Best Defense
Once upon a time in the mid 70’s, at the University of California at Berkeley, a Computer Science student stumbles upon an old mainframe computer buried deep in the bowels under the physics department of the school. Installed on it is the original computer game Spacewar!, the graphics of which are displayed on an oscilloscope attached to the machine. It soon comes to pass that other nerds are gathered around the machine playing the classic shoot-em-up late into the night, and the game plants in this student a fixation with video games. Upon graduation in 1976, the young man follows his earlier obsession with pinball to the four-year-old video game maker Atari, where he works alongside pinball guru Steve Ritchie. Toiling in relative obscurity in their upstart pinball department in San Jose, he creates the visual and audio effects on pin games such as Atari’s first entry in the market, The Atarians, as well as Superman, Space Riders and others. Unfortunately, most of the tables rolling out of Atari meet with major reliability issues out in the field, and Atari would exit the pinball market within three years.
In 1979, burned out and looking for a change, this man is lured by President Mike Stroll to follow Ritchie to Chicago and Williams Electronics, who have the exact opposite problem as Atari; they’re well-established pinball champs looking to enter the booming videogame market. The company is seriously trimmed down from its 70’s heyday, and once again the man finds himself working with minimum supervision, enjoying total creative freedom in Williams’ manufacturing facility, a previously abandoned WWII factory. There he works on various pinball projects, including Firepower, the first electronic pinball game with multiball, and Williams’ first speech synthesis pinball game Gorgar. But it is the blockbuster Space Invaders, with its eternal (or at least for three lives) battle between man and machine, that makes the scales to fall his eyes about video games. Our man gets his chance to fulfill his Spacewar! and Space Invaders fueled desire to create a video game when in 1980 Williams gives him until an upcoming Amusement Machine Operators of America (AMOA) trade show, a span of about eight months, to get a working prototype of the company’s first original concept video game together to present to buyers. The new game is to be called Defender, and that young man is Eugene Jarvis. And now you know…the rest…of the story.
Click the button to play arcade version of Defender
Defining Defender
Well, there’s a bit more to tell, actually. Defender wouldn’t be Williams’ first video game; the company had previously climbed onto Nolan Bushnell’s coattails with Winner and its 4-player variant Winner IV, both PONG clones released in 1973 . Although Midway had taken the high road by actually licensing the game from Atari instead of just knocking off PONG . Even in 1980, these are the days before ten-person game development teams, so a game creator must be a double-threat: designer AND programmer. Utilizing Williams’ advanced 256 colour variation video graphics hardware, Jarvis begins work on the project virtually by himself. He spends precious months toying with vertical-oriented colour variations of current arcade hits such as Space Invaders and Asteroids. These experiments begin to take form with a featured a ship firing in three directions, and even one with a spinning turret. Jarvis eventually settles on the concept of a horizontal space game exhibiting plausible rules of physics and comes up with the title Defender, based on the 60’s courtroom drama series The Defenders. With this, at least Jarvis knows the player’s job will be to defend something. When Steve Ritchie suggests that the player should be sailing over the surface of a planet, Jarvis creates one, of one pixel in thickness, abstracting mountainous terrain who’s horizontal scrolling is staggered with a star field background to further enhance the feeling of velocity. A spaceship comes next, the full movement it enjoys over the planet surface being a nod to Asteroids. After creating a host of alien villains for players to shoot at, Jarvis now has something that could be a full video game, but which still lacks that elusive play ingredient that would set his game apart from the plethora of space-based combat arcade games currently vying for quarters.
