Tank (arcade game)
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Tank is a coin-operated arcade game released on November 5, 1974 by Kee Games, a wholly owned subsidiary of Atari, Inc. Like Pong (1972), it was a simple game with two players.
[edit] Gameplay
Tank was the first game to use IC-based ROM to store graphical data. Although Gran Trak 10, released in July of 1974, was the first arcade game to use ROM data, Gran-Trak's ROM was a more primitive diode-based ROM.
Each player had two two-way joysticks (forward/back and left/right) and a fire button. The on-screen characters were colored black and white. Each player moved their tanks around inside a maze and shot each other. Tank II added landmines that had to be avoided, denoted by an "X".
[edit] Popularity
The game was very popular, and a string of follow-up games were released by Kee, including Tank II (1974), Tank III (1975), Tank 8 (1976), and Ultra Tank (1978). The success of Kee also allowed Joe Keenan to be promoted to president of Atari, and provided some financial resources to Atari.
In 1978, Atari released Combat, another advanced version of Tank, for their newly-released Atari 2600. Other companies also released similar games, such as Namco's Tank Battalion/Battle City.
