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IGT to Provide SAS Protocol as Gaming Association Standard10 October 2001LAS VEGAS, Nevada – (Press Release) -- Oct. 10, 2001 -- The Gaming Standards Association (GSA), formerly the Gaming Manufacturers Association (GAMMA), and IGT completed an agreement this week regarding IGT's SAS protocol. The IGT SAS(TM) protocol allows for communication between gaming machines and slot accounting systems and provides a secure method of communicating all necessary data supplied by the gaming machine to the monitoring system. The SAS protocol is currently supported in most gaming machine models produced by a wide range of gaming machine manufacturers worldwide. GSA's agreement to support IGT's SAS protocol as a standard gives GSA input into the evolution of the SAS protocol. ``The SAS protocol is by far the most prevalent communication protocol in use today,'' said Gregg Solomon, Chairman of GSA. ``Now that GSA is adopting the SAS protocol, we will make significant progress toward our goal of developing and implementing a series of electronic communication standards for casino gaming equipment.'' GSA will work with IGT to enhance the SAS protocol by incorporating functionality found in other protocols. The resulting protocol will undergo GSA's open standardization process following American National Standards Institute (ANSI) guidelines, and will then be adopted as a GSA standard communication protocol. This agreement sets the stage for an immediate solution to the cross compatibility issues between gaming machines while development continues on other state-of-the-art GSA protocols. Peter DeRaedt, founding Chairman of GSA, had this to say: ``The agreement will allow our members to maintain and enhance SAS, the primary slot machine protocol in the world. We have been talking about the SAS protocol and how it can accelerate standards adoption across the industry for a long time. We are very pleased with this agreement and are grateful to IGT for this opportunity. It is a huge step forward for all of us. Equally important is the support from IGT to work together with GSA's members to jointly develop the new BOB (Best Of Breed) standards.'' ``As gaming machines and systems become more advanced, the BOB standard will assist gaming manufacturers and operators in achieving a level of interoperability that will only serve to accelerate the level of technology in the industry,'' said Bob Bittman, Executive Vice President, Product Development, IGT. ``This is an accomplishment that the industry should regard with great pride, as it is truly a major milestone for GSA,'' said Ali Saffari, Vice President, Firmware Engineering for IGT and GSA board member. ``The SAS protocol is the culmination of 15 years of research and development within the industry.'' |