That's as designed; If you have one keno square lit, 24 squares lit, the visor open with a ball locked...doesn't matter; it resets back to "zero progress" after ANY multiball is played, no matter how it is awarded/earned. Hence why I never intentionally go for slot machine if I have multiball ready, or close to it (as it would be "wasted"), and I'm certainly not trying to cheat it if I accidently do.

Did I ever mention how much I LOVE this game?!?

So I assume it is just starting the “next” multiball but you have to play with two balls? That’s actually a pretty fair tradeoff for not having to risk opening the Visor.

Or maybe another way to look at it is not that the multiballs have a progression but that the Visor opening difficulty is based only on the number of multiballs started.

I am curious if the Slot Machine probabilities take game state (Keno board, score, etc) into account.

Did I ever mention how much I LOVE this game?!?

Agreed, absolutely love how the game forces constant risk/reward tradeoffs. Every single shot is a decision.

Just by LED OCD GI board and the flickering is eliminated.

I just turned off GI dimming in the settings. I believe it stills turns on and off, but no flickering

Checking in to let y'all know that I just did the dirty pool. One helluva light show for a WPC.

For sale, original Babcock dmd and shield that came out of my Jackbot when I switched to a color one. Works great with no dead pixels. $45 with Free shipping in the lower 48. PM me if interested. Thanks, Paul

Does this mean my game was 34th off the line? Did they start at 01?

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Is your game a sample? My guess would be it came off the line on the 34th day of 1995, so early Feb build.

I think the last four digits of the S/N is the production number. Mine is 2062. My build date is so faded I can't really read it, but it looks like maybe 95-262.

It’s an early prototype game with the colored inserts and plain looking blue sign (currently have production version installed)

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And the art on the center flasher insert is different, no blue art on Jackbot's visor, the whole insert is exposed and bare wood around it. And the Casino Run insert is round instead of an arrow?? Yeah this ain't the usual 'early version with the colored keno arrows' deal! Anybody seen one like this before?

Let's see a photo of your serial number sticker.

I can’t find one anywhere. Where is yours located?

Here’s what I do know:

- This was Larry DeMar’s personal game he received from Williams when he designed the game
- It is an “early prototype”

Here are all the dates I can find and pics of some of the rom chips.

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That's quite a find. That early a prototype might have no serial number. Usually there is a large white sticker on the back of the main cabinet, and the same sticker inside the cabinet on the right, that look like the pic below. Also each board in the head will have a smaller sticker with the same number, I don't see any of those on your boards either.

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Super helpful. Nope, no sticker on back or on inside of game.

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Hey when you turn on the game what ROM version does it say? I think the sticker says 1.1H?

Has two extra flashers, under the lock holes. Maybe Pinbot had those too?

Or perhaps all the early versions have those, before they changed to the deeper lock mechs (?)

50051 REV. 1.1H
Sound REV. 1.0
SY. 3.77 8/14/98

And where did those two later-version eye lock hole vuk-type mechs come from? Were they there when you got it or did you change them out?

They came with the machine. Not sure if original or if Larry swapped them at some point?

Umm… Where could I get a copy of that 1.1H?

<<<SY. 3.77 8/14/98>>>

3 years later!

Yea I would love to try that too!

We are going to need a breakdown of 1.1H vs 1.0R.

OP, sorry this burden has been placed upon you, but this is a major development for a largely forgotten 25 year old game like this!

Is this the first time 1.1H game rom has been mentioned? I can’t find anything via a Google search.

Are you saying the programmer updated the game code 3 years after the game was released? Which I believe didn’t happen/was rare since these were location games meant to be forgotten.

Yes sir!

Compared to other games from the WPC era I think Jackbot has one of the best rule sets and balanced scoring. I can't think of any improvements so I am really curious what changes were made. LED wouldn't have taken the time to just fix a couple of barely noticeable bugs on a three year old forgotten game, right?

There’s a couple bugs related to multiball starts, but only during multiplayer games that I can tell…I’d be VERY interested to see what else there is/was, and what was changed.

That said, JB is about the “perfect” tourney game ever…you just have to do “the things”…simple, right?

Have I ever mentioned how much I love this game?

There's supposed to be a bug where sometimes the total bonus is a little less than what it should be once the various bonus subtotals are added together, related to the vortex bonus sometimes resetting to a low number or something. And the weird thing I stumbled upon that sure seems like a bug to me, where if 'max extra balls per play' is set to anything but 'off', it won't light any extra ball lanes when it should but awards 200M instead, which doesn't make sense since. Some other bugs too I read about that are totally unimportant like animation omissions under a few rare certain circumstances.

Maybe the H rom isn't much more than free play only with maybe a few goodies like a pause feature, but I'd love to find out too, even if it's just a report from the game being played and the differences noted.

