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History
The Bally Manufacturing Corporation was founded on January 10, 1932, in Chicago, Illinois, by Raymond Moloney. It was established by Bally’s parent company, Lion Manufacturing, to make pinball games, and it took its name from its first game, Ballyhoo. The company also dabbled in other ventures, including the manufacture of gambling equipment and vending machines. In the late 1930s, it began to manufacture slot machines on a larger scale. After producing munitions and airplane parts during World War II, Bally returned to its core business. Moloney died in 1958, and private investors purchased the company in 1963.
The company kept expanding into different entertainment areas. Around 1968, Bally bought the Lenc-Smith company, which made its pinball and arcade cabinets, and in 1969 it acquired Midway Manufacturing, an amusement game company from Schiller Park, Illinois. In 1973, Midway became an early American maker of arcade video games. This was the beginning of a close relationship with a small design firm that would shape Bally’s video game history.
Dave Nutting and his partner Frederiksen had created Dave Nutting Associates, a research and development company dedicated to coin-op games. The company stayed in close contact with Bally while it worked on microprocessor prototypes, and after producing a working video game example, Bally asked it to adapt Taito’s Western Gun to a microprocessor. The result was Gun Fight, released in 1975. It is considered the first arcade game to contain a microprocessor. Dave Nutting Associates went on to create other early arcade games, such as The Amazing Maze Game (1976) and 280 ZZZAP (1977).
Once the home video game market began to flourish, Midway decided to use this knowledge to create a system that would be a real home arcade. In 1976, Jeff Frederiksen of Dave Nutting Associates was already developing a home game system that would be known as the Bally Professional Arcade. In 1977, Bally purchased Dave Nutting Associates and moved it to Illinois, which allowed Nutting to run a mostly autonomous operation focused on video game development for Midway. The team was asked to design a video display chip that could be used in all of Midway’s video game systems, from stand-up arcade games to a home computer system. The chip was used in many of Midway’s classic arcade games of the era, including Gorf and Wizard of Wor. Jamie Fenton, who co-created games such as The Amazing Maze Game and 280 ZZZAP, led the team that created the console. Under Nutting’s direction, Bob Ogdon joined the 20 designers working on games for the system.
Release
In 1977, Midway started taking orders for its Bally Home Library Computer. The system was only available through mail order in the JS&A catalog. Marketed as a computer that could rival the IBM 5100, it received about 8,000 orders. At that time, the Bally Home Library Computer was supposed to be delivered within four weeks, but deliveries actually started in January 1978. By then, the console had already been renamed the Bally Professional Arcade.In 1979, Bally grew less interested in the arcade market and decided to sell off its Consumer Products Division, including the development and production of the game console. At about the same time, a third-party group had been unsuccessfully attempting to bring its own console design to market as the Astrovision. A corporate buyer from Montgomery Ward who was in charge of the Bally system put the two groups in contact, and a deal was eventually arranged. In 1981, the unit was re-released with the BASIC cartridge included for free, this time under the name Bally Computer System. The name changed again in 1982, to Astrocade.
Demise
It sold under this name until the video game crash of 1983, and then disappeared around 1985. Astrocade later filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11. Meanwhile, Bally kept using the Astrocade hardware for arcade games. Only seven Bally Midway arcade games ran on the Midway Astrocade hardware, and Professor Pac-Man (1983) was the last of them. Bally closed Dave Nutting Associates in 1984, with Midway’s own team handling arcade games and a company called Action Graphics, led by Bob Ogdon, making home games for the system. In 1982, Bally merged its pinball business into Midway, and in 1988 the arcade and pinball assets were sold to Williams Electronic Games.
Technical Specification
- CPU: Zilog Z80, 1.789 MHz
- RAM: 4 kB (up to 64 kB with external modules in the expansion port)
- ROM: 8 kB
- Cart ROM: 8 kB
- Expansion: 64 kB total
- Ports: 4 controller, 1 expansion, 1 light pen
- Sound: 3 voices + noise/vibrato effects (played through the TV)
- Video Resolution: True 160×102 / Basic 160×88 / Expanded RAM 320×204
- Colors: True 8 / Basic 2
Games
A total of 25 licensed games were released for this system.
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| 280 Zzzap/Dodgem (2001) | Amazing Maze / Tic-Tac-Toe (5001) | Artillery Duel (5005) | Astro Battle (2009) Space Invaders (2009)* |
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| Astrocade Basic (6004) | Bally BASIC (6002) | Bally Pin (3005) | BioRhythm (4004) |
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| Blackjack Poker and Acey Deucey (5002) | Brickyard/Clowns (2004) | Cosmic Raiders (2019) | Dog Patch (2010) |
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| Elementary Math and Bingo Math (4001) | Football (3002) | Galactic Invasion (2011) Galaxian (2011)* |
Grand Prix/Demolition Derby (2014) Grand Prix (2014)* |
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| Incredible Wizard (2017) | Letter Match/Spell ‘n Score/Crosswords (4002) | Panzer Attack and Red Baron (2003) | Pirate’s Chase (2015) |
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| Seawolf and Missile (2002) Seawolf and Bombardier (2002)* |
Solar Conqueror (2018) | Space Fortress (2012) | Star Battle (2005) |
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| Tornado Baseball/Tennis/Handball/Hockey (3001) |
* These were the original titles, but they were soon changed after the initial release.
Box Variation
With so many name changes, the console had to go through a series of different box types.
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| Bally Box | Astrocade Box | Bally Box, with Astrocade Sticker | Bally Blister Pack |
The following games have been confirmed to have been released in blister pack format. Note that some were released with two different covers.
- Amazing Maze / Tic-Tac-Toe (5001)
- Blackjack Poker and Acey Deucey (5002)
- Brickyard/Clowns (2004)
- Dog Patch (2010)
- Elementary Math and Bingo Math (4001)
- Panzer Attack and Red Baron (2003)
- Tornado Baseball/Tennis/Handball/Hockey (3001)
- Space Invaders (2009)
Third-Party Games
Most sites report only a few third-party games for the Bally Astrocade, but there were in fact quite a few.
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| Blast Droids | ICBM Attack | Life | Maze Man |
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| Machine Language Manager | Music Maker | Muncher | Sea Devil |
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| Simon and Put-Put Golf | Sneaky Snake | Spring Thing | Treasure Cove |
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| Word Processor |
There is also a ton of games and programs that were developed for the Astrocade using Bally BASIC. These programs were distributed on audio cassette and were mostly included with magazines or sold through mail order. The most notable are the ones released commercially by Esoterica Limited:
- Road Toad (Frogger)
- Garbersville / Ten Pins
- Great American Jigsaw, The / Big City Slick
- Home Budget Keeper / Hangman
- Star Trek (Starship Command) / Mini-Golf
- Super Skier (Super Slope)
- Treasure Island / Fox and Hounds
- Wildcatter / Bomb Squad
There is also a huge list of existing cassettes on Bally Alley.
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