Exidy

Exidy

Company type	Private
Industry	Video games
Founded	1973
Founders	H.R. Kauffman Samuel Hawes
Headquarters	Palo Alto, California , U.S.
Products	Arcade games

Exidy was a developer and manufacturer of coin-operated amusements. The company was founded by H.R. "Pete" Kauffman and Samuel Hawes in 1973. The name "Exidy" was a portmanteau of the words "Excellence in Dynamics".

Notable games released by Exidy include Circus, Death Race, Star Fire, Venture, Pepper II, Mouse Trap, Targ and Spectar.

Game history

Pete Kauffman (1923 – 2015) was a marketing executive at Ramtek (company) in 1972 and was one of several employees of the company who played the original Atari Pong prototype at Andy Capps Tavern in Sunnyvale, California. Believing coin-operated video games would become a major business, he left Ramtek in late 1973 to establish Exidy with Ampex engineer Samuel Hawes.

Exidy found competing with larger video game companies such as Atari, Inc. difficult. The company's Lila Zinter claimed in 1983 that "Exidy is an innovator, but ... we have a hard time breaking through the politics of getting a game a fair chance."

One of Exidy's efforts aimed at trivia lovers during the 1980s was the quiz game Fax, a multi-level game housed in a large wooden cabinet that stood about 4 feet high and looked nothing like other video games of the time period. The players were shown a series of questions with four possible answers. A point value "clock" ran down to zero after answers were shown, meaning players answering quicker earned more points for their correct answers (Incorrect answers incurred no penalty).

Beginning in 1983, Exidy released a series of light gun games, the first and most well known of which was Crossbow. These presented an unusual twist to the light gun genre: the goal is to protect characters walking through the screen by shooting things which are trying to kill the characters. These games were also the first to feature fully digitized sound for all sound effects and music. Other "C" series games include Cheyenne, Combat, Crackshot, Clay Pigeon and Chiller. Chief designer for these games was Larry Hutcherson. Exidy also made two rarely seen motion cabinet games with vector graphics called Vertigo and Top Gunner. Chief game designer for this game was Vic Tolomei.

Another somewhat successful game from Exidy was a driving game named Top Secret. This game featured a spy car with advanced weaponry on a mission inside the Soviet Union to destroy a heavily guarded Top Secret super weapon. Game designers for this game were Vic Tolomei, Larry Hutcherson and Ken Nicholson.

In 2006, it was announced that Mean Hamster Software acquired rights to develop new Exidy arcade games.

In 2015, CollectorVision Games registered the unused trademark rights to the Exidy name and logo.

The Exidy Sorcerer

Main article: Exidy Sorcerer

Under the leadership of visionary Paul Terrell of Byte Shop fame, Exidy made a brief foray into the personal computer market, with the Exidy Sorcerer in 1978.

The Sorcerer was a modified S-100 bus based machine, but lacked the internal expansion system common to other S-100 systems. It made do with an S-100 expansion card-edge that could connect to an external S-100 expansion cage. The Sorcerer also featured an advanced (for the era) text display that was capable of 64 characters per line, when most systems supported only 40 characters. The Sorcerer did not support sound, color, or in some respects, graphics, which seems at odds with the company's video game background; however, the characters it displayed were programmable by the user. The system was never very popular in North America, but found a following in Australia and Europe, notably Belgium. Exidy licensed the Sorcerer computer and its software to a Texas-based startup called Dynasty Computer Corporation in 1979. It was relabeled and sold by Dynasty as the Dynasty Smart-Alec.

Arcade titles

Title	Release date	Notes
TV Pinball	1975	License of Ramtek's Knockout. The cocktail version is called Table Pinball.
Table Foosballer	1975	Licensed from Ramtek.
Alley Rally	1975
Destruction Derby	1975
Old Time Basketball	1975	Mechanical basketball game.
Death Race	April 1, 1976	During development, this game was known as Death Race 98.
Robot Bowl	1977
Score	1977
Super Death Chase	1977
Circus	1977
Car Polo	1977
Attack	1977
Football	1978
Rip Cord	1979
Side Trak	1979
Crash	1979
Fire One!	1979
Star Fire	1979
Bandido	January 1980	Originally developed and released by Nintendo in 1979 as Sheriff
Tail Gunner 2	1980	Purchased from Cinematronics
Spectar	1980
Targ	1980
Mouse Trap	1981
Venture	1981
Pepper II	1982
Victory	1982	Exidy also produced upgrade-kit of this game called Victor Banana.
Hard Hat	1982	Limited release
Fax	1983
Whirly Bucket	1983	A twist on the Skee-Ball concept. Unlike that game, the balls curve around a loop, hopefully falling into a hole. Just under the holes, there is a moving puppet, which can be struck with the ball for double points.
Tidal Wave	1983	A twist on the Skee-Ball concept. Unlike that game, the balls curve around a loop, hopefully falling into a hole.
Crossbow	1983
Cheyenne	1984
Catch-22	1985
Combat	1985
Crackshot	1985
Vertigo	1985	Limited release
Top Gunner	1986
Top Secret	1986	During development, this game was called 0077. The title was changed to Top Secret possibly due to copyright issues, since the title is similar to the movie series 007. When the game was changed to Top Secret, 50 levels were added and the controls were changed to a steering wheel.
Clay Pigeon	1986
Chiller	1986
Hit 'n Miss	1987
Who Dunit	1988
Showdown	1988	Poker game
Yukon	1989	Poker game (gambling version)
Twister	1989	A take on the Skee-Ball concept.
Turbo Ticket	1996	A take on the ticket grabber concept.

First Star Software games

These were licensed from First Star Software in 1984 for use with the Max-A-Flex arcade system.

• Astro Chase
• Flip and Flop
• Bristles
• Boulder Dash

Unreleased prototypes

• Kreepy Krawlers (1979)
• UFO's (1980)
• Teeter Torture (1982)
• Snapper (1982)
• Critter (1995, mechanical gun game)
• Hot Shot (1995, mechanical gun game)
• Troll (1995, mechanical gun game)

Free titles via MAME

In 2007, the MAME website announced that H.R. Kauffman had released the first of what would become a sizable group of Exidy games downloadable for free, non-commercial use, adding Circus to the already-released Teeter Torture. By 2011, with the help of Reinhard Stompe, the list of ROM images included Circus, Robot Bowl, Car Polo, Side Trak, Ripcord, Fire One, Crash, Star Fire and its unreleased upgrade Star Fire II, Targ, Spectar, Hard Hat, Victory, Teeter Torture, Fax and Top Gunner.

The ROM images may be freely downloaded from the MAME website after the user acknowledges the terms of usage.

External links

• Free Exidy arcade ROM downloads at MAME
• The Dot Eaters Article featuring a history of Death Race and Exidy