''Quiz Show'' (onscreen title: "The Kee Games Quiz Show") is a two-player

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade v ...

Kee Games Kee Games was an American arcade game manufacturer that released arcade and video games from 1973 to 1978. History Kee was formed by Joe Keenan, a friend and neighbor of Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, in September 1973. In reality, Bushnell h ...

, a company originally established by

Atari, Inc. Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari was a key player in the formation of the video arcade and video game industry. Based primarily around the Sunny ...

The game was originally released in 1976. A computerized version of a quiz show, the game presents multiple choice answers to questions from a range of categories.

Gameplay

The game asks the player questions, with the player pressing the corresponding button to answer. Questions are multiple choice, chosen from a pool of 1000 questions in four categories: people, sports, movie, and potpourri. Categories are chosen prior to the game's start. Points are awarded for a correct answer, with point deductions for incorrect answers. Bonus points are also awarded, and are based on the length of time it takes to answer the question. At the end of game play, the player is given a rating of Dunce, Lucky, Smart, or Genius based on their score.

Technology

The game is housed in a custom cabinet that includes two sets (one set per player) of four buttons on each side of the monitor. The game

PCB PCB may refer to: Science and technology * Polychlorinated biphenyl, an organic chlorine compound, now recognized as an environmental toxin and classified as a persistent organic pollutant * Printed circuit board, a board used in electronics * ...

uses a

Signetics 2650 The Signetics 2650 was an 8-bit microprocessor introduced in July 1975. According to Adam Osborne's book ''An Introduction to Microprocessors Vol 2: Some Real Products'', it was "the most minicomputer-like" of the microprocessors available at the ...

CPU, with all questions and answers stored on a removable 8-track audio cassette tape that is streamed to the game. ''Quiz Show'' is believed to be the first game to utilize the now well-known "arcade font". The 8×8

monospaced A monospaced font, also called a fixed-pitch, fixed-width, or non-proportional font, is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space. This contrasts with variable-width fonts, where the letters and spac ...

typeface was later used in ''

Sprint 2 ''Sprint 2'' is a two player overhead-view arcade racing video game released in 1976 by Kee Games, a wholly owned subsidiary of Atari, and distributed by Namco in Japan. While earlier driving games had computer-controlled cars that moved along a ...

'', as well as in many arcade games by other manufacturers.

References

Arcade video games Arcade-only video games Quiz video games 1976 video games Atari arcade games Video games developed in the United States {{arcade-stub