDs in a Plymouth Voyager
Had also the official Game Gear Battery Pack. By the time I had a Game Gear (early ~90s), the Pack was available here around in Europe (~1991) and buying it was a total no-brainer given the power consumption of the device. Probably why I was always happy with my device and never understood the backlash that it seems to have now on the internet: Seems to me that the battery consumption was the main drawback that irritated other owners of the system and made it infamous. People like me that immediately invested in a Battery Pack never had this problem to begin with. (Roughly similar to today's situation where a power bank is a must-have for a portable device like the Nintendo Switch. Except by now owning a chargeable power storage has already been normalized thanks to power guzzling iPhones, so by now everyone has already one and nobody complains about it). So given that this video's (?SuperGrafx?) console derivative is roughly contemporaneous (1991, too), it makes totally sense that they too will rely on chargeable batteries.
It's a well-known fact that computer-based randomizers aren't that random. The randomness very much depends on the algorithm the programmer chooses to use. If you use a sloppy randomizing algorithm, you can end up with unintentional patterns. Assuming that the CPU is in the main machine and not on the cartridge, if you pull this cartridge out and put in another machine, you could very well end up with a different position being favorable more often. This is a lesson I learned back in the early 90s in one of my computer programming courses.
@@Cherijo78 Seems to me that a gambling machine is one of the last places that you want a poor-quality RNG. If it's bad enough that good cards keep landing in position 2, there's no way gamblers wouldn't notice other quirks they could exploit to win more.
Before I watch your video, I just want to say that your content has been an Oasis , first from the covid situation and now the War in Ukraine. Our heads are banging with all that, and while we know how important those events are, we come here for a bit of a relief, for comfort, to relax and enjoy the little but important things in life.
Fascinating. One thing you didn't cover - the two buttons or contacts near the keyswitch on the right hand side. Can see that they're wired in to something on the inside view (12:51). They could easily be another mod - perhaps they increase or decrease the credit count while the key is being turned, so you don't have to repeatedly turn the key to bump the credits?
Fascinating device, I love obscure old gaming systems like this. I think you've nailed it that this would some kind of pay up front and rent deal then you'd exchange your winnings for tokens.
It was my late grandfather’s favorite vice - that and tons of black coffee throughout the day. I remember spending a week or two with him in Reno when I was a kid; we got into the city late, and we were both hungry. We stopped at not a standard restaurant, but the (now closed) Silver Club in Sparks… and now that I’m older and wiser, I understand why: it was so he could play video poker for a bit while we waited for their buffet to have a table ready for us!
I remember when Pachislo machines used to cost around 175-200 USD around 5 -10 years ago. They have recently skyrocketed in price...wish I had bought a few when they were affordable.
Natasha Shuell's 'Addiction by Design' had multiple off-hand references to video poker handhelds in Nevada in the late 80s/early 90s I had trouble visualising or finding any info on - must have been something very similar to this (or just this same thing rebranded).
Having spent 4 years living in Japan, gambling while sitting at a bar is verrrrry commonplace. And with virtually every other family in Japan owning a bar, the need for little poker consoles like this is big. Or, at least it was in the late 80s, when I lived there. The mamasan would be the keyholder--and all the cash would go through her. Gambling is strictly illegal in Japan. But everyone still gambles. Pachinko parlors are HUGE there. The cops take their bribes to look the other way.
circumventing illegality by creating specific device to throw the blame on 'new' system in case they're getting caught, and there's an industry that shady business can cooperate with to make it. cyberpunk as hell.
To be fair, that is the way pinball was invented as well. It started out as a 'gambling' device with payout but when it was deemed illegal, all pinball machines moved to score-tracking and labeled as 'entertainment device only'.
I've got pinball and slot machines. If you want something cheap and old look into the bagatelle ones they used in bars etc. when pinball was banned. Usually they are small and wooden so they can be passed around and hidden away easily. Not electronic but something you might want in your gambling collection. I've managed to find a few. Unfortunately most haven't survived to today.
Been to Japan and @Techmoan was almost fully right on how this was used. Due o Japan's laws on gambling cash can't be used to gamble or paid out. Places like cafes, karaoke restaurant/bar and such would have these games for you to "rent". You would pay 2,000 Yen and they would give you the game to play with a set amount of credits. If you ran out of credits, you would give it back, and could pay to "rent" the game again. If you were done with the game and you still had credits left, you could pick a prize that equalled to the amount of credits you had. The Prizes would range from dollar store items, DVDs, video games, vouchers to hotels or restaurant and so on. Depending on the place, if your score was so high they would give you a marker chip. At which if you took the marker chip to a "secret place", and they would give you money for the marker chip... Not that I know anything about this. 🙃
Given the decent viewing angles, and the fact I couldn't see any fade what-so-ever at any angle, I was thinking it must be plasma, TFT LCD's, which is all that was available back then, had horrible viewing angles, if it's not a plasma then honestly I'm stumped because I've never come across such a well performing LCD pre-2000.
