Circus / Acrobat TV

Arcade Video game published 47 years ago:

Circus (c) 1977 Exidy.

POP! POP! POP! Pop the balloons and score points. A wall of yellow, green and blue balloons will appear at the top of the screen. You must pop balloons by catching a clown on the teeter-totter and bouncing him up to the balloons.

- TECHNICAL -

Circus came in an upright dedicated cabinet, and may have also been available in a cocktail configuration as well. Circus machines had white sides with red painted sideart of several balloons in flight. The front of the machine was decorated with a large ornate monitor bezel that also doubled as a marquee (or nameplate), this bezel showed several clowns in a circus scene and had the game title spelled out with multicolored balloons. The control panel was unadorned, save for an analog spinner and a start button. The whole machine was finished off in black t-molding. Once inside the machine, you can see that it uses a black and white monitor with a colored overlay (to make the balloons have color).

Main CPU : MOS Technology M6502 (@ 705.562 Khz)
Sound Chips : Discrete circuitry

Screen orientation : Horizontal
Video resolution : 248 x 256 pixels
Screen refresh : 57.00 Hz
Palette colors : 2

Players : 2
Control : paddle

- TRIVIA -

Released in January 1977, Circus was one of the first games produced by Exidy that used a CPU (6502) to control the game logic instead of hand-crafted hard-coded logic circuits.

At least 13,000 units, possibly as many as 20,000, were produced.

A bootleg was made by Sub-Electro.

- SCORING -

Successful jump : 10 points
Popping Yellow Balloon : 20 points
Popping Green Balloon : 50 points
Popping Blue Balloon : 100 points
Bonus for Clearing Yellow Balloon Row : 200 points
Bonus for Clearing Green Balloon Row : 500 points
Bonus for Clearing Blue Balloon Row : 1,000 points plus free jump

- STAFF -

Designed and programmed by : Edward Valeau, Howell Ivy

- PORTS -

* CONSOLES:
Atari 2600 (1978)

* COMPUTERS:
VTech Laser-VZ (1983)
Tandy Color Computer (1982) "Clowns & Balloons"
Commodore C64