J22 Block Diagram Drawing No. W2809

Following, I have provided the labels inside the blocks in the above image, to aid in reading it for those interested in the technical detail of this image. I have ordered the following list moving through the blocks in the diagram in a series of loosely formed, top to bottom columns, starting from the left hand side moving to the right. The W prefixed numbers e.g. W 2794 are drawing numbers. Every drawing has a number for indexing in the print room archives so the drawing can easily be located. Other information included in the block diagram that I have not reproduced below are details of the connectors on each module. Most of the intermodule connections are ribbon cables or other multi-conductor cables and each connector has an annotation e.g. 10 Way CONN 4 which indicates Connector 4 has 10 conductors.

Brief Description

The transaction details are keyed into the system by the operator using the relevant keys on the terminal keyboard. As the details are keyed in they are temporarily stored in the Processor Board (Processor PCB) and also displayed on the Burroughs display (Burroughs Alpha-Numeric Display). This enables the operator to check the keyed data and to correct any errors. When all the transaction details have been keyed in, the operator presses the TRANSMIT key (in the Keyboard). On receipt of this signal, the Processor Board converts the stored data to serial asynchronous form and feeds it via the differential mode drivers (Dual Port Line Interface and Transmit & Receive) and modem to the host processor. (We used the J22s with differential long line drivers eliminating the need for a modem).

The host processor carries out a validation check on the transaction details and, if valid, stores the details and returns data and instructions to the Processor Board. Under the control of this board, the Peripheral Control Board (Peripheral Control top of Column 5 in the above table) starts the printer motor, via the Printer Interface Board (Block titled Printer Interface). As the ticket is fed below the printer heads the transaction details are printed onto it as well as a unique ticket serial number (TSN) in alphanumeric form and also complementary bar code (A bar code is printed down both sides of the ticket, one is the one's complement of the other, providing a means of error detection on reading). Finally, a sliding, self sharpening guillotine is operated to cut the ticket to length. At the same time, the cash amount of the transaction is displayed on the Burroughs display and the Operator (Operator Cash Total block) and Customer Cash Total (Customer Cash Total block) Displays are increased (or decreased) by the same amount. If the host processor decides that the transaction details are invalid, it rejects the bet and returns a diagnostic message stating the reason for the rejection. This is displayed on the Burroughs display to enable the operator to carry out the remedial action.

Tickets that are due for a dividend are entered into the reader by the operator. The presence of the ticket is sensed and a signal is fed from the Reader Interface Board via the Peripheral Control Board to the Processor Board. Under the control of this board, the Peripheral Control Board starts the reader motor. As the ticket passes below the bar code reader, both edges of the ticket are illuminated by fibre-optic cables and phototransitors detect the presence of the upper and lower bar codes. These are amplified in the Reader Interface Board and fed via the Peripheral Control Board to the Processor Board where they are serialised and transmitted to the host processor.

The host processor confirms that the ticket is due for a dividend, against the previously stored transaction details, and returns the instructions and the amount of dividend due to the Processor Board. This board then feeds the amount of the dividend due via the Peripheral Control Board to the Burroughs display and also to the Cash Total Displays.

The LED Indicator Display provides the operator with information on the status of the terminal. Some of the information displayed is received from the Ancillary Alarm System. The Power Supply System provides the supplies for the motors, solenoids and logic within the terminal.

A brief history of the development of the J22 Ticket Issuing Machine (TIM) by Bob Plemel

Development of the J22 started in about 1973. ATL realised they had to come up with a more versatile TIM that could easily be modified to print different tickets and be machine readable.