Three big differences: size, power and cost. Seems if you didn't mind a bigger backlight and light spreader, higher power consumption, and more expensive parts, TFT LCDs could look like this in the early '90s. It's also a fairly small screen. Practically every consumer device wanted a large, thin screen (laptops) or a small, thin screen (handhelds); and either way it had to be low cost and low power consumption. This is more of a tabletop gadget so it was fine if it was chunky, the screen only had to be big enough to see the game clearly, and a higher price is fine when it'll probably pay for itself in less than a week.
I think the screen of the original gameboy was intentionally “bad” for the time, since they heavily favoured playtime over graphics. But this colour screen does still look really good for 1991!
@@tyaty I did see that yes, I was still really surprised at how good it looked, specs get mislabelled in manuals from time to time, but on further research it seems that in 1991, if high enough quality parts were used, and a little thickness was ok, then a small LCD like this can look as good as the one in the video, that's mostly the reason why the viewing angles are so good contrary to every other TN I've come across, the fact it's so small.
*There’s a bit more information about this video in the video description.* 🔝👍
Okay. With a device name like THAT, I simply CANNOT afford to miss this video.
@@MountainHomeJerrel yeah i love that name
It didn't turn to dust
That lock on the side...
You give the money to the operator, then the operator uses the key to give you credits for you money.
Those buttons on the front are there for servicing and testing.
Everything is locked tight so people can't give them selfs credits or kess with the machine.
I bet that thing would be placed in some bars or wherever allowed.
@@MountainHomeJerrel Device name... and this channel's name. I mean... Techmoan's J.Cock.
This device was used on charter tourist flights from Tokyo to Las Vegas in the period from 1992 to 1995. Namely, several travel agencies had this offer, for the weekend the Japanese would board a plane and go to Las Vegas, and as soon as they arrived in the US airspace they could start their weekend gambling, getting these devices from agency staff who accompanied the trip.
That's so cool!!!
Makes so much more sense that they where used when traveling out of Japan.
That is kind of sad, you allow them to begin gambling on the way to Las Vegas.
That’s perfect.
Tried to find anything about it and it just draws a blank. Makes fully sense that this is outside of japan gambling …
This is not the video I was expecting when I searched for “New Wave J. Cock”.
Still interesting though; 7/10 would recommend.
OMG "New Wave J. Cock" - sounds hilariously childish and sexual LMAOjejbebdhdsjiajwkwkejdbfhfhhdhdjdjejjejenrbfbf
"A pair of Queens and one of them is flashing"....ooer
Oh Jesus! Haha
My previous reply seems to have been deleted, but these comments are hilarious.
srsly? That was your query?
Also, I'm pretty sure it's based on the PC Engine hardware. At first, seeing the slot for the packs made me go "Hey, this looks like the expansion bus on the PC Engine!", then the screen, which looks like the same model used by the PC Engine LT. And finally, seeing the shape of the chips with this 60, 70, and 80 inscriptions was my final clue: They're the HuC6260, HuC6270, and HuC6280! - With the inscriptions erased prolly because NEC/Hudson didn't want to be publically associated with gambling.
Obviously I might be talking out of my bum but I'm 99% sure it's based on PC Engine hardware
It does kinda look like that, plus the scratched out chip inscriptions are kind of shaped to cover where the Hudson bee would have been. Also, with two "70" chips, wouldn't that make it more like a SuperGrafx? (Which seems kind of overkill for a gambling machine...) edit: Actually... that may be the case, there's also an "02" chip there, aka the HuC6202 that combines the two 6270s on the SuperGrafx!
@@MrKsoft It does make sense! Now I just wonder if I could stick this poker pack in my SuperGrafx and make it boot
Yes, I was going to make this comment myself. Looked very much like PC-Engine... and that in-game font: very much what Compile (or SIMS) used in their SMS and PC-E games.
@@vectrex28 I am wondering what's in that cartridge. I'm not really an EE type, but I didn't think that the controllers were exposed on the expansion bus so I am wondering if signals were moved around so that the controls could be on the cartidge. Also the audio on this thing seems oddly primitive (sounds like an SN76489, or an AY-3-8910) so I am curious if it even uses the PCE's audio at all... or if they just did that lazy of a job.
@@MrKsoft I'm not familiar with the PC Engine specifically, but moving the controls to the cartridge probably wouldn't be harder than doing some simple memory mapping internally in the cartridge. It's also the more flexible option when compared to having some pre-defined controller scheme. The original PC Engine only had 8 buttons (directionals+2+2) and some of these games might want to use more than that.
