may 3, 1974 - Gran Trak 10
Description:
Gran Trak 10 is an arcade game developed by Atari through its subsidiary Cyan Engineering, and released by Atari in May 1974. In the game, a single player drives a car along a race track, viewed from above, avoiding walls of pylons and trying to pass as many checkpoints as possible before time runs out. The game is controlled with a steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedals, and a gear stick, and the car crashes and spins if it hits a pylon. Gran Trak 10 began development in fall of 1973; it was initially designed by Larry Emmons of Cyan, with the mechanical design handled by Eigen Systems, though after several design and production problems were uncovered during an initial small production run in March 1974 the design was overhauled by Allan Alcorn, the designer of Pong, with wider distribution beginning in May. The game's circuits include possibly the first instance of integrated circuit-based read-only memory, rather than graphics storied in diodes, which thereafter became the standard for arcade games.
Added to timeline:
Evolution of video games
Date:
