Slot Machine (Channel F, 1979)

1979

Entry posted by Mezrabad May 9, 2006

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Sorry for the hiatus, real life and such, yada yada yada.

Slot Machine (Channel F - Zircon, 1979)

Jerry Lawson, the designer of the Channel-F, in a panel discussion at CGE 2004 revealed that he'd made Slot Machine for his mother, who was fond of going to the casinos and playing the slot machines. I don't know if he gave it to her for Mother's Day, but in honor of the sweet sentiment: Happy Mother's day to all the mother's out there who tolerate videogames in their homes. Yeah, it's like a week away, what's your point?

I don't have this cart for the Zircon Channel-F, myself. The last one I saw on ebay sold for $73 loose, which is when I decided that the MESS experience was good enough for me.

Something I thought was particularly interesting about this cartridge is that it has a sort of title/intro screen.

If I knew how to make an animated GIF out of MESS screenshots, you'd be able to see the marquee lights circling the welcome to big casino.

Slot Machine is the earliest example of a slot machine program that I've seen but is predated by Slots on the Casino I cartridge for the APF MP1000. (I haven't played that one yet, but I'm happy to announce that I now have it, so someday I will.)

This is a very simple cartridge, something your mother would be able to figure out. You set the amount of money in your "purse" anywhere from $1 to $99. Then you choose your bet by pushing the stick in one of the four directions for $.05, $.10, $.25 and $.50. Then you start feeding the machine by pressing down the plunger to start it and then to stop it.

I have no manual for this, but the winnings seem slim for all but three in a row, which I was only able to "achieve" with the bottle graphic and it won me about $30. At the time it was enough for me to wrap my winnings of about $95 back around to winnings in the mid $20s.

The "F" stands for "Fun".

All in all this game is easy to play but, for me, not very fun in that I just can't get into playing a slot machine, much less playing one with pretend money. Anyway, the story behind it is more interesting than the game itself and I think it's cool that this guy was able to make a game for his mother and then have it published on his system.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to have been paying attention to eBay and was able to win all but one of the rest of the APF carts from 1978. So, we're going to reset the chronometer to 1978 for a few days while we take care of those. Please look forward to it!

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