zlacker

>>1317+(OP)
This reminds me of exploits we used to do to arcade cabinets back in Sydney in the 80's and 90s. The school gas heaters used to have what we called "clickers", piezoelectric ignition devices you could remove from the heaters.

You then took that clicker to your local arcade, and clicked one of the corners of the CRT, that would send a shock through the system and add credits to your game. I believe this was because the CRT was grounded on the same ground lines that the mechanism for physically checking a coin had gone through the system.

Suffice to say, they caught onto this over time, and added some form of an alarm into it. But up until then... Those were truly the best times.

>>intoth+k4
We did the exact same thing early 80's except that we used the clicker found in disposal lighters.

We did it for a couple of years until they figured it out and started to conver the arcade cabinets with transparent plastic.

At the same time they also drilled holes at the back of the machine for ventilation as the rest of the case now was sealed in plastic.

We found out that using a bamboo stick you could press the lever that register when a coin has been paid into the slot.

That made them relocate the holes for the ventilation to the top of the case instead of the back so we couldn't get the lever anymore. Or so they thought. haha

We discovered that by pressing a coin up the return slot — the one where you get your coin back if it isn’t accepted — you could also trigger the lever for coin registration and the free gaming continued.

Eventually they put in sharp screws into that coin return box so you would cut your finges.

After that we got a SEGA. Was great fun :)

>>TowerT+ex
At what point does the arcade just kick you out? I can't imagine them seeing you continuously tamper with their equipment to circumvent paying and think, "the best way to handle this is to keep modifying our machines."

>>jacobg+yA
If you kick someone out, you lose them as a customer, and they'll tell all their friends about the free play trick out of spite, so you'll have to patch the machine anyway.

>>an_ko+LE
You're making me wonder what the stats are for how many people try to abuse arcade machines in a country like Japan versus the United States. (Not that people in any country are gonna be entirely honest, but the entitlement to break the system and the comfort to brag about it seems cultural.)

In fact, that could be why some of the machines weren't better protected against that stuff in the first place, right?