240px, DECO Cassette System loading screen The DECO Cassette System was introduced by

Data East , also abbreviated as DECO, was a Japanese video game, pinball and electronic engineering company. The company was in operation from 1976 to 2003, and released 150 video game titles. Its main headquarters were located in Suginami, Tokyo. The A ...

October 1980 The following events happened in October 1980: October 1, 1980 (Wednesday) *In London, Associated Newspapers announced that '' The Evening News'' would merge with the ''Evening Standard'', with the ''Evening News'' folding later in the mo ...

. It was the first standardised arcade system that allowed arcade owners to change games. Developed in 1979, it was released in Japan in 1980 and then North America in 1981. The arcade owner would buy a base cabinet, while the games were stored on standard audio cassette tapes. The arcade owner would insert the cassette and a key module into the cabinet. When the machine was powered on, the program from the tape would be copied into the cabinet's

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

chips; this process took about two to three minutes. Afterwards, the game could be played freely until the machine was powered off.

Game list

In bold characters are the video games that were also released in dedicated arcade cabinets. * 01: '' Highway Chase'' (also known as ''Mad Alien'') * 02: '' Sengoku Ninja Tai'' (also known as ''Ninja'') * 03: ''

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

'' * 04: '' Terranean'' * 05: '' Missile Sprinter'' * 06: '' Nebula'' * 07: '' Astro Fantasia'' * 08: '' The Tower'' * 09: ''

Super Astro Fighter Super may refer to: Computing * SUPER (computer program), or Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer, a video converter / player * Super (computer science), a keyword in object-oriented programming languages * Super key (keyboard butto ...

'' * 10: '' Ocean to Ocean'' * 11: '' Lock 'n' Chase'' * 12: '' The DECO Kid'' (also known as ''Flash Boy'') * 13: '' Tournament Pro Golf'' (also known as ''Pro Golf'' or ''18 Hole Pro Golf'') * 14: '' DS Telejan'' * 15: '' Lucky Poker'' * 16: ''

Treasure Island ''Treasure Island'' (originally titled ''The Sea Cook: A Story for Boys''Hammond, J. R. 1984. "Treasure Island." In ''A Robert Louis Stevenson Companion'', Palgrave Macmillan Literary Companions. London: Palgrave Macmillan. .) is an adventure no ...

'' * 17: '' Bobitto'' * 18: ''

Explorer Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

'' * 19: '' Disco No. 1'' (also known as ''Sweet Heart'') * 20: ''

Tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...

'' * 21: '' Mission-X'' * 22: '' Pro Tennis'' * 23: '' 18 Challenge Pro Golf'' * 24: '' Tsumego Kaisyou'' * 25: '' Angler Dangler'' (also known as ''Fishing'') * 26: '' BurgerTime'' (also known as ''Hamburger'') * 27: '' Bump 'n' Jump'' (also known as '' Burnin' Rubber'') * 28: '' Cluster Buster'' (also known as ''Graplop'') * 29: '' Rootin' Tootin''' (also known as ''La-Pa-Pa'') * 30: '' Skater'' * 31: '' Pro Bowling'' * 32: '' Night Star'' * 33: '' Pro Soccer'' * 34: '' Super Doubles Tennis'' * 35: '' Bumpoline'' (also known as ''Flying Ball'') * 36: ''

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...

'' (also known as ''Boomer Rang'r'') * 37: '' Zeroize'' * 38: '' Scrum Try'' * 39: '' Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory'' * 40: '' Fighting Ice Hockey'' * 41: '' Oozumou - The Grand Sumo'' * 42: '' Hellow Gateball'' * 43: '' Kamikaze Cabbie'' (also known as ''Yellow Cab'') * 44: ''

Boulder Dash ''Boulder Dash'' is a 2D maze-puzzle video game released in 1984 by First Star Software for Atari 8-bit computers. It was created by Canadian developers Peter Liepa and Chris Gray. The player controls Rockford, who collects treasures while e ...

'' * UX-7: '' Tokyo MIE Shinryoujo'' (Tokyo MIE Clinic) * UX-8: '' Tokyo MIE Shinryoujo 2'' (Tokyo MIE Clinic 2) * UX-9: '' Geinoujin Shikaku Shiken'' * ??: '' Burmazon''

Reception

In Japan, the '' Game Machine'' list of highest-grossing arcade video games of 1981 listed ''Pro Golf'' at number three and ''Tele-Jan'' at number thirteen. On the list of highest-grossing arcade video games of 1982, '' Burnin' Rubber'' (''Bump 'n' Jump'') was number nine, '' BurgerTime'' (''Hamburger'') was number eleven, and ''Pro Tennis'' was number fifteen. ''Game Machine'' later listed ''Pro Soccer'' as the top-grossing new

table arcade cabinet An arcade cabinet, also known as an arcade machine or a coin-op cabinet or coin-op machine, is the housing within which an arcade game's electronic hardware resides. Most cabinets designed since the mid-1980s conform to the Japanese Amusement ...

in September 1983, and ''Scrum Try'' topped the table arcade game chart in April 1984.

Legacy

It was the first interchangeable arcade system board, developed in 1979 before it was released in 1980. It inspired Sega's Convert-a-Game system, which released in 1981. Later interchangeable arcade systems followed from other companies, such as the Nintendo VS. System in 1984. The DECO Cassette System was revolutionary for its time; but Data East discontinued it in 1985 due to arcade owners' complaints about the potential unreliability of both the tapes (which could be demagnetized easily) and key modules (which EPROMs went bad after a time), as well as the poor quality of most of its games and the medium's long loading times. Despite its bad qualities, the DECO Cassette System was better received in Japan, where many more games were released for it. John Szczepaniak of ''Hardcore Gaming 101'' considers the DECO

scrolling In computer displays, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display, vertically or horizontally. "Scrolling," as such, does not change the layout of the text ...

action game ''Flash Boy'' (1981), based on the manga and

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

series ''

Astro Boy ''Astro Boy'', known in Japan by its original name , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka. It was serialized in Kobunsha's ''Shōnen'' from 1952 to 1968. The 112 chapters were collected into 23 '' tankōbon'' ...

'' (1952–1968), to be sophisticated for its time. It had an

energy bar Energy bars are supplemental bars containing cereals, micronutrients, and flavor ingredients intended to supply quick food energy. Because most energy bars contain added protein, carbohydrates, dietary fiber, and other nutrients, they may be ma ...

that gradually depletes over time, and some of which can be sacrificed for temporary invincibility. It had punch attacks rather than

shooting Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, bow, crossbow, slingshot, or blowpipe). Even the acts of launching flame, artillery, darts, harpoons, grenades, rockets, and guided missiles ...

, and a type of

combo Combo may refer to: Technology *Combo television unit, a television with either a VCR or a DVD player built into a single unit * Combo drive, a type of optical drive that can read CDs and DVDs *A guitar amplifier incorporating one or more loudsp ...

mechanic where, when an enemy explodes, debris can destroy other enemies. There is also a boss battle at the end of each level, as well as bi-directional side-scrolling similar to '' Defender''. Data East released two versions of the game, a side-scrolling version and a

vertical scrolling A vertically scrolling video game or vertical scroller is a video game in which the player views the field of play principally from a top-down perspective, while the background scrolls from the top of the screen to the bottom (or, less often, from ...

version.

Notes

References

External links