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Circus

Arcade Video game published 47 years ago by Exidy, Inc.

Listed in MAME

Circus screenshot

Circus © 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.

Goodies for Circus
Click to enlarge
(members only)
TECHNICAL/MACHINE PICT.
12

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.

Goodies for Circus
Click to see more
(members only)
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
Vic-20

SOURCES

Game's ROM.
Machine's picture.
Passport @ everything2