Yes! Me too

So I need to find someone with an eprom reader, correct? They could then download the image/files off the chip and make it available for everyone to burn their own game rom? Is it just the one game chip?

What game and system version are you guys running? (Shows in test mode)

Stay tuned, I have more info from Larry coming!

Here’s a conversation from this morning with Larry DeMar. Here is what he says about the 1.1H rom and permission to distribute the rom file:

"H" is the Home version. I don't remember Jack*Bot specifically, but it puts the game in "Free Play Only", It probably still shows credits, and there's an "Install Home" preset that changes some other things to my liking (If you factory set, then install-home, then look at which settings aren't at default you'll see what the changes are. Probably something like "Show Time & Date" and "Special scores Extra Ball". It also has a cheat for Casino Run. Push and hold the buy-in button until you hear a sound. Yes, you may distribute it. That is my handwriting on the chip label.

It may also have a later operating system than any Jack*Bot. I used to make builds of new versions for my games to make sure that the new changes didn't brake anything that we weren't focusing on. Actually found a bizarre bug that had been in the system for years that showed up in Twilight Zone on one of my updates.

I suggest that you see if "Install Home" is there, and create a list of the settings that get changed. I'd like to see the list too.

When you go into test mode, the game shows the Game version and the system version. I'd be interested to hear what the system versions were in the 2 versions. I suspect they're not the .01 or .02 apart you may see in regular revisions of a game.”

KICKASS!!!

Everybody Loves Raymond, S4:E23

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That scene had the typical Hollywood pinball shortcuts:
- Robert and the punk both turn the machine on and off, but with a switch on the back of the head instead of under the cabinet
- Game has bells/chimes noises instead of sound effects
- It was in attract mode the whole time; the punk even continues "playing" it in mid-game right after it had just been turned off and back on again. I own a '53 Gtb Poker Face where you can actually do that but after the 50s, forget it!

I'm using the 1.01R U6 made for fixing ghosting of LEDs, sys. 3.46 & sound 1.0. Original U6 in it was 1.0R.

But I must admit I am jealous of the reds on that cabinet. Maybe mine still had that much red back when this episode came out.

My folks told me they were watching ELR and saw Jack-Bot. I didn't believe at first since TV/movies usually de-brand the games, but there it is!

The 'DeMar' game also has a sleeve post + sleeve rubber at the left end of the top target bank instead of a minipost + grommet rubber. Manual specifies grommet and that's what mine and others I looked at have, but don't know if there might be others that came with the sleeve post. There are pics of Pinbots with either one.

Could you please post a pic of the entire playfield? Might be some other differences.

Keep in mind I still need to clean the playfield

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Welcome to the Casino.

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I was eyeballing that proto pf so closely it finally dawned on me that about one inch of the skinny vertical tips on my flipper lane plastics were snapped off, in the exact same place on both so I never noticed it all these years, looked 'normal' I guess. Good thing I bought a plastics set a few months ago for some other cracked plastics. Fixed! But something tells me those tips don't last too long. Although I'll bet they could be and were easily broken off just from cleaning the pf and the cloth getting snagged on them.

Agree. They are just floating above the other red in lane plastics waiting for a rag to snap them off. Lol

I am at over 4000 plays and still only have one slot machine Special.

For those of you with the color DMD.... does yours glitch on the card hand image during Pinbot Poker after a successful cheat? Other than that, the color DMD programming knocked it out of the park. I think it benefited from being one of the less popular and thus later games to get the color treatment.

Regarding plastics... my observation is that most games that haven't received a replacement plastic kit will have a broken casino game plastic. Poor design on that one with the narrow spot right in the center along the rubber. At least some large washers on the post above and below the plastic will keep things playable and looking decent. Second is chipping of the plastic over the eye locks. The narrow tips on the return lane plastic is the final problem spot.

The nieces and nephews were over the other day, and when I went to shut the games off for the night, I noticed JB had a ball in the shooter lane and was still in mid game, so I played it out.

Hit the game saucer a few times but can’t remember the order of the games, upon hitting it for the slot machine, I “think” I may have tapped the xtraball button once or twice, and initially thought I had cheated to instant multiball (based on the font used), but instead it was a “SPECIAL”. Can’t remember the last time I had that, if ever.

4000 plays?? thats crazy! It is a great game though!

I've not seen that glitch when coloring the game but will try again to see if I can reproduce it.

It's my only SS and I've had it a couple of years. Games play quick, so probably averaged 5-10 games per day in the early days. Probably more like 3 games a day now. Thankfully JB has had very little down time so far. I think partly because it is an inherently reliable game but mostly luck.

Just noticed another artwork difference on that 'Demar' prototype, it appears this one is a considerable goof that hadn't been caught yet. On the horizontal artwork along the 5X5 chest lamps that correspond to the colors of the side targets, the two top rows should be yellow, then blue. On the proto it's BLUE first... and then WHITE!

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