Video games on the Great White Way! The Broadway Arcade Amusement Center, 52nd and Broadway, NYC, in 1981
While he waits for inspiration to strike, he passes the time by creating a seemingly extraneous group of humanoids to populate the planet surface. With only two weeks till the AMOA deadline, the answer to the hole in Defender’s gameplay strikes Jarvis while drifting off to sleep one night, further powered by the central concept of the 1979 movie Star Trek: The Motion Picture (starring William Shatner, of The Defenders (!!)). In the first Star Trek film, a harmless Voyager probe launched from Earth collides with a war-like probe of immense power, itself launched by a different civilization. Repairing itself by combining the two technologies, the new entity V’Ger sets out of extinguish all life. In Jarvis’ Defender, the player will use his ship to defend his fellow humanoids from kidnapping by the newly-populated aliens, and if he fails the two will merge into a mutant alien with increased powers. Play is further refined so that if players manage to shoot the kidnapping alien before it reaches the top of the screen with the human, he must then catch his charges in mid-air before they crash into the mountains below. Along with a rapidly firing laser cannon, the Defender ship comes with three initial smart bombs that will destroy all enemies on the screen. In an homage to Spacewar!, also included is a hyperspace button that will cause the player to disappear and then re-materialize at a random place above the planet. The designers want a multi-directional joystick for the game, but are unable to cost one that will stand up to the rigours that over-stimulated arcade players are likely to put it through. Instead, they settle for an up-and-down movement with a joystick, and a button that will reverse the direction of the player’s ship when needed. One of the most compelling aspects of the game is that events transpire elsewhere outside of the Defender’s view – alien abductions usually occur off-screen, requiring the player to check a small radar scanner screen above the main playfield and race to the scene to rescue his comrade.
The second coming of arcades, trade ad for Defender. 1980
The Twitch Shooter Returns
After a year of development, gameplay for Defender has now fully coalesced only a week before the prototype is to be demonstrated. Practically the entire programming staff at Williams throws in with Jarvis to complete the project, clocking hours of overtime, including Williams pinball masters like Larry DeMar. Also helping out is Sam Dicker, responsible for the memorable sound effects heard throughout the game. With 12 hours to go before the game debuts on the show floor, Jarvis and his team realize they have forgotten to program an attract mode, used to entice gamers in the arcades while the machine is otherwise idle. Working around the clock, the team has the code finished and burned into a ROM chip in the early morning hours of the day of the show, and it is raced to the game cabinet already located on the floor at the Williams booth.
The future comes into focus for Williams, with the debut of Defender at the 1980 AMOA show. Chicago
In space, no one can hear the Black Knight pinball speak. Williams trade ad, 1981
Both Defender and the other maverick at the show, Midway’s Pac-Man, are considered potential bombs by industry players…Midway’s top-down racing game Rally-X is touted at the next big thing. When Williams releases their game in 1980, however, the industry pundits are proved wrong on all counts. Even with an alarming average playing time of a mere 37 seconds (most games strive for at least 90 seconds before the first player death), Defender explodes into the arcades, rocketing up to the top of the sales charts, muscling for first place with Pac-Man and then Donkey Kong the following year. It is as far from the ‘cutesy’ phenomena forming in the arcades as you can get, an aggressively brash macho shootfest where players’ penetrating shots powerfully explode the enemy; Defender is what Jarvis refers to as a “sperm game”. Graphically, the game is astounding for 1980; Williams touts Defender as having more than 80,000 individually controlled video elements, each with a possible 256 different colours. Even aurally the game accosts you; in an arcade ringing with videogame bloops and bleeps, you can sure hear when someone drops a quarter into the eardrum-rattling Defender game.
Defender goes on to beat Pac-Man for the AMOA’s Videogame of the Year award in 1981, and Williams Electronics is awarded six of the eight annual awards, based on operator survey responses, given by influential trade magazine Play Meter. These include Top Pinball to the company’s Black Knight pin, and Top Video for Defender. The game company eventually sells around 60,000 Defender units, still by 1983 ranked as one of the top five money-making video games. Japanese game maker Taito distributes the game in Japan. There are, of course, plenty of Defender imitators and knockoffs, and more than 5 million cartridge versions are sold of Atari’s own immensely popular VCS/2600 Defender port, released in June of 1982 and winner of its own award: the 1982 “Arkie” in the Science Fiction/Fantasy category, from Electronic Games magazine. Perhaps the ultimate blessing upon the game is its inclusion in Buckner & Garcia’s popular video-game themed record album Pac-Man Fever, on track 8: The Defender.
