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Money Controls and Games Warehouse Team Up
Ground-breaking design house Games Warehouse, a specialist in software gaming compendiums, has become the first company to use Money Controls' ccTalk PCI Card in volume, for its innovative new SWP application Paragon.
Established in 2002, Games Warehouse comprises a team of experts from the gaming industry who are breaking the mould by renting their video-based gaming applications to the independent market.
Products include Bandit, Gamepack and Gamepack Smart. The latter, a compendium of up to 50 SWP games, can be run on the company's hi-tech video gaming terminal, Paragon, using PC technology.
To enable the PC to communicate with industry standard peripherals, Games Warehouse worked closely with Money Controls on the development of an interface which would enable the flexible and simple communication between industry-standard money processing systems and a PC.
The result was the ccTalk PCI Card – an innovative product which interfaces industry standard ccTalk enabled peripherals such as coin acceptors, note acceptors and coin hoppers to a standard motherboard, facilitating the use of mass-produced PC format control boards to be used to control amusement, ticket and other money handing machines.
The card fits into a standard PCI slot and communicates with the PC CPU at "bus speeds", allowing the application to run on the PC whilst communicating directly with the card at high speed simply by reading and writing to shared memory. The card comes equipped with the required connectors to allow effective connection to all the key monetary peripherals.
The ccTalk PCI Card is also upgradeable, so new peripherals can be added as they are required or developed, making products more versatile and future proof. Therefore with the introduction of Money Controls' new SR5i coin acceptor, manufacturers can opt for a machine which sits on-line, enabling them to download software and configure SR5i coin sets.
For Games Warehouse, the ccTalk PCI Card has enabled them to create an application which can communicate with peripherals such as Money Controls' market-leading SR5 coin acceptor and the high security Mark II Compact Hopper.
Games Warehouse Director Andy Powell said, "All we had to do with the ccTalk PCI Card to communicate with the SR5 and Compact Hopper was plug and play. Quite simply it represented a one-stop-shop for us."
"We were provided with a PC compatible plug and play device with minimum development effort required. It already had the ccTalk protocol built in so there was very little extra software required to communicate with industry standard devices," Mr Powell said.
"Without it, it would have been very complicated and more costly to get Paragon to market. Using the PCI card allowed us to concentrate on getting the mainstream application right and to market faster," he said.
"This kind of product is available with other protocols but none are as sophisticated - other products offer a hardware solution but you have to build on software and the ccTalk PCI card has the added advantage of using the established secure serial protocol (ccTalk) as standard giving operators a great deal of confidence."
"Money Controls' ccTalk PCI Card offers a hardware and software solution which is labour-saving and cost-effective as part of a commercial suite of systems. With the PC fast becoming accepted as the coin industry's electronics of choice, the addition of a ccTalk PCI Card is a simple and powerful means of creating full serial applications. In addition, the card and software are fully upgradeable which allows us future integration into other industry standard ccTalk devices, e.g. note acceptors," Mr Powell said.
"The PC with PCI card, using Windows, provides a platform which is familiar worldwide, therefore it is easier to find engineers who can work with it and it allows the user to download increasingly sophisticated games and graphics as they are developed."
Money Controls is delighted at Games Warehouse's decision to use its serial products. "Games Warehouse is a truly ground-breaking company which is already making great strides within the gaming industry," said Money Controls Chief Executive Mike Innes.
"We believe that Games Warehouse has recognised the ccTalk PCI Card as the way forward for games manufacturers upgrading to full serial applications," Mr Innes said.
"This is a highly convenient and cost-effective way of implementing the interfacing of money handling peripherals with no need to change PC applications software."
PICTURED: Games Warehouse Director Andy Powell with Money Controls UK Sales Manager Dave Ellwood.
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