History
The quiz machine first appeared on the scene in the UK in 1985. The first such machine was called Quizmaster which was made by the Cardiff based now defunct Coinmaster Ltd. This was rapidly followed by quiz machines from other manufacturers.
Over the following years quiz machines/SWP's became a regular feature of the British pub. Leading SWP manufacturers of the 1980s and 1990s were: Coinmaster, JPM, Barcrest, Bell-Fruit, Maygay and Ace-Coin. The themes of many SWP games were (and still are) based on popular TV quiz shows, board games or other aspects of popular culture.
Initially quiz machines were 20p play offering a £10 maximum prize per play. This was increased to £12 in 1988 and £20 around 1991. Appearing in 1994 JPM's Monopoly SWP was the first 50p play machine. It was also the first machine to use touch screen technology instead of buttons.
In the late 1990s a few quiz machines/SWPs offered £40 jackpots. Although many new quiz machines during this period actually offered lower jackpot prizes such as £5, and had gameplays and payout structures that seemed designed to frustrate professional players. In 2000 the quiz machine market reached new highs in player participation with the arrival of the highly popular Who Wants To Be A Millionaire quiz machine.
Read more about this topic: Quiz Machine
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“He wrote in prison, not a History of the World, like Raleigh, but an American book which I think will live longer than that. I do not know of such words, uttered under such circumstances, and so copiously withal, in Roman or English or any history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)