Also, I imagine these weren't optimized for cost of production (being not marketed at kids) so the cartridge could contain a lot of game-specific hardware not normally found in PC Engine games. They took a well-known, robust architecture off the shelf to avoid the development costs, then just stuck hardware in the cartridge until it did what they needed. Kind of like how modern gambling machines could probably run Call of Duty, but they are used to animate poker cards.
The most clever idea is that the buttons are on the cartridge, so you can get game-specific keys with each game. Much better than having all-purpose controls that are hard to navigate.
Also, you get just to buy or rent a single cluster of the same machine. No need to get several games: you swap carts in and out, and it's far less expensive
"Just thought you might want to see that.... you might not, but it's a bit late for that because the video has been made and you should have bailed a bit earlier than this bit."
How can you not love the Techmoan?
I haven't played that model/brand, but I do remember in the mid 90's while living in Nevada that some bars had devices like these at the bar. There were the standard size ones as well, but these portable ones were there to bring to the table to play. I played that particular game mode quite a bit at the time.
You do strike me as a man who likes to play with his j-cock
@@BROTRRer If you have a J-cock, there is help for Peyronie's disease..
Perhaps, instead of just playing with your J. Cock, TechMoan can help you out and let you use his Pachi Slot?
What a dope business idea
Yea, I came here to comment on why the speakers were so big, for this reason. These were meant to be played in a loud environment, and on top of that, when you win big, the bar wants the other tables around you to hear it.
Whenever I see these rare and obsolete devices I think about the months of design and manufacturing that went into them, and how they probably hoped they were going to be hugely popular. There's probably some old Japanese guy somewhere mumbling drunkenly in karaoke bars telling people he designed the J.Cock.
A very clever device. Love how the buttons are on the cartridge itself so the different games can have different controls. Also the screen looked surprisingly bright and colourful for an early-90's device 😀
The less clever part is how everything is hidden and protected by keys ... but the power is a simple barrel connector. One yank and you lose all your credits.
@@8BitNaptime But you forgot about the battery that Techmoan doesn't have. it is not powered "just" by barrel connector.
@@tiemanowo Ah yes that makes sense.
@@8BitNaptime I could imagine LockPickingLawyer opening this!
@@whitesapphire5865 Yes, I see J-Cock thought of everything!
Shout out to the previous owner for including so much documentation to help you decipher this thing
That Swiss army knife is ridiculous . It's got so much on it you need a cart to pull it along after you because it no longer will fit in a pocket. I always enjoy your videos Mat and look forward to the next Techmoan 👍
I remember seeing it on thinkgeek years ago.
Which is why the included a cart as one of its features. They thought of everything
That was weird flex
Is this the first time the knife appeared on camera? I remember wanting to get one of these when it first came out simply because of how ridiculous actually using it would be
That was the same thing I took away. I have never seen a Swiss Army grip quite like that.
Most bars in the state of Wisconsin have three or four slot machines (having five or more is a felony but less than five is a misdemeanor technically punishable by a fine if anyone cared to do so.) Those slot machines are labeled as being "for entertainment purposes only". That is, you put your money in for the pure joy of driving up the number of credits with no expectation of a payout. Good clean family fun!
In theory, a bartender could come up and count the on screen credits before you end your game, record them on a piece of paper for no reason, and then you both go on your merry way. Then you could, theoretically, come back the next day to collect an unmarked envelope full of cash, which they give to you as a fun gift that's 100% unrelated to whatever you did the previous night.
The Japanese may have had similar fun with these pretend gambling machines.
AFAIK is even simpler than that.
Theoretically you can't win money, but also theoretically no one forbids the bartender or shop keeper to hand you pretty gifts because you were so lucky.
I mean, you can't gamble for money, but a funny and wholesome competition in which if you get a certain amount of points in a funny and whole some competition someone hands you a trinket isn't just funny?
You can then sell the trinket for cold and hard cash. It's your trinket afterall.
And if you find a pawn shop really close, I mean *really close*, isn't that a lucky thing?
The Japanese did one better with Pachinko, though. Imagine if you will, basically putting in money to win tokens that you can exchange at a separate establishment next door for cash and/or prizes.
More obscure gaming handhelds would be awesome!
Yes! I love this kind of stuff!
Stop skeletons from fighting just covered the obscure Brazilian console called the zeebo. You should check it out. Derek always does good work 👍
There's a few channels that cover these!
@@fakeshemp9599 and Top Hat Gaming Man has covered obscure handhelds like the MegaDuck and the Supervision.
@@SockyNoob Ashens is really into retro gaming tech, crappy handhelds, and atrociously bad games in general.
The key on the side is probably a standard feature - it would enable the bartender in your story to bump the credits by a standard amount without opening up the front and fiddling with the little buttons. The bartender takes the machine (and cash) from the customer, pulls the key out of his pocket, turns it the appropriate number of times, and hands the machine back to the customer.
