atarigames

Really? I did not know it was originally intended for a spinner but I don't doubt it. Considering Atari spinner games were rather common (Tempest, Major Havoc) it doesn't surprise me they would design within their comfort zone. Black Widow is hard enough with dual sticks, I can't imagine it being played with a spinner. Interesting. Not that I doubt you but you wouldn't happen to have a link or some sort of documentation that verifies that would you? Here is a picture of a prototype 'Black Widow' board. This is not a Gravitar board converted to play Black Widow. I have video of the gameplay somewhere. I will try to post it, when I get a chance to search for it.

The only reason people think it was 'like' Robotron was because of the dual joysticks. This game was originally designed to have it's own hardware. When Gravitar bombed in the arcades Atari had lots of operators complaining about the poor earnings, and also a large inventory of Gravitar boards. They needed something to convert the Gravitars to, and also needed to use up all the extra Gravitar boards. Since the Gravitar boards did not have support for a 'Spinner', like Tempest, the programmer had to change the controls over to something that was already supported by the Gravitar board. The might have been influenced by Robotron in the control scheme, but the game dynamic was very different with the 'spinner' along with 'fire' and 'thrust' buttons. I actually have a Prototype Black Widow board that uses the 'spinner' , it's a very different game. No problem. I got my info from my MAME32 program history tab. It shows the month and year of most games. It said Robotron March of 1982 and Black Widow December of 1982. Thinking back to when I first saw those games it seems about right to me.

1990

That game was released. It's World Cup/Coupe De Monde(?) I have the exact same board, with another daughter card that add's some additional features. There is a letter from Steve Jobs to Atari about some hacks he figured out for the boardset. http://www.atarigames.com/stevejobs.pdf Scott www.atarigames.com

Lots of new updates. http://www.atarigames.com/

It's Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters. It was designed by the same guy who co-designed on RoadBlasters. >>> You were this little space guy with a laser gun and you ran around shooting robots that held humans hostage. There were some scientists you saved as well. It was kind of like a futurisic '3D' platformer. I remember some of the hostages were female and it had a strange sense of humor. thanks

It's Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters. It was designed by the same guy who co-designed on RoadBlasters. >>> You were this little space guy with a laser gun and you ran around shooting robots that held humans hostage. There were some scientists you saved as well. It was kind of like a futurisic '3D' platformer. I remember some of the hostages were female and it had a strange sense of humor. thanks

I have added a steady stream of updates to Atarigames.com. Over the past week I have added several videos and some never seen before industrial sketches. The videos are dealer promotional presentations for Pole Position, Asteroids Deluxe, and Space Duel. There are also some demonstration videos for unreleased prototype games Gremlins, Jammin, and BMX Heat. I will continue to add content, as long as my bandwidth holds out. Scott The Atari Games Museum