Eugene Jarvis in front of a Defender cabinet, 1996 image
The imposing Defender control panel, 1980
Player offering a vigorous defense while playing Defender, 1982
Through the Stargate
At the time of Defender‘s release, Eugene Jarvis is making about $40,000 a year as a salaried employee at Williams. As his creation begins bringing in an obscene amount of money for the company, Jarvis feels he should be compensated for his work. Williams’ offering, a cash bonus and stock options spread out over four years, does not appease him. Amid the swirl of chaos in the wake of Defender‘s smash success and the subsequent influx of designers and technicians into the company, Jarvis walks and with DeMar forms video game design company Vid Kidz in April of 1981 in Chicago. But despite the rather insulting salary offer Williams has presented, the two don’t want to create games for anyone other than their former employer and they rebuff offers from other videogame distributors, almost immediately entering into an agreement with Williams to manufacture and distribute Vid Kidz games. The first product on the slate is the Defender sequel Stargate, released in 1981 and later renamed Defender II for legal reasons. If people at the 1980 AMOA thought Defender was too complicated to be a success, one wonders what they must have thought of its sequel, featuring an astounding six buttons, controlling reverse, thrust, fire, hyperspace and the new Inviso cloaking device…used to render the ship indestructible for a short period of time. The Stargates of the title are portals onscreen that if entered while a human is being kidnapped will warp the player to the scene of the attack. The game carefully retains the play value of the original, but added are a number of new enemies to destroy, and the evil alien attackers now have names, such as the Irata and Yllabain…which by some strange coincidence happen to contain the names of Williams’ competition spelled backward. Also present is an improved colour palette adding new spice to the graphics. Shipping near the end of 1981, only 26,000 machines are eventually sold, still a solid success but seen as a disappointment to Jarvis who considers the sequel superior to the original in many respects.
Stargate, Defender sequel
Robotron: 2084 in the arcade
Welcome Our New Robotron Overlords
Next from Vid Kidz comes Robotron: 2084 in 1982, originally called Robot War: 1984 while under development. Its groundbreaking control scheme features two joysticks; one for moving the onscreen character around and another for firing. Berzerk provides inspiration for the game and its two sticks; Jarvis likes Stern’s product but is frustrated by only being able to fire in the direction the character is moving. With the extra joystick at his disposal, the player can fire in eight directions while running from the enemy. More inspiration comes from Chase, a turn-based computer game on the Commodore PET and other early micro-computers, which has the player escape a swarm of surrounding, zeroing-in robots by moving in such as way as to make them blow up by running into walls or themselves. Midway’s coin-op Omega Race is another genus game for Jarvis and Robotron, with the idea of the player being swarmed by enemies, who in Midway’s game drop mines to be either avoided or destroyed. Robotron also sports a fairly complex SF plotline, taking place in the future with a species of robots known as Robotrons finally fed-up with the liabilities of humans, who they try to wipe from the planet. The hero, a genetic freak “superhuman”, must save the final vestiges of humanity from a cornucopia of evil machines. While trying to survive the onslaught, players are tasked with picking up members of “the last human family”. Said (vastly extended} family consisting of Mommy, Daddy and little son Mikey, so named after the sullen, silent kid in the then-ubiquitous Life cereal TV commercials who usually “hates everything”.
Initially, the design of the game hews closely to its Berzerkian influence, with the player navigating a huge underground environment with corridors and a central controlling station. Once Jarvis realizes the kind of time it would take to realize this vision, the idea is pared down to something more reasonable. In the finished product, at the beginning of every new screen players are placed in the centre of an open, barren arena, surrounded by a multitude of enemies who quickly begin swarming towards him. Things get so crazy on the screen, with so many entities rushing around firing their weapons, that Williams develops a 1MHz chip just to be able to run Robotron. And in the fine tradition of loud Williams games, Robotron sports lots of cabinet shaking sound effects, in an attempt to get the player sweating in a Pavlovian response to the noisy mayhem. Graphically, the game moves extremely fast. Developed for Robotron is a revolutionary bit blitter graphics technology, allowing large amounts of data to be moved quickly around memory addresses. Many in the design team, including one RJ Mical, eventually end up working on the colour handheld Handy project for Epyx, and then on the truly revolutionary Amiga computer. After a rousing reception during its unveiling at a meeting for Williams distributors immediately prior to the 1982 Amusement Operators Expo in Chicago, upon release Williams sells 19,000 Robotron units, a good showing considering its departure from the Defender formula. It is named as the 4th most popular video arcade game in the U.S. by Play Meter magazine in the early summer of 1982. Williams also draw the ire of Disney, who file a lawsuit in Federal Court in Chicago which states that the name Robotron infringes on their copyright to the title of their flop movie Tron, released the same year.