The chap selling it did mention it as a modification from the standard spec done by the previous owner to him, but I’ve no idea if this is correct without buying another one.
@@Techmoan Ah, cool. Definitely something the original product should have included.
@@Techmoan Perhaps the disabling of the tamper feature is the mod? I could see a tamper feature like, the machine locks up whenever the cover is opened until the credits are redeemed/reset. That would be quite annoying for a home user, but pretty effective for a bar to avoid tomfoolery.
Here is the relevant text information from the auction listing:
1）動作確認済 ポーカー 機器
本体 1
鍵 2×3（ クレジット 難易度変更 ソフト 変更 ）
アダプター （ 前オーナー が、アダプタ新品をつけてくれ、純正品 情報もくれました ）
説明書 コピー
クレジット キー を回して、 コイン イン 代わりに クレジット にて ポーカーを電源があればどこでもゲーセン化できます
バーやお店のオブジェクトに良いかと思います
ソフト が交換できるタイプですので、他のソフトがあるのかは不明ですが、面白いと思います
@@Techmoan Does the original machine even have that key switch and the buttons, or were they added by that particular owner? I suspect the anti-tamper feature works in a way that it resets the credits to zero when you open the front by picking the lock (making the whole endeavor useless) but when you turn that particular key on the side, the game is frozen and the credits can be redeemed if the front is opened. That would mean you'd need two different keys, and picking the side lock would only appear the game to freeze up, which is enough of a deterrent for unsuspecting scam artists to not try it.
That LCD screen looks really good for 1991.
This is pretty interesting. Most forms of gambling in Japan are generally banned with a few exceptions. Horse racing, motor sports and there is also a Lottery. But there are also a few activities that fall into a gray area. Pachinko in Japan pays out in balls that can be exchanged for small gifts. Those gifts can be exchanged at a separate facility for cash. I imagine this worked in a similar fashion. This device could be loaded and if you won big it cold be returned to the host and exchanged for a prize. That prize could be sold to an associated shop for money. That's my guess any way.
Yes I’ve previously made a short video about pachinko - the link to that is at the bottom of the paragraph in the video description.
Does that include virtual money games on devices?
@@Tim_3100 virtual or token money gambling is just playing for points, that's legal, hence the pachinko switcharound.
technically they could at any time start busting up the pachinko places by just showing how the money changes between the pachinko place and the money changers, they just wont because it's cultural(and yakuza whatever). japanese are weird like that, strict but with exceptions.
@@Tim_3100 you mean gacha games?
I'm thinking it's likely this wasn't taken home but rather handed out at hostess clubs.
Techmoan merch, so folks with these shirts can recognise each other and confirm they have seen Mat's Jcock.
I had to pause as the name of the device and the ‘I don’t want to search for that’ made me howl with laughter. Another Saturday treat, thanks Mat 😂
Mrs. Techmoan would certainly have a fit seeing that in the search results! 😉
He should search "Jcock Poker" instead 😉
The result of this search would be images with some pixelated part.
I think I'm about your age and every time I watch one of your videos, I get this 'déjà vu' feeling. I couldn't place it initially, but it recently all came back: Your videos have a very 'Tomorrow's World"-like feel. It was a BBC show I used to watch as a teenager....(If I remember well: Thursdays after Top of the pops and was later moved to Fridays)
Anyway, just to say, love your show
Regards
I love the way he huffs and puffs when looking at items.
You are dead correct about the way they were used. You would get them at hostess bars in The more seedy areas of Tokyo. You'd pay your girl and she would come back with the machine and she'd come back with the money when u were done. And if u won too much you get thrown a beating and told not come back
i thaught gambling for money whas not alowed in japan? thats why pachinko uses tickets to pay you out. would that also be the case whit these mashines?
@@floortjetjeertes3898 Emphasis on "seedy". This sounds like it would be in use in the early 80's before the bubble burst. The yakuza were a much stronger and more present force then and could get away with a lot more.
@@floortjetjeertes3898 There's very much a "look the other way" perspective on a lot of gambling in Japan. In pachinko parlors, you can use your winnings on a worthless prize, then take that 'prize' around the corner to a window that'll pay you real money for it.
It's a way for the authorities to only have to enforce it when they actually want to prosecute someone and they can't make any other charges stick.
@@whompronnie this is also the way a gambling parlor in the Pokemon Gameboy games works 😂 at the time I had no idea, but it's fascinating to know the reason behind the separate prize shop in the games.
I agree about the last part. Some things are universal, and being "too lucky" in a casino is one of them.
Those sound effects are *chef's kiss* - absolutely iconic.
I used to work in the adult gaming industry and this type of poker game was/is very popular in the arcades we serviced over in Northern Ireland but as a full sit-at cabinet with coin/note accepters and dispensers.
