Keeping Up Appearances: Play Modes

Figuring out what all of the different play modes Jolene offers took some time.  The names for the modes of play as listed on her intimidating Central Control Computer were a little misleading.  We pretty much wanted to be able to put in a song at any time and not have songs play unless we put them in.

Playmaker mode seemed to me like a mode where I would get to pick all the songs or make the plays.  Actually, this mode means that Jolene gets to make the plays.  There are three different Playmaker modes, continuous, 40 min, and 20 min.  In continuous, Jolene will continuously play songs of her own choosing.  The timed modes wait the allotted time before she plays a song.  It seemed like Jolene would only play one song during the timed modes at the timed intervals.  After being awoken by a Steve Miller b-side in the middle of the first night we owned her, we didn't bother to keep these modes selected.

So it turned out that we didn't want any of the Playmaker modes at all.  With Playmaker off, Jolene will only play songs when she is told, but this also normally means she will only play songs when given credits.

Jolene doesn't have the hardware to accept coins or bills, and the coin slot is taped shut from the inside to keep spare change from falling haphazardly into her interior.  The Central Control Computer has a manual credit button, and pushing this will give you one credit to play one song.  For a long time, we would open Jolene up and push the manual credit button 30 or so times and play songs until our credits ran out.  This was somewhat inconvenient.

Another somewhat confusing option on the Central Control Computer allows Jolene to play without the need to enter credits manually.  The Norm./Test switch had been in the normal position.  This normal mode is for commercial settings where the jukebox will only play when money is inserted.  The test mode allows for free play.  I had assumed the test mode was for use while servicing the machine, but there is actually a service mode as well that is enabled somewhere else entirely.

Luckily, we have all of the manuals for Jolene.  I'm not sure we would have figured all this out otherwise.