Breakup and NARC Raids
The 4th chapter in the Defender series, Blaster (1983), is a flop for Vid Kidz. Only 500 machines are produced due to its expensive 3D graphics hardware featuring sprite scaling, allowing objects to grow in size creating the feeling of foward movement. The equipment is offered inside a practically indestructible Duramold polyethylene cabinet that makes the whole shebang around 25% lighter than traditional arcade game housing. Limited quantities of a traditional wooden cabinet is also offered for the game, along with an exceedingly rare sit-down cockpit version. Blaster is the final game by Vid Kidz, as the team drifts apart as DeMar moves back into pinball, and along with Pat Lawlor goes on to design the Addams Family game in 1992 for Williams, which becomes the best-selling solid-state pinball game of all time.
Eugene Jarvis with Blaster graphics, 1984
The exceedingly rare Blaster arcade game cockpit cabinet, 1983
Jarvis goes back to school, getting his masters degree from Stanford University in 1986. Williams has other hits outside of the Vid Kidz team, including Joust (1982) by John Newcomer and Bill Pfutzenreuter, with art for the game done by pioneering computer graphics designer John Hendricks, née Janice Hendricks. Williams also makes classic 1982 speech synthesis game Sinistar, who’s programmers include Sam Dicker, he of the great Defender sound effects, and the game includes some startling voice-synthesized taunting from the evil title character. Also on board for Sinistar is R.J. Mical; Dicker would later help Mical on development of the Amiga computer. Mical would work on the impressive multi-tasking system for Amiga called Intuition, and Dicker on the computer’s sound and MIDI capabilities.
A fittingly magnificent poster for one of the best arcade games of the 80’s, 1982’s Joust
It lives! A sinisterly lit image of the Sinistar cockpit in this 1983 trade ad
Upon graduation from Stanford Jarvis returns to Williams, develops the Z-Unit videogame system, and a game to go with it called NARC (1989), which heralds Williams’ return to the videogame market after their purchase by Midway. The arcade game itself is heralded at a Williams presentation as a run-up to the 1988 AMOA convention; during its unveiling, “elite” team members emerge from the stage and shoot pellets at the audience. NARC is also highly successful, so much so that it helps bring arcade videogames out of a slump in the late 80’s. It is one of the first arcade games to utilize the powerful 32-bit Texas Instrument 34010 graphics/CPU chip. This blistering hardware is used to serve a blatant anti-drug tirade to players, while at the same time taking a more liberal stance against video game violence: the player-controlled narcotics officer strolls down the street mowing down suspected drug pushers, with a carefully placed bazooka shot sending a shower of bloody limbs and burning bodies into the air. All this mayhem is personalized via the use of digitized actors for the game characters and images of real vehicles for the Narc’s rides, a pioneering process that Midway would utilize to further notorious effect a few years later in their game Mortal Kombat and various sequels. In 1990 comes Smash TV, little more than a technically enhanced Robotron, and High Impact Football the same year.
Say NO to drugs, YES to a little ultraviolence, in Eugene Jarvis’ arcade game NARC, 1989
Midway’s Mortal Kombat continued the use of digitized actors pioneered in NARC. Click on the botton to play the arcade version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
The Fate of Williams Electronics and Eugene Jarvis
Under the umbrella of the WMS Industries holding company, formed in 1985, Williams Electronics enters the slot machine business in 1992. After the purchase of Tradewest in 1994, this video game development company is renamed Williams Entertainment, Inc, responsible for the development and distribution of console and computer video games. The company helps spur on a trend of 3D adaptations of classic arcade games to 90’s consoles when it releases Robotron X for the PlayStation and N64 in the later part of the decade. Having absorbed Midway in 1988, the game is released by Williams under the Midway label. With the graphics given the 3D treatment, the frenetic action and full view of the playfield enjoyed in the original arcade game suffers, and the console update fails to quicken the pulse of many gamers. Time-Warner Interactive, the owner of Atari Games, is purchased by WMS on March 29, 1996, at a reported price of $25 million. Midway is spun off to shareholders in 1998, continuing as an independently owned and operated company. WMS eventually both shuts down Atari Games and leaves the waning pinball market in 1999.
