Nixie tubes in slot machines

Somebody knows... Maybe you?
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slotalot
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by slotalot »

I am on it !!THUMBSX2!! The biggest problem being that the original Whittaker Bros went bust in 1974 and the company has been through many changes since. But fear not, I am already snapping at their ankles for info. !!DIG!!
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arrgee
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by arrgee »

I had an inkling that you would be Stuart !THUMBS!
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by pennymachines »

treefrog wrote:...I have a flyer for the said machines, well actually for one called "Beat the Blinkers" and the same as the one you have posted above called "Beat the Bandit"....They appear to be made by Whittaker Bros. from Shaw in Lancs...
Will definitely get some scans, when I get the scanner set-up.

On the Semco topic, the other machines they seem to have done were two bandits called "Beachcomber" and "Fantasia". Also they did a wall machine called "Dial for Money" where you dialed your win on an old telephone type dial and a single Nixie would display if you were a winner. Semco stood for Sturgeon Electronic Manufacturing from Bognor Regis.
Just bumping this in the hope you've got your scanner set up now treefrog !WINK!
Semco or Sturgeon Electronic Manufacturing (Automatics) Limited of Bognor were dissolved 21st July 1977 it seems: http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/ ... 6/page.pdf
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by slotalot »

The full Whittaker story will be in the Mechanical Memories Magazine very soon !!YIPPEE!! thanks to Tom for his support. !!CHEERS!!
So don't forget to renew your subscription, or if you don't get the magazine,subscribe now and treat yourself for Christmas
[url]http://www.mechanicalmemoriesmagazine.co.uk/#[/url]
MERRY CHRISTMAS one and all. XMASSSY
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by treefrog »

Don't see them too often come up, but the below model was on ebay briefly before being removed. I tried to contact the seller to see if the nixie tubes worked as the pictures did not show this....
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treefrog
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by treefrog »

Well, I managed to acquire this one today; yet another project in-line.... Always really scary plugging in one of these old electro-mechanical wall machines for the first time through all the cobwebs, dust and debris...... :zapa:
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by slotalot »

Nice one Tom... !!THUMBSX2!!
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badpenny
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by badpenny »

Nice one .... do the nixies work?
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treefrog
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by treefrog »

badpenny wrote:Nice one .... do the nixies work?
One sort of slickers on and the other is dead even after swapping around. Found exactly the same replacements though on ebay, GN-4 from STC (English maker), which is the same brand as what's on there....
Found a useful guide on the bulbs online as well......

http://www.g3ynh.info/digrdout/nixie_STC.html
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badpenny
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by badpenny »

Nixie tubes must have been a swine to manufacture ... unless someone knows better. !PUZZLED!
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

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badpenny wrote:Nixie tubes must have been a swine to manufacture ... unless someone knows better. !PUZZLED!
Well you did ASK!!!! :D
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by operator bell »

badpenny wrote:Nixie tubes must have been a swine to manufacture ... unless someone knows better. !PUZZLED!
For you and me, yes, but back in the day when things were still manufactured in the West they were some of the simplest vacuum tubes, just a stack of metal shapes between insulators. Making "ordinary" vacuum tubes was a work of staggering complexity - see this old movie about the Mullard Blackburn works. The full movie is worth watching if you have a half hour to spare.



nixie_side.jpg

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badpenny
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by badpenny »

Excellent, thanks ...

BP
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Re:

Post by chris rideout »

whoop-john wrote:Nixies were first made by Burroughs, in the UK, and called provisionally 'Numerical Indicator eXperimental 1'. It looked like NIXI. By the time they hit the streets in the early 1950s they were already known as nixies and the name stuck.
Was Burroughs the computer company in the 1960s/early 1970s when they still had open reel tapes for storage because hard drives were not invented or still in the development stage? As for the machine, did the numbers change as it paid out? In the days when I wore short trousers, I seem to recall the coins being spat out 1 or 2 at a time and, as they did, the display would hit another random number. Was the machine faulty or was this normal operation?
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Post by operator bell »

Chris Rideout wrote: seem to recall the coins being spat out 1 or 2 at a time and, as they did, the display would hit another random number. Was the machine faulty or was this normal operation?
That would be entirely consistent with machines of that type. The numbers were flashed with a surplus Post Office uniselector, and the same uniselector was used to count out the prize, so it necessarily stepped off the winning combination. The Roto-Pool series of games did the same thing, and after seeing the insides of that nixie bandit I wondered if they weren't the work of the same designer.
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by treefrog »

Got the nixies working on mine with a pair on new bulbs. Just need to get the rest of the machine working.
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by slotalot »

Hi Tom, looking good !!THUMBSX2!!
Do the numbers change if you step the uni-selector round by hand?? !PUZZLED!
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by coppinpr »

Seeing the film of Mallards factory in Blackburn reminded me of a story my mother told me about that factory.
When the war started she decided to take a job helping the war production and took a job at Mallard's Mitcham factory just outside London making valves for aircraft radios. When the bombing got bad later in the war that factory became a constant target and mallards moved production and their Mitcham staff to Blackburn.
On her first day there the air raid siren went and as they had done in London the Mitcham girls got under their heavy machines for protection, the Blackburn girls thought this very funny, they had never had a raid in Blackburn at that time and used the siren to signal their tea break. :lol:
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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by pennymachines »

Here's the Golden Mint by Sturgeon Electronic Manufacturing Co. Ltd. of Bognor-Regis, Sussex, Circa 1970.

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Re: Nixie tubes in slot machines

Post by operator bell »

Basically the same machine with three tubes instead of two, but still only one uniselector. Interesting confirmation there at the end when it steps off the winning combination as it pays out.
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