I sometimes try it as something to help me with my addiction to them, but it only works for a short while before I end up playing the real thing. I go through phases with fruit machine emulation. Hmmm files are too large to attach here, I'll use our WoW guild's website instead - Game #1 - Game #2.

Play the games with sound, as all modern machines (from the early 90s onwards) use funky samples stolen from all over the place. It's all non-commercial and completely 'for fun', no one's trying to make any money out of it. If there's any interest I can upload my complete collection to Usenet (runs to about 5GB), or sites such as Fruit-Emu provide a free download service. You can either click on the buttons with your mouse, or use what are generally the 'standard' shortcut keys, SPACE for start, 123 for holds/nudges, 0 to put a pound coin in, ` for cancel/collect, E for exchange, F for feature etc. I've attached a couple of machines for folks to play with, just unzip the file, run the MFME executable, go File > Load Game, browse to the folder you've unzipped to (it should start in that location by default) and open the GAM file. (Captain Caveman likes the ancient shite machines, but then he is a strange old man.) If you've played a fruit machine in that timespan, chances are it's been emulated with a lovely looking 'real DX' layout.

The emulators available cover from the early 80s up to about 2006. Most pubs still have two or three of the buggers though. So then, real fruit machines, on your PC! This is perfect emulation of the 'one armed bandits' that festoon seaside arcades and pubs and cafes and service stations and suchlike, they used to be everywhere but they're not quite as ubiquitous these days. I'm sure I've done this before and precisely no one gave a shit, but I'm nothing if not mindlessly optimistic.

Homers meltdown fruit machine emulator