Ad for video games by Williams Entertainment, 1996
Cruis’n USA, by Eugene Jarvis and Midway, 1994
Eugene Jarvis’ later efforts include the best-selling Cruis’n racing games he creates for Midway. Cruis’n USA is released in 1994 and Cruis’n World in 1996. Both are also big successes in the arcade, as well as ports to Nintendo’s N64 home console. Jarvis is one of the very few game creators from the golden arcade days still producing today, founding the Raw Thrills label in 2001, and still enjoying great success to boot. 
1996 ad for Robotron X, Williams Entertainment
A bird-brained ad for classic arcade video game Joust, by Williams 1982
Sources (Click to view)
Page 1 – Best Defense
Intro to Eugene Jarvis
Sharpe, Roger C. “Harry Williams: Remembrances of a Coin-Op Legend.” Video Games, 1 Jan. 1984, p. 48. Image of Harry Williams
The Arcade Flyer Archive – www.arcadeflyers.com/?page=home
Elblanco, comp. “Innerview: Eugene Jarvis.” JoyStik Sept. 1982: 6. Internet Archive. 3 Dec. 2014. Web. 3 Feb. 2022. He’s [Eugene Jarvis] worked on pin-ball games at Atari in San Jose…
Videogaming and Computergaming Illustrated, “Arcadia: Video Valhalla” by Richard Meyers, pgs. 33-36, Dec 1983. “Just as the company [Atari] was getting its wind up, they made the mistake of releasing four pinball machines that were devilishly clever, sumptuously designed, and about as dependable as a fourteen year old Pinto station wagon.” Retrieved from the Internet Archive, Videogaming Illustrated collection, Sep 18 2015.
DURiAN, comp. “Eugenius.” EDGE Presents…RETRO #1: Guide to Classic Videogame Playing and Collecting 2002: 62-69. Internet Archive. 30 June 2020. Web. 16 Jan. 2022. In 1979 he [Eugene Jarvis] left Silicon Valley to work for Williams in the suburbs of Chicago. In 1980 he produced the sound and visual effects for Firepower, the first electronic multiball pinball game. ;Jarvis decided to call the game Defender – a name he adopted from a courtroom drama entitled ‘The Defenders’.;Berzerk helped Jarvis realize that he needed a bad guy. Many videogames had bad guys, but he wanted a really bad guy. He saw it in the first ‘Star Trek’ movie. In the film, a peaceful exploration probe collides with a war probe to create an even more horrible device that seeks o destroy the life in the universe. “That led to the gameplay element of the lander coming in kidnapping your people and mutating into this mutant which was the true bad guy…
Gorgar. Chicago: Williams Electronics, 1979. Internet Archive. TAFA Original, 21 July 2007. Web. 03 Oct. 2019. <https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=flyer&db=pinballdb&id=629&image=2>. Image of a page from Gorgar flyer, 1979
Associate-manuel-dennis, comp. “Williams Electronics, Inc. President Michael Stroll.” Cash Box 17 Apr. 1982: Cover. Internet Archive. 26 Sept. 2016. Web. 3 Oct. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/cashbox43unse_45>. Image of cover of Cashbox, April 17, 1982
TheUnofficialConventionArchives. (2020, August 26). Pintastic 2016 – Steve Ritchie Panel [Video]. Internet Archive. Retrieved October 9, 2024, from https://archive.org/details/steve-ritchie-panel-at-pintastic-16. Still frame of Steve Ritchie at Pintastic New England, 2016
Defining Defender
The Making of Defender
Scottithgames, comp. “Arcade Spotlight.” Electronic Games Winter 1981: 82-83. Internet Archive. 30 May 2013. Web. 4 Nov. 2022. Image collage of The Broadway Arcade Amusement Center
Associate-manuel-dennis. “Williams Bows First VIdeo Game.” Cash Box, 20 Dec. 1980, pp. 39–42. Internet Archive, Accessed 22 Sept. 2019. Technically, Defender offers the highest resolution color images ever achieved, according to Williams. The crystal clear images are comprised of more than 80,000 individually controlled video elements, each element being any one of a possible 256 different colors.
