6 ms·

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",

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.

chasd00 2y ago
This brings back a vague memory of smacking the side of a pinball machine just right and getting a free game. I bet it was the same concept.
- devmor 2y ago
  You were likely causing the spring-loaded mechanism that detects a coin insertion to make physical contact.
  - wgrover 2y ago
    Yup - the first few minutes of one of Technology Connections' videos on electromechanical pinball machines shows this mechanism in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3p_Cv32tEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3p_Cv32tEo
- intothemild 2y ago
  I imagine (with zero research) that the mechanism for adding credit would be the coin goes through a slot, and either itself completed a circuit, or the coin as it travels moves some lever to complete a circuit. So I imagine if you hit the machine just right, you'd also move that lever.
- candlemas 2y ago
  Just like The Fonz.
  - DonHopkins 2y ago
    Henry Winkler is actually just as cool as the character he played!
    - Slava_Propanei 2y ago
      [dead]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
giancarlostoro 2y ago
Reminds me of an arcade machine a friend would get behind, turn it off and back on, and it would give you a free token. Maybe its designed that way so the employee can test it for free, not sure. But he climbed behind it, and proceeded to play for free.
- IWeldMelons 2y ago
  Those who lived in USSR remembers soda vending machines (they poured your drink in a glass cup; you were expected to wash it before using by pressing on a cup, which stood upside down on plastic plate with holes, kinda inverted shower head; very unhygienic, I know). Well it had a button behind that let you have a free drink. You could also "upgrade" pure carbonated water (1 kopeyek) to a sweet soft drink (3 kopeyek) by pressing another button. needless to say schoolchildren would abuse the hell out of this "feature".
  - jcrash 2y ago
    > pressing on a cup, which stood upside down on plastic plate with holes, kinda inverted shower head I think they still use these in bars https://barsupplies.com/collections/glass-washers https://barsupplies.com/collections/glass-washers
  - everforward 2y ago
    > you were expected to wash it before using by pressing on a cup, which stood upside down on plastic plate with holes, kinda inverted shower head; very unhygienic, I know Those systems are occasionally used in bars in the US, though they've dropped the whole plate and it's usually just arms where the holes are. To my understanding, at least in the US, they aren't used for deep-cleaning anything. That happens with soap and water in the back still. The upside-down-showers are used to clean out the dregs of someone's glass when they get a refill (you give them a glass, they give it a quick rinse, refill it and hand it back), and as a quick rinse for new glasses to clean up water stains/detergent residue and anything that might have fallen in since they were cleaned (hair, dust, etc).
    - 2y ago
luismedel 2y ago
This trick worked in Telefonica's phone booths in Spain in the 90s too :-)
- chrisweekly 2y ago
  I vaguely remember (sometime in the 80s) sticking a straightened paperclip into a small hole on the face of a payphone to avoid having to drop a dime / quarters, and being able to call anywhere.
  - 8ig8 2y ago
    If I recall, you’d stick the straightened paperclip into one of the holes on the mouthpiece and touch the other end of the paperclip to some metal part on main phone body. War Games used a pull tab from an aluminum can to a similar effect? (It’s been a while.)
- zxexz 2y ago
  I remember when Verizon phone booths in the US started accepting the credit cards, for a while they would accept any 16-digit number with a valid IIN that passed the Luhn check.
  - Scoundreller 2y ago
    Toronto’s parking meter boxes were like this. They just had GPRS so they’d do an overnight dump (possibly a part of their data deal with the telecom back when data was actually saturated during the day). So people were using cancelled or empty prepaid visa/mastercards. Initially they’d just push out blacklists. Once they really caught on, they did a firmware upgrade to do online verification and it took fooooreeeeveeeeerrrrr to do a credit card purchase.
astrostl 2y ago
This also worked in the USA. By the 1990s most arcades operated on proprietary tokens rather than coin currency. Many had skill-gambling machines that had sliding rows covered in tokens, that you would try to dislodge with your own tokens and keep what was displaced. The "Jungle Jive" version of this would dispense tokens out the opposite side of the machine if the electric ignition of a cigarette lighter was used to lightly shock the metal intake slot. If you clicked it too much too quickly it would go into an alert mode. While this could be accomplished solo, the ideal MVP setup was a team of three: one scout to watch for employees, one to click, and one to collect.
TowerTall 2y ago
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 :)
- jacobgkau 2y ago
  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."
  - an_ko 2y ago
    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.
    - jacobgkau 2y ago
      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?
roymurdock 2y ago
super cool
j0hnyl 2y ago
I remember reading about this in this book, about the hacker named Pengo who was known for adding credits to arcade games in the same manner. https://www.amazon.com/CYBERPUNK-Outlaws-Hackers-Computer-Frontier/dp/0684818620 https://www.amazon.com/CYBERPUNK-Outlaws-Hackers-Computer-Fr...
beeflet 2y ago
how did you stumble across this one?
- beAbU 2y ago
  Children in a large group that's unsupervised is about as close to infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters as you can get. If you present them with a challenge that has some tangible reward at the other end (free games), you are guaranteed a solution at some point. The universe's RNG just happened to roll favourably in Sydney in the 90s and the rest is history.
  - brainbag 2y ago
    Reminds me of the story of the kids in Ethiopian village that were given tablets by One Laptop Per Child. The kids had figured out how to turn it on within minutes, in five days they were using 47 apps per child, in two weeks they were singing the English alphabet, and then within five months they had hacked Android. https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/01/kids_learn_hacking_android/ https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/01/kids_learn_hacking_an...

