Acres Gaming, Inc. July 1997 - June 1999  Senior Software Systems Engineer

 

http://www.acresgaming.com


 

Bonus Games (Plasma Display based)

Developer of the GameSDK used by other department members in the construction of animation computers controlling large RGB Plasma Displays installed in Casino Progressive Gaming Systems.  This entailed the writing of all the on-line manuals and the coding of graphics, sprite, file, sound, communications, and control modules using 'C/C++' and PII with optimized MMX assembly.  Graphics modules encapsulated the DirectX libraries and the custom AGA codec library of my design.  The really neat thing about this product is that it used a minimum of a Pentium II – 266MHz which I later increased to a 400MHz processor.  We also used the same brand graphics card running at a resolution of 852x480x32bit which made for a fabulous product.

 


I was also the original developer of the “Super Reels” bonus game, which won one of the top 20 casino games in 1999.  Because I had my fingers in everyone’s game code due to the libraries that they were using and that I was constantly updating this project was handed off to someone else to finish.  Because I actually had three plasma displays, spinning reels that were responding to spin sequences I still feel attached to this project and proud of it.

 


The actual display is monster sized.  Each of the reels visible above is a 42” Plasma Display mounted vertically where the bottom is above the players head.  The links below give more information and pictures.

 

http://www.rgtonline.com/h-articles/newspage2/A2741.html

http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/1998/Aug-17-Mon-1998/business/8036567.html

 

There are other Bonus games that I find to be pretty cool and were in a variety of casinos at the time I was laid off and still are as I type this. I did NOT write the game but they were using my graphics and sound engines that I had written.

 

http://www.thegamblermagazine.com/gamblermagazine/pub/article.asp?section=12&article=290

 

 


 

Elite Displays

Designed and wrote modular 486 based embedded system using pSOS to control Led Display (Progressive Meter).  These were a variety of L.E.D. panel configurations that displayed graphics and text.  They had alpha numeric text and (static/animated) graphics, as well as download capability.  The stored their code, data, and configuration information on PCMCIA cards with integrity checks. 

 

I made sure that a technician wouldn’t have to drag a ladder through the casino, open the sign up, just to get at the program cards, because someone did a bad download.

 

The company moved the bulk of their operations to the Las Vegas office and since they had been trying for the previous year to get me to relocate there from the Oregon office and I prefer green hillsides to brown desert, I was laid off with the others.

 

These products are used around the world.  I have several custom versions running down in Australia.

 

For more information follow the Acres Gaming link, select products and either Bonus Games and/or Displays.