RetroGameChampion, and John Sellers. “The Creator.” Arcade Fever – The Fan’s Guide to the Golden Age of Video Games, Running Press Book Publishers, 2001, pp. 52–53. From Eugene Jarvis interview: I think it was around six o’clock at night, and that point, it didn’t have an attract mode…
DURiAN, comp. “Eugenius.” EDGE Presents…RETRO #1: Guide to Classic Videogame Playing and Collecting 2002: 62-69. Internet Archive. 30 June 2020. Web. 16 Jan. 2022. Jarvis and his team had initially wanted a multi-directional joystick, but the couldn’t find one that was cheap and reliable. They therefore settled on a two-way-joystick-and-reverse-button combination.
Associate-manuel-dennis. “Williams Games: Less Is More.” Cash Box, 19 Mar. 1983, p. 49. Internet Archive, Accessed 19 Sept. 2019. After a year of intense effort, including hundreds of hours in overtime, Defender was born…
Compasio, Camille. “Williams/Bally Teams Get The Job Done.” Comp. Associate-manuel-dennis. Cash Box 18 Mar. 1989: 30. Internet Archive. 26 Sept. 2016. Web. 26 Sept. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/cashbox52unse_33/page/30>. Image of Williams design team, 1989
scottithgames. (2017, October 8). Vid-Kid of the Month: Gene Simmons of KISS. Vidiot, 25. (Original work published 1983) Image of Gene Simmons upset at a Defender arcade cabinet. Photo by Ross Marino
The Twitch Shooter Returns
Defender arcade game released, home versions
DURiAN, comp. “Eugenius.” EDGE Presents…RETRO #1: Guide to Classic Videogame Playing and Collecting 2002: 62-69. Internet Archive. 30 June 2020. Web. 16 Jan. 2022. In 1979 he [Eugene Jarvis] left Silicon Valley to work for Williams in the suburbs of Chicago. In 1980 he produced the sound and visual effects for Firepower, the first electronic multiball pinball game.
denzquix & Williams Electronics, Inc. (2018, May 1). Defender : Williams. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/arcadeflyer_defender_alt3 Image of upright, cocktail and cocktail with base versions of arcade game Defender. Originally published 1980
Williams cops two top game prizes in Play Meter Award. (1981, December 1). Play Meter, 37.
WallyWonka. “Atari 2600 3D Boxes Pack.” EmuMovies. N.p., 26 Nov. 2019. Web. 19 Aug. 2020. Image of game box for Defender on the Atari VCS
Castellano, Gene. “‘Tron’ Victorious in Video Wars.” Philadelphia Daily News 14 Dec. 1982: 42. Newspapers.com. Web. 5 Apr. 2021. One of 53 awards announced in the magazine’s [Electronic Games] January issue…. Other winners: Science fiction/fantasy: “Defender” by Atari.
