Topic: Taito QIX vs. Williams 6809 HW

[dink]

Does anyone know if there is a story behind these 2 boardtypes?

Taito Qix vs. Williams 6809 hw.

Both have similar cpu's and an odd number of pia's
Some games share the same sounds (robotron / sdungeon / complexx)
and similar font-type.  Both have a bitmapped memory.

Theories:
Did one copy the other?
Was there a similar 3rd party that developed the boards for both Taito and Williams?
What really happened??

best regards,
- dink

[Gab75]

It's hard to deduce... maybe a "joint venture" between the two companies?

In any case the first commercial game based on "Williams 6809 Rev.1 hardware" was made in 1980 (Defender), while the first commercial game based on "Taito Qix hardware" was made in 1981 (Qix)...

[dink]

Gab75, good guess
I found some info about this - turns out the sound engineer/dev for both systems: Taito of America Qix HW and Williams 6809 HW had the same sound engineers.  And, it's just a guess, but most likely the same developer(s) worked on both pcb designs.

Here's a nice read on RetroCollect: "The games of Taito America Corporation" http://www.retrocollect.com/Articles/the-games-of-taito-america-corporation.html

best regards,
- dink

[Gab75]

Thanks, a very interesting article!
All mentioned games are emulated on "FBAlphaFB", except "Change Lanes" (it uses a specific driver "changela.c")*... from what I read, originally Dave Needle (the main designer) offered this game to Midway/Bally.

*Also Taito's Black Widow is not present in list, but it's normal. Basically this game was never produced.