So, if you aren't aware, medal games are basically Gambling Lite for Japan. Also, completely ignore the timeline listed on that page because we've found medal games from way back in the day. These sorts of games are pretty poorly documented, regardless of language--but in trying to see if I could find some internal Sega catalogue numbers for these machines, I stumbled across JAMMA's internal codes for these machines. This prompted a few questions: - What exactly does 5c/25c mean (I'm assuming coins)? - Why would JAMMA treat the amount of coins needed in a medal game as separately coded machines? - Are these JAMMA codes decent identifiers of machines? I can't find anything that xrefs the code numbers based on a sample set, but that could equally be chalked up to No One on the Internet Cares.
Quick search suggests "25c" and "5c" are two sizes of coins, so they need different mechanisms in order to physically fit in the machine. 25c variants are generally more common these days and are probably a de-facto "standard" (I suspect most, if not all the Sega coins are that size). https://blog.goo.ne.jp/nazox2016/e/707b5093c98238006473da87688b2169 Medals were apparently invented by a company called Sigma, and they used a size similar to the 5-cent piece in the US... so they were affectionately called "5c coins". Other companies copied so that all machines were compatible. Then in the mid-70s sigma upped the size to something more similar to the 25-cent piece, creating the "25c coin", and it split the market. Except apparently the 25c coin was about the same size as a 100 yen coin, meaning you could both play for cheaper and completely screw over the industry because this would be seen as gambling by the eyes of the law. So the modern 25c coin is bigger than actual US quarters. There's also the Olympia coin and we really ought to work out what that is because the name turns up aaaallll the time. I think it was cash in on the 1964 Summer Olympics. I would think, when it comes to Sega Retro writing this down, it might be better to use the real diameters, so we're not getting confused with the two 25c standards and other wacky coin sizes.