I can see how this unit would work as a supplemental entertainment at a bingo hall or pop-up type event in the UK, as we're not so hot on Karaoke bars here :)
J. Cock is perfect for the adult gaming industry.
This is one of my top watched channels. Thank you for all your effort in finding all these unique pieces of history and I’m a huge fan of your audio set up for music.
I love the fact you can't say the name without giggling! :D
Their logo is equally suggestive. That has to be deliberate! lol!
My inner 12-year old _so so badly_ wants to make a supercut of Mr. Moan saying 'J-Cock'...
Now it's deep dive time to find other cartridges for the unit. I'd be interested in its range of games.
yea really would like to see a follow-up video then !
I'm not sure what I was thinking. I did a Web search and now I know which Hollywood stars are packing. I need help bleeching my memory now.
@@NicolaiDufva Johnny Depp was one right? and that chick that played Thor..Chris Hemsworth.
@@NicolaiDufva yeah, I wasn't dropping that onto Google without a bit of VPN and incognito.
Yeah I'm on work WiFi right now. Not gonna risk it, haha. But I'll give it a goog later. I will report back on the results!
New wave Jcock. It’s the music genre that will soon be sweeping the nation!
I really enjoyed these videos. I am an electrical engineer and have been for 25 years. I really enjoy seeing how far we have come with technology. And seeing some of the things I have worked on in the past.
Keep up the good work. Brad from across the pond.
Considering it appears to be aimed at the Japanese market, I wonder why all the controls etc. are in English - seems like this would limit the market
The japanese seem to have a certain fascination about the english language, and some japanese games have UI elements in english
a lot of japanese only tech has instructions in english
I feel like the software could have made its way overseas in casinos
Maybe the screen is too low res to display Japanese characters well?
This is actually pretty common, Japanese uses a lot of loan words for tech and gaming stuff and most Japanese people can read enough English to understand simple things like this. Could also have been they wanted to try and sell it overseas too since it's completely in English rather than written using katakana.
Very impressive for 1991, this feels like a mid 2000's kind of thing by the screen resolution and sharpness alone.
I like how this is in incredibly good condition too.
Yeah compared to the crap washed out screens in 99% of handhelds and even laptops this looks very sharp and vivid.
Yeah, but the casing design clearly screaming early 90s portable stuff.
@@manchesterunitedno7 lol yeah, totally does
"I don't know if I want to search for that online!" That made me laugh out loud, despite the fact that the same thought had occurred to me!
Gotta love how the game cartdrige looks like a VHS tape, with the plastic welded case and the sticker label. You always find something we've never seen before, thank you for sharing it Mat!
The cartridge serving as interface/controls itself just blew my mind - to me that’s the most peculiar thing about this device!
…well, after how people in Japan is trustworthy of taking away a device that can “generate” money by opening a very low-security lock underneath 🤔
I wonder if there is any indication the “Bar-man” could check that the front panel was opened (a counter, a flag… a timestamp since the last time it was opened…). It doesn’t need to be impossible to be opened - it just needs to be impossible to not know when it was 😁
Yes there’s a tamper feature mentioned in the instructions - but it appears that it’s been disabled on mine..or it doesn’t work.
I remember ashens did some videos on a handheld where the controlls were part of the cartridge
I bet a good lockpicking would not be considered as "tamper". That's how LPL became rich!
@@bluehampar that’s very interesting! I would like to see that! Do you have the link?
@@cheeseparis1 ha ha, yeah! But for the purpose of this device to operate as a gambling machine, the “bar man” needs to know if the machine remained closed - so, there is no problem if someone is able to open the device (lock picking or with a key)… it just needs to properly “zero” the credits when it happens. Such mechanism must be impossible (or very hard) to be tampered.
Sometimes I'm interested in the thing you're showing and sometimes I'm not (such as this time) but you're always funny and always worth watching.
The flipperless gambling-oriented pinball machines in the mid-20th century worked almost the same way--they took coins but there was no payout mechanism, but they would accumulate a lot of "replay" credits, and you could show that number to the bartender and they'd pay out and use the hidden button that took the credits off the machine. That was why gambling regs in many places prohibited pinball machines from giving out replays, so the companies had alternate versions that didn't (these days it's just an operator setting).
It's also why pinball machines were banned outright in many places for a long time.
Thoses machines are still widely spread in Belgium in most bars with the newer technologies which is now a total Gambling machine (regulated, etc).
@@thesledgehammerblog Some places just tried to ban the ones that were obviously for gambling, and there was this bizarre dance where manufacturers would skirt the regs in various ways.
So, for instance, they'd ban "single-ball" machines where you got one ball per credit, because the bingo pinballs were like that. But the manufacturers would then give you five balls for a credit, but the way to play was to have a token "skill lane" that you could shoot four of the five balls into by just pulling the plunger all the way back, and then the fifth one would be for the actual gambling game.