chasd00 2y ago

This brings back a vague memory of smacking the side of a pinball machine just right and getting a free game. I bet it was the same concept.

devmor 2y ago
You were likely causing the spring-loaded mechanism that detects a coin insertion to make physical contact.
- wgrover 2y ago
  Yup - the first few minutes of one of Technology Connections' videos on electromechanical pinball machines shows this mechanism in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3p_Cv32tEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3p_Cv32tEo
intothemild 2y ago
I imagine (with zero research) that the mechanism for adding credit would be the coin goes through a slot, and either itself completed a circuit, or the coin as it travels moves some lever to complete a circuit. So I imagine if you hit the machine just right, you'd also move that lever.
candlemas 2y ago
Just like The Fonz.
- DonHopkins 2y ago
  Henry Winkler is actually just as cool as the character he played!
  - Slava_Propanei 2y ago
    [dead]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

giancarlostoro 2y ago

Reminds me of an arcade machine a friend would get behind, turn it off and back on, and it would give you a free token. Maybe its designed that way so the employee can test it for free, not sure. But he climbed behind it, and proceeded to play for free.

IWeldMelons 2y ago
Those who lived in USSR remembers soda vending machines (they poured your drink in a glass cup; you were expected to wash it before using by pressing on a cup, which stood upside down on plastic plate with holes, kinda inverted shower head; very unhygienic, I know). Well it had a button behind that let you have a free drink. You could also "upgrade" pure carbonated water (1 kopeyek) to a sweet soft drink (3 kopeyek) by pressing another button. needless to say schoolchildren would abuse the hell out of this "feature".
- jcrash 2y ago
  > pressing on a cup, which stood upside down on plastic plate with holes, kinda inverted shower head I think they still use these in bars https://barsupplies.com/collections/glass-washers https://barsupplies.com/collections/glass-washers
- everforward 2y ago
  > you were expected to wash it before using by pressing on a cup, which stood upside down on plastic plate with holes, kinda inverted shower head; very unhygienic, I know Those systems are occasionally used in bars in the US, though they've dropped the whole plate and it's usually just arms where the holes are. To my understanding, at least in the US, they aren't used for deep-cleaning anything. That happens with soap and water in the back still. The upside-down-showers are used to clean out the dregs of someone's glass when they get a refill (you give them a glass, they give it a quick rinse, refill it and hand it back), and as a quick rinse for new glasses to clean up water stains/detergent residue and anything that might have fallen in since they were cleaned (hair, dust, etc).
  - 2y ago

luismedel 2y ago

This trick worked in Telefonica's phone booths in Spain in the 90s too :-)

chrisweekly 2y ago
I vaguely remember (sometime in the 80s) sticking a straightened paperclip into a small hole on the face of a payphone to avoid having to drop a dime / quarters, and being able to call anywhere.
- 8ig8 2y ago
  If I recall, you’d stick the straightened paperclip into one of the holes on the mouthpiece and touch the other end of the paperclip to some metal part on main phone body. War Games used a pull tab from an aluminum can to a similar effect? (It’s been a while.)
zxexz 2y ago
I remember when Verizon phone booths in the US started accepting the credit cards, for a while they would accept any 16-digit number with a valid IIN that passed the Luhn check.
- Scoundreller 2y ago
  Toronto’s parking meter boxes were like this. They just had GPRS so they’d do an overnight dump (possibly a part of their data deal with the telecom back when data was actually saturated during the day). So people were using cancelled or empty prepaid visa/mastercards. Initially they’d just push out blacklists. Once they really caught on, they did a firmware upgrade to do online verification and it took fooooreeeeveeeeerrrrr to do a credit card purchase.

astrostl 2y ago

This also worked in the USA. By the 1990s most arcades operated on proprietary tokens rather than coin currency. Many had skill-gambling machines that had sliding rows covered in tokens, that you would try to dislodge with your own tokens and keep what was displaced. The "Jungle Jive" version of this would dispense tokens out the opposite side of the machine if the electric ignition of a cigarette lighter was used to lightly shock the metal intake slot. If you clicked it too much too quickly it would go into an alert mode. While this could be accomplished solo, the ideal MVP setup was a team of three: one scout to watch for employees, one to click, and one to collect.

TowerTall 2y ago

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 :)

jacobgkau 2y ago
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."
- an_ko 2y ago
  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.
  - jacobgkau 2y ago
    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?

roymurdock 2y ago

super cool

j0hnyl 2y ago

I remember reading about this in this book, about the hacker named Pengo who was known for adding credits to arcade games in the same manner. https://www.amazon.com/CYBERPUNK-Outlaws-Hackers-Computer-Frontier/dp/0684818620 https://www.amazon.com/CYBERPUNK-Outlaws-Hackers-Computer-Fr...

beeflet 2y ago

how did you stumble across this one?

beAbU 2y ago
Children in a large group that's unsupervised is about as close to infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters as you can get. If you present them with a challenge that has some tangible reward at the other end (free games), you are guaranteed a solution at some point. The universe's RNG just happened to roll favourably in Sydney in the 90s and the rest is history.
- brainbag 2y ago
  Reminds me of the story of the kids in Ethiopian village that were given tablets by One Laptop Per Child. The kids had figured out how to turn it on within minutes, in five days they were using 47 apps per child, in two weeks they were singing the English alphabet, and then within five months they had hacked Android. https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/01/kids_learn_hacking_android/ https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/01/kids_learn_hacking_an...