Tempest 17.5 inch side art origianl Atari special run ?

[fnd]

Ok just got this from the brother of John Danielson who had worked at Atari Coin Op Div in the early 80's in the printing department.
Apparently he worked there during the time they switched to a new printing process were they used Ultraviolet light to cure the paint
as I also picked up a full size side art panel from Asteroids Deluxe that was used as a color example in the print shop.

Anyway I am curious if anyone has any idea why they would print up these reduced size side art along with reduced size control panel
and attraction panel decals ? were they going to make a small bar top Tempest ? a sales man sample ? some sort of prize ? I have no
idea but it sure is cool

I got a set of three Attraction Panel decals
set of three Control panel decals (sadly two are damaged)
set of four side art panels (L & R per set)

Negative sets for each of the above items (each set has 6 negatives, 1 for each color)

Xerox copys of the Blue prints for
Decal Control panel with hand written notes on print saying Finished size of part after reduction 5.94" X 4.78"
Decal Attraction Panel with hand written notes on print saying Finished size of part 5.94" X 2.35" after reduction
Panel, Side Left & Right With Hand written notes on print saying Finished size of part 17.50" X 8.00" Negs are actual size just ???? into positive
Front Glass Monitor cover
Frame Attraction panel

Maybe I should build a 17.5 " Tempest with origianl art work

[miner2049er]

Good question, something like that could be what they sent on the road with the sales team but I don't know.

[SubaruBrat]

Wonderful find, your lucky to come into that. As for what it was for I think that any of your suggestions could be a valid reason.

[retroshaun]

Yeah I can only guess they made scale model mock-ups for sales purposes. I would seriously doubt it would be for "working" mini-cabs. Brilliant find though!

[fnd]

Thanks guys, After re-examining the the items I dont think they were doing a
Bar top Model as you cant really read the instructions printed on the Control
panel decal without a Magnifying glass (or maybe thats the reason it never
happened ?)

It sure seems they had plans to build one as the set of blue prints that were
included seem to include alll the parts needed to complete the outside of the
cabinet less a few parts like the coin door panel but this was the printing
department so maybe it would of been included later ? Kinda thinking along the
lines of some sort of display that may never have gotten finished

I guess I need to try and find some ex-coin op sales people to ask if they ever
used sales samples or ever heard of such a project.


All good though as this was just thrown in extra when I picked up the other
items

[retroshaun]

I think a bartop would be kinda weird, especially for tempest, I'm not sure how playable that would be and I'm equally unsure whether they'd find (unless they built from scratch) a small color vector monitor for it, and even then how clear would it be for such an action-centric game?

[fnd]

Well it looks like they indeed did build at least one small model. Been going though
some of the other items I had gotten from this lot I found this old sadly very dark
Polaroid of one of the small Tempest models. its very hard to make out as its so
dark but you can see the angle of the shot is in the upward angle and there is
what looks like the edge of a table top at the bottom of the model ( looks like
the model is on top of a table ) it would be very hard to get this angle if the
tempest was standing on the floor also I dont see any cion door or slots.
Coincidentally it looks like this picture was taken sometime around holloween as I
think I can make out a Jack-a-Lantern about 2/3 of the way up the left side of
the picture

BTW The white marks at the bottom left side of the front of the Tempest in the
black area below were the Coin door would be is just lint on my scanner , in the
original picture it is totaly black

EDIT today 11-21-11
While looking at the picture below I notice it does not have the speaker
opening next to the "attraction Panel " at the top of the machine, and as you
can see in the picture and negatives of this sticker that I had gotten it was removed
and not included. this again seems to help show this picture is of a small 17.5" special
cab that was put together for some reason.

[retroshaun]

Really frickin weird - I'd send this lot to KLOV if I were you, I am sure theres someone on there who knows more about it.

[fnd]

Really frickin weird - I'd send this lot to KLOV if I were you, I am sure theres someone on there who knows more about it.

Thanks retroshaun thats a good idea but they wont let me post there unless
I donate 2.00 ? just registered and tried to post but was notified

"Until we can implement some code we are writing, we will approve new members who either (1) have a recommendation from an existing forum member, moderator, or administrator, or (2) makes a donation of $2 or more to the International Arcade Museum Library..."

Oh well I would guess there would be people there that would be interested in
newly discovered information but I cant tell them

[retroshaun]

Give me your alias on there and I will do a recommendation (if I can work out how!)