So much has been made of the many tech advancements in the slots industry during the 21st century, however people can often forget about all of the major developments that were also made in the 20th century. In fact, without the tech advancements made in the slot industry during the 20th century we wouldn’t have anywhere near the same level of 21st century slots industry – it is here that key bits of progress made the foundations of our current all conquering online slots industry.
One of the main reasons why people can seem to forget about the tech advancements made during the 20th century is because a lot of them have been made largely redundant by 21st century slot tech advancements. Indeed, most modern slot games online players probably wouldn’t have played the earliest examples of 20th century slots, so how would they even know? We thought we would shine a light on some of the important tech advancements in the slot industry during the 20th century.
Early 20th Century Slot Machine Tech Refinement
Most slot gamblers will know the story of the legendary Californian mechanical engineer Charles D. Fey, the man responsible for the Liberty Bell machine, widely regarded as the world’s first truly commercial slot machine. His invention at the tail end of the 1800s signalled the start of the slot gambling industry, however there were still a number of refinements to make in the early years.
Making the slot symbols appear more exciting with dashes of colour was a big advancement in the early 20th century, and this resulted in the classic fruit symbols we all know and love today. On a practical level too slot machine builders had to rely on tech advancement to help them build the number of machines required.
The First Electronic Slot Machine
Before the 1960s slot machines were purely mechanical, and amazingly didn’t need any electricity to power them either. In 1963 the world’s first electronic slot machine, Money Honey, was launched, and it changed the face of the slot industry at the time.
The fact it was electrical meant that the developers could put all sorts of exciting lights on the display, and this helped to usher in the golden age of slot gambling in Las Vegas. It also made slot machines located in places like bars and pubs a lot more appealing, and ultimately made slot machines much more popular. This is an under sung tech advancement during the 20th century, and one that was absolutely crucial to the slots industry as a whole.
Invention of the RNG and video slots
The first video slots started to appear right at the start of the 1980s, where developers finally managed to incorporate the RNG (Random Number Generator) into their design. This was ground-breaking as it meant that there was no need for mechanical reels at all, with everything taking place on a video screen.
It also paved the way for the modern online slots world, a very important tech advancement indeed!