Bultro, comp. “Eugene Jarvis: Il Creatore Di Defender.” Videogiochi N.90 Nov. 1983: 74. Internet Archive. 19 Apr. 2016. Web. 19 Mar. 2022. Images: Larry DeMar and Eugene Jarvis standing side by side; cluttered development environment of VidKidz
“Editorial Page.” Next Generation, 1 Sept. 1996, p. 2. Image of Eugene Jarvis giving the thumbs up in front of a Defender cabinet
C. (2020, May 11). Atari 5200 3D Box Pack (All Official Releases). Retrieved August 25, 2020, from https://emumovies.com/files/file/4053-atari-5200-3d-box-pack-all-official-releases/ Image of game box for Atari 5200 version of Defender
Welcome Our New Robotron Overlords
Robotron:2084
Gooch. “Atari 2600 Artwork Pack for RocketLauncher.” EmuMovies. N.p., 18 June 2018. Web. 25 Aug. 2020. Game box image for Stargate on the Atari 2600
C. (2020, May 11). Atari 5200 3D Box Pack (All Official Releases). Retrieved August 25, 2020, from https://emumovies.com/files/file/4053-atari-5200-3d-box-pack-all-official-releases/ Image of game box for Atari 5200 version of Robotron: 2084
Amis, Martin. “Part 1 – They Came From Outer Space: The Video Invasion.” Invasion of the Space Invaders: An Addict’s Guide to Battle Tactics, Big Scores and the Best Machines. London: Jonathan Cape, 1982. 28. Print. B&W image of player with awesome leg stance playing Defender. Photo by Jeremy Enness.
Page 2 – Welcome Our New Robotron Overlords
Development of Robotron Arcade Game
DURiAN, comp. “Eugenius.” EDGE Presents…RETRO #1: Guide to Classic Videogame Playing and Collecting 2002: 62-69. Internet Archive. 30 June 2020. Web. 16 Jan. 2022. Jarvis owes Robotron’s play mechanics to Chase, an old Commodore PET character=based game…Jarvis loved the ‘all-at-once’ concept of Chase and duplicated it using an eight-way joystick for movement.
Collins, G. (1982, July 5). Saving The “Last Family.” The New York Times, 40. Play Meter, the Billboard magazine of the gaming industry, now lists Robotron: 2084 as the fourth most popular coin-operated video game in America. ;Mikey, Mr. Jarvis said, was based on a character in a television breakfast cereal commercial, the most memorable line of which was, ”Mikey, he eats anything.”
Compasio, Camille. “Around the Route.” Comp. Associate-manuel-dennis. Cash Box 17 Apr. 1982: 35. Internet Archive. 26 Sept. 2016. Web. 3 Oct. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/cashbox43unse_45/page/n35>. Williams sponsored a distribs meeting just prior to the opening of AOE to officially premiere its new “Robotron 2084” video game and the response, Ron [Crouse, Williams executive] told us, was “overwhelming.”
Atari Age, “New Action Games!”, pg. 9, Vol. 1 Num. 1 (relaunch), May/Jun. 1982
Video Games, “Coin-Op Shop – AOE Report: Showdown in Chi-town”, by Steve Bloom, Vol. 1 Num. 1, Aug 1982
Robotron: 2084 – http://home1.gte.net/eschonni/r2084/
DURiAN, comp. “Eugenius.” EDGE Presents…RETRO #1: Guide to Classic Videogame Playing and Collecting 2002: 62-69. Internet Archive. 30 June 2020. Web. 16 Jan. 2022. Williams had to design a 1Mhz chip specifically to run Robotron.
Delphinus48, comp. “RJ Mical: Architect Of The Future.” 3DO Magazine Dec. 1994: 12. Internet Archive. 24 Nov. 2020. Web. 16 Apr. 2021. RJ Mical began his career at Williams, programming coin-op special effects before moving to Amiga Computer where he developed the machine’s revolutionary multitasking operating system.
Kelly, Christina, and Jane King. “Will Robots Take Over the World?” Editorial. K-Power May 1984: 23. K-Power Magazine Issue 4. Internet Archive. Web. 05 Feb. 2016. Image of Eugene Jarvis, photo by Martha Leonard/Picture Group
Bloom, Steve. “Disney v. Williams.” Comp. Jason Scott. Video Games Oct. 1982: 17. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 1 Nov. 2022. In May, Walt Disney Productions charged Williams Electronics with infringing on its rights to the name and trademark, Tron.
