Pro Darts

 

From Dennis Koble: "I designed and programmed most of the games in that series with input from a variety of people - most notably Roger Hector for the football game.  Atari had split out that group into a separate division with a small group of people (about 10?), including myself.  The (LED) hand-helds were done in a separate division and in a separate building.  Roger Hector did the art on the Pro Darts box.

Since I was never involved with the manufacturing of any of the games it is quite possible there were case problems.  The procedure in those days was to make very expensive machined metal molds and then make the plastic parts from those molds.  I think however (and I’m probably wrong) that was all done in the U.S.  The ROMS came from Southeast Asia and those were the long lead time and expensive items.  I think maybe it was just Atari money problems that killed the hand-helds.  I remember hearing that 10,000 of each game (except  Football) were made, although I never saw any of those.  The Football game (of which I still have one of the working fiberglass prototypes) case was quite different and I don’t think more than a few prototypes were ever made."

 

 

 


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