some games had the warning stickers on them about how using slugs is a crime
i never used or knew anyone who used them
is this a real crime people did
No. I’ve never even seen a coin ‘slug’ that was claimed to be genuine. Closest thing we ever did to cheat an arcade was use tokens from a different arcade that was going under and therefore selling them at 10 for a dollar instead of just 4. We’d go in and buy a bunch, play a game or two and then head to the other arcade with our pockets filled with the cheap ones. Worked great for a while (until the other one finally closed).
I seem to remember some sort of industrial electrical outlet had these circles that could be popped out as needed for wiring. These disks were pretty much perfectly sized to be like quarters as long as you made sure the edges were shaved down. Me and my friends attempted to use one, but the machine always just spat it back out. Considering that many would spit out equivalent-sized arcade tokens if they only took quarters, I think the tech was just good enough to tell the difference on the new machines. So it wasn’t for lack of trying that we didn’t use slugs.
Someone must have done it, or they wouldn’t have posted the warning. I remember seeing warnings like that when I was young, too. Nowadays, it would probably cost more to make a slug than the value of the coin it was replacing. But in those days, by cranky, a quarter was *worth *something.
Technically, no. It wasn’t a slug and it wasn’t a video arcade.
But somebody once told me a trick for fooling vending machines and I tried it out one time. It worked.
I won’t post it however because I think doing so would violate board rules. Besides it was a long time ago so the trick may not work anymore.
Generally the machine would check both the size and the weight, so I imagine that your tokens or outlet popouts had a lower density than a real quarter
Circa 1980 SWIM used to break parking meters using flip tops (the ring) from soda cans. Using a technique I’ll omit, the ring was inserted in place of a quarter and the knob was turned at just the right time. The ring would get ground into the gears of the meter (at least that’s what it sounded/felt like) and you would get 4 hours of free parking.
No slugs, but the games and rides at my local Chuck-E-Cheese still accept quarters even though they sell their tokens 3/$1 (unless you buy like $30 worth at once).
Many years ago (40 to be close) my college apartment had a coin operated washer and dryer in the laundry room. The dryer ran on dimes and required feeding in a dime, turning a nob which sprung back after turning and then repeating for each 10 minutes of desired drying time. We figured out that a scotch tape tail attached to a dime would hold it in place and allow us to dry our clothes for free.
I seriously doubt if any coin mechanisms work this way today and as such I’m providing no useful info for any wannabe cheaters.
Seem to recall slugs working in some soft-drink bottle dispensers when I was a kid. I think I was at least in high school when arcades came along, and I don’t recall anyone using slugs for those machines.
We tried but they were too slimy and didn’t fit in the slot without getting crushed.
Not slugs, but I do remember a kid who knew a trick with certain games (Tempest?) that would give him like 50 credits if he died with a specific score. He would always try and sell the credits to people for a dollar or two.
No but for all 4 years of college I did use pull-tabs in the parking meters. Not every time but by far the vast majority of the time.
Pitt? On the hill by the Chem building?
Hmm. Based on this sample of 2, which is, I’m sure, statistically valid, we can conclude that, for the set consisting of “people who live in the western part of PA”:
*All join the SMDB in the month of July
*All have a name that includes 2 k’s, with one “k” always in the first position
*None have any capital letter in their name
*All have (had) access to a seemingly unlimited supply of pop tops
*All cheat parking meters
Homogenous group they are. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
My grandpa ran candy and gumball machines in his retirement. He would give me all the slugs he collected to use in video games. He ran over a hundred machines and I’d bet he collected less then 20 over a period of a few years.
Yes, it was definitely Tempest. Not only could you land on a score above a certain level and get 40 credits, but a different score would jump you a boatload of levels to a really crazy high-speed level.
This suddenly made me remember doing laundry in college. The machines on campus took four quarters for a full wash and another four quarters for a full dry. It was the kind with the slotted coin tray that you lined the coins up in and then pushed all at once. We had a method for getting our coins back in that type, too, which required a bit of skill and luck and selecting the machine with the loosest tray. I used that method for my college duration.
We had a washing machine or two like that in college as well. You could push the tray in and out fast enough that the coins wouldn’t drop or something like that. It didn’t always work but worked often enough to perhaps halve my cost.
There was also a soda machine where you could set the coin on the edge of the slot, sort of shoot it in by flicking your finger down and it would register but then drop out the coin return. Was a skill to it and, again, didn’t always work but I got plenty of free pop that way.
Never seen a slug, but I did try tokens in the quarter only machines. Usually they just fell right out the return slot but once in a while one would work.