Atari Tank II PARTS?

[atarigirlII]

TANK II ARCADE GAME

 

Made by ATARI, INC.

MODEL No. SA033-001

SN TA=II-2595

AMPS 2.0

PATENT No. 3793483

100-130 Volts

50/60 Cycles

 

I have had my TANK II for a lot of years and have decided to part it out. It works, but the right tank is a little sluggish. I was wondering if anyone could advise me as to what to take apart and what not to. And, also, some kind of idea of what the parts are worth. I know there is the power supply, the two connected boards, the coin door, the plexi glass screen, the monitor, the two controls which are on a panel, BUT... Please help! AtarigirlII

 

Historical Background

 

Tank was the first video arcade game to incorporate Read-Only Memory (ROM) microchips. It was released by Atari Inc. of Sunnyvale, California in 1974. Two years earlier, Atari had released the first successful video arcade game, Pong. The ROM microchips int Tank allowed the game to store much more information, and therefore it has much more advanced graphics than Pong. Tank still does not incorporate a microprocessor chip, which would enable much more sophisticated game play. Atari distributed Tank under the Kee Games name to get around exclusive licensing arrangements common in arcades at the time. Due to the popularity of video games, these arrangements were discontinued and the Kee Games name was not used again.

 

Tank is a 2 player arcade game by Atari Inc subsidiary Kee Games, originally released on November 5, 1974 and designed by Steve Bristow and Lyle Rains. The game is famous for causing such demand that Atari made its "secret" ownership of Kee Games public, merging the company back in to Atari and releasing Tank under the Atari label as well.

 

Tank uses a black and white Motorola television for its display. The control panel consists of 4 military style joysticks, 2 per player, with a fire button mounted on top of the right joystick of each pair.

 

Inserting coins immediately starts the game, placing the players in the upper right and lower left corners of the maze respectively. The first 50 or cabinets produced have a protruding wooden coin box area between the two speaker grills.

 

Tank was the first game to use IC-based ROM to store graphical data.

 

The custom game cabinet was designed by Peter L. Takaichi, and patented Oct. 20, 1975 (US Patent # D243,624).

 

Gameplay

Players move their tanks through a maze on screen, avoiding mines and shooting each other. The players are represented by one black and one white tank sprite, and mines are denoted by an "X". Points are scored by shooting the opponent or when a player runs over a mine, the player with the highest score at the end of the time limit winning the game.

 

The tanks are controlled with the dual joystick configuration. Pushing both joysticks will move the player's tank forward, and pulling them both back causes the tank to stop. Moving the right joystick forward while pulling the left joystick back will cause the tank to turn right, reversing the motion will cause the tank to turn left.