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Rare "Death Race" (1976) arcade machine photos and videos from the The Musee Mecanique in San Francisco
Luckily, on the last day of our San Francisco trip devoted to filming amazing interviews for the feature film, "W00t!: The Videogame Revolution", Matt and I had a chance to visit the The Museum of the City of San Francisco, The Musee Mecanique. Among the great stuff there was a pristine "Death Race" arcade machine from 1976, which was the first controversial videogame, supposedly inspired by the 1975 cult classic movie, "Death Race 2000". The object? Run as many "gremlins" down with your car before time runs out. The question is, are they "gremlins" or people? Regardless of the answer, hearing the screams as they're mowed down is surely memorable! Check out the casual photos and videos below:
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Musee Mecanique Photo in Schmap's guide to San Francisco
One of my Musee Mecanique photos was selected for use in the Schmap guide to San Francisco: http://www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=sanfrancisco&sid=sights_civiccenter&...
http://www.schmap.com/sanfrancisco/sights_civiccenter/#p=48885&i=48885_2...
Books!
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
Sound generation
I guess that they were generated not by playing back some samples but by using square wave generators or something like that. At that time there were probably some more or less universal tone generators like the TI SN 76477 (or something less capable). Some chips weren't programmable but had to be hardwired with resitors and capacitors, thus giving only one soundeffect. In consequence you would have to use several chips for more effects...
The chips and the knowledge were "there". I guess that some companies had quite some stock which they needed to use up.
Some CPUs were also incredibly pricey back then and newer architectures took some time to get used to - everything was done in assembly code back then, of course.
Later, most arcade machines used dedicated CPUs for sound generation. Chips like the Z80 were very popular for that, as lots of programmers were available. ASICs were apparently not that common but that soon changed, too.
take care,
Calibrator
Dedicated circuits
Were they for sound generation?
I only heard two sound effects in the videos and their names would fit... :-)
take care,
Calibrator
Yeah, I think so. I think every graphic and sound effect was stored like that. Pretty straightforward approach and I'm surprised that even when microprocessors became ubiquitous, there wasn't the occasional use of dedicated circuits for certain things like that (though of course that's assuming they could be mixed). Though of course as far as I know, they did...
Vintage Games book!
Xbox 360: billlog | Wii: 1345 2773 2048 1586 | PS3: ArmchairArcade
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
Scream & Crash
Were they for sound generation?
I only heard two sound effects in the videos and their names would fit... :-)
take care,
Calibrator
Goblin screams and car crashes
I checked the schematic and I didn't see a CPU. There were cool circuits name "Scream" and "Crash". :)
How terrifically literal! If only it were that straightforward today...
Vintage Games book!
Xbox 360: billlog | Wii: 1345 2773 2048 1586 | PS3: ArmchairArcade
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
Confirmed the Schematic
Death Race? Pretty sure it's discrete logic with no CPU. Jeri Ellsworth seemed to assume as much as well on Facebook.
Vintage Games book!
Xbox 360: billlog | Wii: 1345 2773 2048 1586 | PS3: ArmchairArcade
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
I checked the schematic and I didn't see a CPU. There were cool circuits name "Scream" and "Crash". :)
OK. Man it must be difficult
OK. Man it must be difficult to make a game that way. There is a story about that in Steve Wozniak's book iWoz, his goal was always to use less components than anyone else could.
BTW I recently heard a great interview with Nolan Bushnell, it's on the One Life Left podcast:
http://www.onelifeleft.com/
He's a very funny and candid speaker.
Death Race
Death Race? Pretty sure it's discrete logic with no CPU. Jeri Ellsworth seemed to assume as much as well on Facebook.
Vintage Games book!
Xbox 360: billlog | Wii: 1345 2773 2048 1586 | PS3: ArmchairArcade
Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
Was this game done in
Was this game done in hardware, or is it just new enough to be running on a microprocessor? I'm a bit too young to remember. The first arcade games I can remember are Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Moon Patrol, Dig Dug etc.
one of the two, for sure,
one of the two, for sure, wish i could remeber which (from screens (the part i remeber most)) they look about the same. I remebre playing SPACE WAR too, no idea on year. it had 2 rows of numbers to control the ships, can remebr thinking it was the worst controler i had ever used, but was addicted to playing it. Pretty sure it was 2 player only also, one of the original VS games. Funny how Street fighter always seems to hold that crown (Karate champ should have it long before Streetfighter). But then Pong, gunfighter, Tank, etc where all VS games long before the others.
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