Ideas came from various sources such as:

• Dot matrix printers - Centronics, Epson, DEC LA30
• T-Scan Ltd, a Canadian company, in 1970/71 developed a mark sense terminal for the airline industry that used cards as input. It would read pencil marks on a card, print on the card, read a bar code. ATL bought some of these and named it the J20. During my break from ATL, I worked at TScan designing the circuit boards and writing DEC PDP-11 application code
• Release of Micro processors
  • 1971 - Intel 4004 - 4bit CPU
  • 1972 - Intel 8008 - 8 bit CPU
  • 1972 - Motorola 6800 - 8 bit CPU
• The release of the M6800 was a key factor in the development of the J22. The M6800 architecture and instruction set were influenced by the then popular Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11 mini computer. The 6800 has a 16-bit address bus that could directly access 64 KB of memory and an 8-bit bi-directional data bus. It has 72 instructions with seven addressing modes for a total of 197 opcodes. The original M6800 could have a clock frequency of up to 1 MHz. In addition to the ICs, Motorola also provided a complete assembly language development system. The customer could use the software on a remote timeshare computer or on an in-house minicomputer system

This meant we could start serious development of the J22 using PDP11's which we were already using in ATL's totalisator development, before the M6800 chips were available.

One of the most important parts of the J22 was a printer that could produce a ticket as fast and as human readable as the previous ATL "printing press" terminals - J10-11,etc. We started experimenting with a single dot matrix print head, the same as in Centronics, Epson printers.

We did not have an M6800 yet, so we used a PDP-11 with an I/O board that could control multiple input/output ports. I wished I had kept some photos of our original J22 development set-up. Try to picture a:

• PDP-11 mounted in a 6 ft rack with wide flat parallel cables running to a desk mounted wire wrapped circuit board with wires running to a "printer" . The "printer" was one 7 pin dot matrix head fixed mounted, a roll of standard colour coded J11 paper, power supply for the printer, etc
• Heath Robinson would have been proud of us

Initially we had no motor for moving the paper - tickets were printed by grabbing the end of the paper by hand and pulling it past the print head. A sensor was mounted on the paper roll to sense movement and provide interrupts back to the PDP-11

Code was written in PDP-11 assembler to sense the paper movement, then output commands to the print head to print 7 dots. This worked surprisingly well. So we mounted 3 dot matrix print heads and were then able to print 21 dots at time and soon were printing tickets that looked like tote tickets.

We did a few demos to potential customers that were in town. Once we also packed up the whole kit and sent it to Melbourne for a demo.

The feedback we got was that tickets were not that human readable as the printing font was too small compared to the older type tickets. So ATL did what they always did if they could not buy something, they would design and build a printer. Thus came the large format dot matrix printer that was eventually used in future J22s.

Next stage was to turn this "Heath Robinson" into a real product. We finally got M6800 chips so we designed circuit boards, cut code and started building a few demo terminals. As the terminals used erasable PROM for storage of the microcode, we could build demo terminals that could be used standalone to simulate actual operation by keying in bets, printing tickets and reading tickets.

The initial J22s were designed for the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club. I remember making a trip to Hong Kong with one of the demo J22s which was demonstrated to a number of people who were impressed with the speed and versatility. They eventually bought quite a few for the new ShaTin race track.

And the rest is history.

Explanation of ATL Drawing Labelling System from Neville Mitchell

I was familiar with the ATL W Prefix drawings but was wondering about the SAJ prefixes used in the image above. I contacted Neville Mitchell who was a Draftsman with Automatic Totalisators and later was manager the Drawing office. He supplied the following information relating to the Drawing control system:

The numbering system was a George Julius dictate to JPG it was a wonderful system in its simplicity and ease of usage, I could train contract draftsmen how to use it in just an hour or so. It was so different from the dreadful AWA "Iron Duke" number method that no one understood. I will list here for you to the best of my memory all of the number categories.

The J22 Processor PCB Circuit Diagram Drawing W 2852

The above image is the circuit diagram, for the block in the Block Diagram at the top of this page, titled PROCESSOR PCB, visible at the top of the third column of blocks and is clearer in the text table below the image of the Block Diagram. There is a larger rendition of the Circuit Diagram in the Photo Gallery of this website. Click on the image at the top of the page to return to the Photo Gallery and select the following image.

The J22 TIM (Ticket Issuing Machine)

The above image shows a J22 TIM which is the subject of the above documentation. There is a larger rendition of the J22 image in the Photo Gallery pages of this website. Click on the image at the top of the page to return to the Photo Gallery and scroll up and select the thumbnail of this image immediately above.

Acknowledgements

• Thanks to Bob Plemel for his description of the Automatic Totalisators Limited J22 development process
• Thanks to Neville Mitchell for his description of the Automatic Totalisators Limited Drawing Identification System.