I think you chose the most comedic possible instrument to open up the box with - it's so big!
This device is fascinating. I had an LCD active matrix TV in 1991 and it cost an absolute fortune. The game devices cited (Lynx, etc) all had terrible passive screens, so the J.Cock device really stands on its own.
Also, gambling for money is illegal in Japan. Chances are a patron would pay for points, and those points would be loaded onto the machine. Any winnings would never be paid in cash, but in token prizes. Those prizes are then taken to a separate building to be converted into cash. Clever way to get around the gambling ban.
I can attest that "blowing your friends minds" by informing them of the J-Cock handheld gaming console is a goes down great at a party.
What a fascinating bit of kit... thanks for making this wonderful video!
Techmoan "I buy weird crap so you don't have to."
Thank you for this invaluable and entertaining service.
Looking at the software, I think this is a case of not the machine being made to play different kinds of games, but rather the software being compatible with different kinds of gambling machines. There were probably proper sized machines with coin slots this game could be inserted into, and then it could be put into this small device for scenarios where you couldn't have a large console, and I think I know the use case for this particular device: Capsule hotels.
As someone who has stayed at several capsule hotels, there are usually amenities built into or attached to the capsule itself such as a portable TV or a clock radio, and others that you can rent at the front desk to use in your capsule. I could see the scenario where a business man wants to gamble on a business trip, but doesn't want to head to a pachinko parlor, so instead rents one of these and cashes out as he checks out in the morning.
I am utterly fascinated by stuff like this, then the name pops back into my head and I'm a child.
"There's no way to fiddle this without breaking it open"
"This is the lockpicking lawyer, and today-"
This is hands down one of the best channels on youtube.
"'J Cock'... yeah, I don't know if I wanna search for that online"
I really like your sense of humour!
So I come home, put on YT and what do I see on my feed? Techmoan standing there, J. Cock in hand. Brilliant
This brings back memories auf a transatlantic flight I took with American Airlines in 1987 (as a 10 year old). In the aircraft, you could swipe your credit card through a machine which would then release a similar handheld videogame device. You could take the device to your seat and play Frogger and maybe PacMan on it.
You are correct about how they were used. I actually played on one of these in a sports bar in Texas in the mid '90s.
Hard to believe how unused that machine appears for being a 1991 production.
Japan has some 'creative' loopholes around gambling.
For example, Pachinko is insanely popular where you buy x number of balls, play the game to win more balls, then when you're done you can exchange the balls for prizes... but then you take those prizes to a nearby 'absolutely under no-circumstances affiliated with the pachinko arcade in any way' store which will buy those prizes from you.
It wouldn't surprise me if these worked in a similar way. You're gambling with credits for fun or prizes, which you can then exchange for the cash in some 'legal' way.
That is an absolutely incredible display for 1991. Vivid colours, no ghosting... was this an early active matrix TFT or something?! I didn't even know they HAD LCD screens that good back then; I'm impressed.
Someone had to do it, so I did the search and nothing untoward (dodgy) came up. Great video once again Matt.
Thanks for featuring the sounds of that machine (button presses, etc.). I hope that continues to be a thing on this channel.
You can blow your friends mind with the Jcok
Honestly, for 1991, that is an incredible bit of kit. That screen is extremely clear and crisp, considering the era.
I'd like to see a video on your Swiss pocket knife! I got a little distracted by it. Obviously the perfect utility knife for Techmoan!
old tech is always fascinating
Very interesting device there. Everytime that pocket knife comes out I grin 😁😁 Thanks for the video
Same here 😅
"That's not a knife, ... that's a knife"
This video has so many locks and keys in it I was half expecting the lockpickinglawyer to show up in the middle.
Nice click out of One. Two is binding. Three is set... Aaand we got this open.
I remember years ago in Poland the the law changed and stopped the machines pay out money without a licence (they would still take money in as a payment for the game), they way around it was to replace the coin hopper with a board pretending to be a coin hopper, once a player was ready for a pay out they would call a member of staff to get paid and clear the counter on the machine, I think the pay out button was replaced with a key so only a member of staff could use it after paying out.
The ultimate consumer society statement "I'm not sure what I've bought". Appreciate your content, love it. It looks like a neat hobby. I hope you enjoy it. It looks like you do.
Definitely looks specifically designed to skirt gambling laws, I love it.
Great video of Techmoan talking about his JCock.
So brave of them to call the company j-cock xD
The sounds are so cool...I wish there was a slot machine like that :) I could give it as a present to one of my friends, lol
with truly the utmost sincerity: I believe the thumbnail you've constructed here is a masterpiece m8
Praise FSM, I needed a new video from you this morning to take my mind off this utterly fucked world.
Keep up the fantastic work!
This little thing is endlessly intriguing.
Just want to say thanks for another great video. I love the weekly release schedule.