Breakup and NARC Raids
The End of Vid Kidz/Making NARC
Lewis, Jim. “The Game Makers.” Enter Feb. 1984: 37-41. Enter Magazine Number 04. Internet Archive. Web. 07 Mar. 2016. Image of Eugene Jarvis, Blaster design sketches, photo by Marc Pokempner
Video Games, “Zen & the Art of Donkey Kong”, by Mark Jacobson, pgs. 30 – 33, Vol. 1 Num. 4, Jan 1983
Compasio, Camille. “Around the Route.” Comp. Associate-manuel-dennis. Cash Box 17 Mar. 1984: 39-40. Print. This unique cabinet is about 25% lighter in weight than traditional models and as Ron [Crouse, Williams VP] pointed out, “it’s practically indestructible!”
Sharpe, C. & Sketch the Cow. (2013, May 31). Coin-Op ’83: Arcade Games Show Off. Video Games, 38–47. (Original work published 1983) Images of AOE 1983. Photos by Steven Epstein, Barry Schuler and Roger C. Sharpe
“Historic Achievement At Williams Bally/Midway As The Addams Family Becomes Best Selling Pin of All Time!” Cash Box, 3 Oct. 1992, p. 38. Image of Larry DeMar and Pat Lawlor standing next to The Addams Family pinball game
JoyStik, “Blaster”, pg. 33, Vol. 2 Num. 3, Dec. 1983
“The Mechanics: Mortal Kombat II.” Video Games: The Ultimate Gaming Magazine, Feb. 1994, pp. 14–15. John (Tobias) and Ed (Boon) used Midway’s Digitized Graphics Technology to graphically render characters onto the video screen. Midway pioneered this technology beginning with NARC in the late ’80s.
Krueger, Anne. “Welcome to the Club.” Comp. Jason Scott. Video Games Mar. 1983: 51+. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 26 June 2022. Image of Janice Hendricks in front of coke machine
Compasio, Camille. “Around the Route.” Comp. Associate-manuel-dennis. Cash Box 19 Nov. 1988: 28. Internet Archive. 26 Sept. 2016. Web. 1 Oct. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/cashbox52unse_18/page/28>. The introduction of “narc” was quite dramatic, as combat-ready members of the “elite team” sprouted out from the stage and shot pellets at the audience…
Compasio, Camille. “Eugene Jarvis: He Makes Technology Work.” Comp. Associate-manuel-dennis. Cash Box 18 Mar. 1989: 32. Internet Archive. 26 Sept. 2016. Web. 26 Sept. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/cashbox52unse_33/page/32>. Image of Eugene Jarvis at the controls of NARC, 1989. Other info, from Eugene Jarvis interview: “With this new technology, we can exploit the higher resolution; we can digitize real images, have live human actors, real images of cars and other vehicles and real-life simulation in imagery,” he explained.
Edgemundo. “Atari ST 3D Boxes Pack.” EmuMovies. N.p., 10 Feb. 2020. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Game box images for the Atari ST versions of NARC and Smash T.V.
Hubz, comp. “The Faces of Acme ’94.” Play Meter Apr. 1994: ACME-10. Internet Archive. 24 Aug. 2021. Web. 30 Nov. 2021. Image of Larry DeMar with ’94 World Cup Mascot
The Fate of Williams Electronics and Eugene Jarvis
Acquisition of Williams, Eugene Jarvis’ Further Works
WMS Gaming – www.wms.com
MobyGames, ‘Williams Entertainment Inc.’ www.mobygames.com/company/williams-entertainment-inc
Webb, Marcus. “Breaking: Arcadia.” Next Generation, June 1996, p. 26. The purchase [of Time Warner/Atari Games] was completed March 29… Reliable sources put the buying price around $25 million.
Lewis, Jim. “The Game Makers.” Enter Feb. 1984: 37-41. Enter Magazine Number 04. Internet Archive. Web. 07 Mar. 2016. Image of Sam Dicker, photo by Ed Kasha
“An Interview with Eugene Jarvis.” Edge, 1 Oct. 1998, p. 22. Closeup image of Eugene Jarvis. Photo by Mark Koehler
What could possibly be more exciting than having the Vid Kidz themselves installing the new Tie-Die romset in your machine!
That would be pretty cool, and the “Tie-Die” romset was a nice nod from the original designers of Robotron that the continued love of the challenge of that game was not unnoticed or unappreciated by them.