Night Driver

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Night Driver
Studio Atari
Publisher Micronetics, Atari
Senior Developer Ted Michon
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 10/ 1976 (Atari)
genre Racing simulation
Game mode 1 player
control Steering wheel , accelerator pedal, 4-speed gearshift
casing Standard and Sit-In
Arcade system CPU : M6502 (@ 1.008 MHz)
Sound CPU: -
Sound chips: independent
monitor Raster resolution 256 × 256, color palette: 2
information Night Driver is considered to be the first 3D racing simulation

Night Driver is a arcade game , which in 1976 by Atari developed and first of Micronetics, Inc. was marketed. It is considered the first 3D racing simulation among video games.

description

The player controls a car from a slightly elevated perspective (more like a truck). The screen is black. White bars can be seen on the left and right to mark the road. There are curves, opposing drivers and, later, simple objects such as houses and trees. However, the objects were only available in the ports .

In the arcade version, an orange car can be seen at the bottom of the screen, which represents the player's vehicle. It is not generated on the screen, but is just a glued-on plastic disk. Therefore it does not appear in emulations either.

Predecessors and similar games of the time

The first video game racing simulation was Gran Trak 10 (Atari, 1974), but in top view.

An almost identical game was Night Racer (1976, also by Micronetics), which is based on the German game Nürburgring 1 , Nürburgring 1 was also electronic, but in contrast to Night Racer with analog circuits.

Nürburgring

Nürburgring 1 was founded by Dr. Reiner Foerst had already developed it before and applied for a patent for the first hardware in Germany on May 13, 1975. Another, later patent (1977 in D) allows the display of enemy vehicles and shows a drawing of the screen. However, there was a Volkswagen driving simulator that was valued between 1971 and 1974.

Even so, Night Driver is generally considered to be the first video game racing simulation.

In 1976 there was F-1, an electromechanical 3D racing simulation from Atari / Namco . The image was projected on a screen.

Before that there were other mechanical and electromechanical racing games, but instead of a monitor, they usually contained real small vehicle models that were connected directly to the steering wheel via a rod.

For more milestones see race simulation .

successor

There were similar games like Midnight Racer and Datsun 280 ZZZAP , as well as vector games.

The next quantum leap came in 1982 with pole position .

Ports

Info

The game was also called Nite Driver when it was ported. It wasn't the first game to feature a sit-in version of the sit-in. It is also not the first game to be controlled with a steering wheel.

It can be seen in the movie Zombie (Dawn of the Dead 1978).

Footnotes

  1. ^ Arcade history (Night Racer, Sit-in)
  2. ↑ US Patent 4077138, D Patent 2521193
  3. ↑ U.S. Patent 4,196,528
  4. ↑ History of racing games (PDF 006a)

Web links