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20 November 2009
Posted in
Site Updates -
Prototypes
I have been trying to locate a Tank 8 for the last 15 years. I searched high and low, but never had any luck locating anything at all, besides a manual and a CPU board. I spoke with countless ex-Atari employees with not a single lead. That all changed in 2004, when Atari closed it’s Milpitas facility. I met an employee who said that he had some parts for one in his storage unit. He was not looking to sell them, and that’s as far as the conversation went.
Jump to 2009, when I received a call from Ken Chaney, who said he had picked up the ‘Topper/Marquee’ for Tank 8 and several sets of controls. We met up, and he showed me the parts. I took some pictures and then contacted the guy who had all the Tank 8 parts. I asked him if he was ready to get rid of the items, and he said ‘Come pick them up on Tuesday’. When I arrived, I picked up the monitor assembly, the wiring harness, 6 sets of controls, the control interface boards, and three sets of CPU & Audio boards. Bill Esquiviel and I packed everything in his truck, and headed back to my warehouse to access the situation.
I was quickly able to determine that one board set mostly worked, the monitor worked, and the harness was mostly complete. I also figured out that I was missing the control panel/cabinet top and the entire frame for the cabinet. I also was able to determine that the cabinet/metal frame was exactly the same as a Sprint 4. I contacted a collector friend who had three Sprint 4’s, and he gave me one to get this project underway.
I had to build the entire top section out of wood. The original was fiberglass, but there was no way I could complete that in the 2 months that I had to get this ready for California Extreme show in July. I enlisted the help of my friend Mike to help with the painting and bondo work. I built the wood frame up over a weeks time, and then started on the control panel boxes. My friend Mike bondoed/primered/painted all the boxes, the control panel, the metal panels, as well as the metal frame. I wired the cabinet and assembled the electronics and controls. I did have to spend another 10 hours troubleshooting the CPU board, which died two days before the show. After a furious repair session, I was able to get it up and running again.
In all, it took about 100 hours to get the game playable and ready for the show. I’m pretty sure it’s the only Tank 8 still operational in the wild. There may be another tucked away somewhere, in the dank, dark corner of someone’s garage.
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