Exidy - Citizendia

Exidy was one of the largest creators of arcade video games during the early period of video games, from 1974-1983. An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in businesses such as Restaurants Pubs Video arcades and Family Entertainment A video game is a Game that involves interaction with a User interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. Year 1974 ( MCMLXXIV) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. Year 1983 ( MCMLXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar) The company was founded by H. R. "Pete" Kaufman. The name "Exidy" was a portmanteau of the words "Excellence in Dynamics. "

Some of the notable games released by Exidy included Circus, Death Race, Star Fire, Venture, Pepper II, Mouse Trap, Targ, and Spectar. Circus is an Arcade game released by Exidy in 1977. The game is an arranged version of Breakout, where the player Star Fire, released 1979 is considered to be a groundbreaking Shoot 'em up Arcade game by Exidy that brought a number of new innovations to Venture is a 1981 Arcade game by Exidy. It was ported to a number of home consoles, including the Atari 2600 Mouse Trap is a 1981 Arcade game released by Exidy, similar to Pac-Man. Targ was a successful 1980 game by Exidy depicting vehicular combat in a future world Spectar was a 1980 arcade game by Exidy depicting vehicular combat in a future world Star Fire was prominently featured in the 1980 film Midnight Madness, while Mouse Trap was the subject of a song on the 1982 Pac-Man Fever album. Midnight Madness is a 1980 cult Comedy film from Walt Disney Productions, starring David Naughton. Pac-Man Fever is a 1982 album recorded by Buckner & Garcia. It is also the name of the first song on that album Many Exidy games can be played today on personal computers using MAME arcade emulation software. MAME is an Emulator application designed to recreate the Hardware of Arcade game systems in Software, with the intent of preserving gaming

Exidy was most famous for its light gun games, beginning with the game Crossbow. A light gun is a Pointing device for Computers and a control device for arcade and video games. Crossbow was a Video arcade game first released by Exidy in 1983. These presented an unusual twist to the genre, where the goal is to protect characters walking through the screen by shooting down bullets and other things which are trying to kill the characters. See also [[Game classification]] Video games are categorized into Genres based on their Gameplay interaction A bullet is a solid Projectile propelled by a Firearm or Air gun and is normally made from metal (usually Lead) These games were also the first to feature fully digitized sound, for all sound effects and for music (far more advanced than any other games up until the 16-bit generation). Digital audio uses Digital signals for Sound reproduction. This includes analog-to-digital conversion, digital-to-analog conversion, storage For the album by The Jam see Sound Affects. Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced Sounds Music is an Art form in which the medium is Sound organized in Time. In the History of computer and video games, the fourth generation (more commonly referred to as the 16 bit era) began on October 30, 1987 The most (in)famous game today from this series is the game Chiller. Not to be confused with the 1985 Mastertronic computer game Chiller, published for Commodore 64 Spectrum Amstrad CPC and MSX Chiller Other "C" series games include Cheyenne, Combat, Crackshot and Clay Pigeon. Chief designer for these games were Larry Hutcherson.

Exidy also made a rarely-seen motion cabinet game with vector graphics called Vertigo. Chief game designer for this game was Vic Tolomei.

Another somewhat successful game from Exidy was a driving game named Top Secret. Top Secret is the codename of a Scalable Multiplayer Online Racing Game directed by David Perry in partnership with publisher Acclaim Games. 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

Exidy made a brief foray into the home computer market, with the Exidy Sorcerer. Ken Nicholson is a video game developer and Windows graphics pioneer A home computer was a class of Personal computer entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s The Sorcerer was one of the early Home computer systems released by the Videogame company Exidy. The Sorcerer was a modified S-100 bus based machine, but lacked the internal expansion system common to other S-100 systems. The S-100 bus, IEEE696 -1983 (withdrawn, was an early Computer bus designed in 1974 as a part of the Altair 8800, generally considered today It made do with an S-100 expansion card-edge that could connect to an 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. Oddly, the Sorcerer did not support sound, color, or in some respects, graphics, which seems at odds with the company's video game background. The system was never very popular in North America, but found a following in Europe, notably Belgium.

Exidy sold off the Sorcerer computer, it's software, and assembly line to a Texas-based startup called Dynasty Computer Corporation by 1977 or 1978. It was relabeled and sold by Dynasty as the Dynasty Smart-Alec.

In 2006 it was announced that Mean Hamster Software acquired rights to develop new Exidy games. Mean Hamster Software, Inc is a computer game company founded by John Swiderski in 1985

External links

Mean Hamster Exidy, Crossbow Press Release
The Dot Eaters Article featuring a history of Death Race and Exidy