Aside from all the locks an keys, the quality of the build and the pc board puts this in the real money business category.
That Swiss knife deserves a channel all to itself…
this is the most 80's fever dream William Gibson cyber punk nonsense I've ever seen. I love it.
I'm finding it more and more halarious when you pull out that Swiss army "knife" with enough "tools" to maintain the entire Swiss armed forces, just to open a cardboard box.......it has a certain Monty Python surrealist feel to it! Is this going to be your new lead in to your videos from now on? LOL!!
It's like a super advanced version of the Milton Bradley Microvision where the controls are on the game cartridge and the display is part of the main unit. The difference with the Microvision is each cartridge had almost all of the electronics in it, including the processor. The display was mostly just the display.
That was terrific, an incredibly interesting well made video. Thoroughly enjoyed that.
I still know bars running similar devices in similar ways. If you see "free" gambling machines, you can often ask the establishment for the payout version, and thereby running the actual gambling in paralell, but not on the device itself. It clears you of half the laws against gambling devices.
That Swiss Army knife is almost bigger than the console!
At this size I'd call it a swiss civilization knife...
Not gonna lie, pretty excited about the merch and of course the one with the EQ meter and VUE meter and Nixie clock made me chuckle. True Techmoan gear 🤣🤣
At the same time I was using a massive NiCd video camera battery (it actually came with my mom's Tandy car phone) to run the 9V of juice into my Sega Game Gear because otherwise you only got an hour or two off of 6 AA batteries. There were no dollar store batteries back then that I knew of. They were all worth like $10 for a pack of 4 IIRC. They weren't cheap anyway. So yeah in order to *really* have a rechargable console, you needed a big NiCd battery back then. (Even the official NiCd GG battery was pretty big. It was a separate brick you had to carry around.)
BTW of course I soldered and wired up the video camera battery myself. Yes I was like... 10 at the time.
I had the official Game Gear battery pack and it was sure a great thing for car trips or just being plugged into the cigarette lighter, but that was not always available if we were using the CD player. Since of course said era was also the one where only a Discman(or well the knockoff from KOSS) was how you played CDs in a Plymouth Voyager
Had also the official Game Gear Battery Pack. By the time I had a Game Gear (early ~90s), the Pack was available here around in Europe (~1991) and buying it was a total no-brainer given the power consumption of the device.
Probably why I was always happy with my device and never understood the backlash that it seems to have now on the internet: Seems to me that the battery consumption was the main drawback that irritated other owners of the system and made it infamous. People like me that immediately invested in a Battery Pack never had this problem to begin with.
(Roughly similar to today's situation where a power bank is a must-have for a portable device like the Nintendo Switch. Except by now owning a chargeable power storage has already been normalized thanks to power guzzling iPhones, so by now everyone has already one and nobody complains about it).
So given that this video's (?SuperGrafx?) console derivative is roughly contemporaneous (1991, too), it makes totally sense that they too will rely on chargeable batteries.
Great video! It's everytime nice to see something unseen from history! 👍
This machine looks pretty good designed!
I can say I have never seen that before, which is something true to many of the devices you show on here.
the reel to reel shirt looks brilliant
Interesting that the wear on the hold buttons seems to be so very different. Card 2 seems to be worth holding rather often, looking at those.
Or, someone's superstition has them always hold the second card
@@ZiggyTheHamster Or their reach, if none of the cards are particularly worth holding.
It's a well-known fact that computer-based randomizers aren't that random. The randomness very much depends on the algorithm the programmer chooses to use. If you use a sloppy randomizing algorithm, you can end up with unintentional patterns.
Assuming that the CPU is in the main machine and not on the cartridge, if you pull this cartridge out and put in another machine, you could very well end up with a different position being favorable more often. This is a lesson I learned back in the early 90s in one of my computer programming courses.
@@Cherijo78 Do I smell a code geek war story? Because I do love a good code geek war story.
@@Cherijo78 Seems to me that a gambling machine is one of the last places that you want a poor-quality RNG. If it's bad enough that good cards keep landing in position 2, there's no way gamblers wouldn't notice other quirks they could exploit to win more.
Before I watch your video, I just want to say that your content has been an Oasis , first from the covid situation and now the War in Ukraine. Our heads are banging with all that, and while we know how important those events are, we come here for a bit of a relief, for comfort, to relax and enjoy the little but important things in life.
Fascinating. One thing you didn't cover - the two buttons or contacts near the keyswitch on the right hand side. Can see that they're wired in to something on the inside view (12:51). They could easily be another mod - perhaps they increase or decrease the credit count while the key is being turned, so you don't have to repeatedly turn the key to bump the credits?
Looks like it's not a mod, its wired directly to the cart interface.
Fascinating device, I love obscure old gaming systems like this. I think you've nailed it that this would some kind of pay up front and rent deal then you'd exchange your winnings for tokens.
All this video reminds me is that video poker is actually incredibly addictive.
Good thing? No? No, not really.
@@goeland4585 I never said it was. Just that it is, indeed, addictive.
@@ThePageofCups that it is. :p
It was my late grandfather’s favorite vice - that and tons of black coffee throughout the day. I remember spending a week or two with him in Reno when I was a kid; we got into the city late, and we were both hungry. We stopped at not a standard restaurant, but the (now closed) Silver Club in Sparks… and now that I’m older and wiser, I understand why: it was so he could play video poker for a bit while we waited for their buffet to have a table ready for us!
I remember when Pachislo machines used to cost around 175-200 USD around 5 -10 years ago. They have recently skyrocketed in price...wish I had bought a few when they were affordable.
Natasha Shuell's 'Addiction by Design' had multiple off-hand references to video poker handhelds in Nevada in the late 80s/early 90s I had trouble visualising or finding any info on - must have been something very similar to this (or just this same thing rebranded).
When you mentioned the name of the device I tried not to laugh, but when you did I couldn't hold it anymore 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Having spent 4 years living in Japan, gambling while sitting at a bar is verrrrry commonplace. And with virtually every other family in Japan owning a bar, the need for little poker consoles like this is big. Or, at least it was in the late 80s, when I lived there. The mamasan would be the keyholder--and all the cash would go through her. Gambling is strictly illegal in Japan. But everyone still gambles. Pachinko parlors are HUGE there. The cops take their bribes to look the other way.
The display on this looks much better than any other portable game system available in 1991, it looks great even today.
circumventing illegality by creating specific device to throw the blame on 'new' system in case they're getting caught, and there's an industry that shady business can cooperate with to make it. cyberpunk as hell.
To be fair, that is the way pinball was invented as well. It started out as a 'gambling' device with payout but when it was deemed illegal, all pinball machines moved to score-tracking and labeled as 'entertainment device only'.
How delightfully obscure. You never fail to deliver my dude.
I've got pinball and slot machines. If you want something cheap and old look into the bagatelle ones they used in bars etc. when pinball was banned. Usually they are small and wooden so they can be passed around and hidden away easily. Not electronic but something you might want in your gambling collection. I've managed to find a few. Unfortunately most haven't survived to today.
This video will contribute some nice additions to my Techmoan soundboard.
Been to Japan and @Techmoan was almost fully right on how this was used. Due o Japan's laws on gambling cash can't be used to gamble or paid out.
Places like cafes, karaoke restaurant/bar and such would have these games for you to "rent". You would pay 2,000 Yen and they would give you the game to play with a set amount of credits. If you ran out of credits, you would give it back, and could pay to "rent" the game again.
If you were done with the game and you still had credits left, you could pick a prize that equalled to the amount of credits you had. The Prizes would range from dollar store items, DVDs, video games, vouchers to hotels or restaurant and so on. Depending on the place, if your score was so high they would give you a marker chip. At which if you took the marker chip to a "secret place", and they would give you money for the marker chip... Not that I know anything about this. 🙃
Ugh, there is nothing on TH-cam to watch... WAIT - Techmoan saves the morning! I love that weird thing!
The LCD looks surprisingly good on this thing, considering it's from the era of the original Gameboy.
Given the decent viewing angles, and the fact I couldn't see any fade what-so-ever at any angle, I was thinking it must be plasma, TFT LCD's, which is all that was available back then, had horrible viewing angles, if it's not a plasma then honestly I'm stumped because I've never come across such a well performing LCD pre-2000.
Three big differences: size, power and cost. Seems if you didn't mind a bigger backlight and light spreader, higher power consumption, and more expensive parts, TFT LCDs could look like this in the early '90s. It's also a fairly small screen. Practically every consumer device wanted a large, thin screen (laptops) or a small, thin screen (handhelds); and either way it had to be low cost and low power consumption. This is more of a tabletop gadget so it was fine if it was chunky, the screen only had to be big enough to see the game clearly, and a higher price is fine when it'll probably pay for itself in less than a week.
I think the screen of the original gameboy was intentionally “bad” for the time, since they heavily favoured playtime over graphics. But this colour screen does still look really good for 1991!
@@Wobble2007
It is an active matrix TN panel TFT LCD, the sepcs were shown in the video.
@@tyaty I did see that yes, I was still really surprised at how good it looked, specs get mislabelled in manuals from time to time, but on further research it seems that in 1991, if high enough quality parts were used, and a little thickness was ok, then a small LCD like this can look as good as the one in the video, that's mostly the reason why the viewing angles are so good contrary to every other TN I've come across, the fact it's so small.
Mat, one of your more interesting videos lately for sure, appreciate the esoteric stuff
Pretty interesting little thing, i guess the fact its cartridge based means there are other games, would love to see if you can get a hold of those.