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International Arcade Museum® — Killer List of Videogames®

Red Baron

Description

A black and white vector game. First-person perspective flight simulator. Single, analog "gimble-type" joystick with fire button. Engage enemy biplanes during a WWI dogfight. Long range kills score big, accompanied by "Charge" tune.

Red Baron was produced by Atari in 1980.

Atari released 139 machines in our database under this trade name, starting in 1972. Atari was based in United States.

Other machines made by Atari during the time period Red Baron was produced include: Atari Soccer, Hercules, Superman, Atari Baseball, Asteroids, Monte Carlo, Missile Command, Centipede, Asteroids Deluxe, and Battlezone

Specs

Name	Red Baron
Developer	Atari (United States)
Year	1980
Type	Videogame
KLOV/MOG #	9289
Class	Wide Release
Genre	Shooter
Monitor	Orientation: Horizontal Type: Vector Color: Black and White with a Color Overlay 19-inch Electrohome G05-802
Conversion Class	unique
Game Specific	Red Baron Pinout
Dipswitch Settings	Red Baron Dipswitch Settings (user contributed)
# Simultaneous Players	1
# Maximum Players	1
Game Play	Single
Control Panel Layout	Single Player
Controls	Joystick: 8-way with button - Fire
Sound	Amplified Mono (one channel)
Cabinet Styles	Upright/Standard Environmental/Cockpit
Control Panel	Red Baron Control Panel Image

Game Play

From the original manual, "Atari's Red Baron TM game is a one-player game with an X-Y or vector-generator monitor. The game depicts a first-person's view from a World War I biplane cockpit. The player's goal is to destroy as many biplanes, blimps, tanks, pillboxes, pyramids and buildings as possible." "Players can maneuver their airplanes with the joystick control. Moving the joystick in its four directions creates a sensation of diving, climbing, or banking to the left or right."

Red Baron KLOV/IAM 5 Point User Score: 2.89 (6 votes)

Fun Factor: 2.80

Overall Like	3.20
Fun (Social)	1.67
Fun (Solo)	3.00
Collector Desire	3.50

Technical Rating: 2.96

Gameplay	3.17
Graphics	2.83
Originality	3.67
Sound/Music	1.67

Personal Impressions and Technical Impressions each account for half of the total score. Within the Personal Impressions category, Like carries a little more weight than the other factors.

Images

Trivia

If you look at the side panel closely, you might see a familiar pattern beneath the Red Baron artwork. Peel it back and you may discover a Battlezone cabinet in disguise. Most, if not all, Red Baron machines appear to be factory conversions of Battlezone. A number of Red Baron cockpits were also manufactured.

Cabinet Information

Cool marquee and great cabinet artwork with German, WWI era Iron Cross motif. Mainly red and white side panels with yellow, grey, pink and black accents. Three dimensional monitor bezel simulates machine guns.

Miscellaneous

Self adjusting game difficulty strives to maintain a consistent average game time from the last 32 games played. NVRAM stores top three scores as well as average game times.

Red Baron was previously available on the iPad and iPhone via the Atari's Greatest Hits application.

VAPS Arcade/Coin-Op Red Baron Census

There are 15,264 members of the Video Arcade Preservation Society / Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, 9,669 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 166,973 machines (7,000 unique titles).

Very Common - There are 146 known instances of this machine owned by Red Baron collectors who are active members. Of these, 133 of them are original dedicated machines. 6 of them are conversions in which game circuit boards (and possibly cabinet graphics) have been placed in (and on) another game cabinet. 7 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.

For Sale - There are 6 active VAPS members with a Red Baron machines for sale. There is one active VAPS member with an extra Red Baron circuit board for sale.

Wanted - Popular - There are 20 active VAPS members currently looking for Red Baron.

This game ranks a 32 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

This game ranks a 35 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census want list records.

Rarity and Popularity independently are not necessarily indications of value. [More Information]

Flyers

Technical

Except for the controller inputs, the wiring harness is nearly pin-for-pin compatible with Battlezone. Red Baron requires just two additional wires: Aux. PCB pin W to Vec/Gen PCB pin W -22VDC and Vec/Gen PCB pin L to Vec/Gen PCB pin P Ties X-invert to GND. It is possible to power up a Red Baron board in a Battlezone and vice versa, but playing the game is nearly impossible without proper controls.

There are several differences in the boardsets, particularly the auxiliary board. Converting a Battlezone vector-generator board for use with Red Baron, is accomplished by lifting pin 18 of IC H1 ROM 037587-01 and pin 13 of IC M2 74LS139N. Connect a wire between the two. Next, swap out the Battlezone ROM's for Red Baron and you are set.

Converting a Battlezone auxiliary board for use with Red Baron is a different matter since the two boards are quite different. The first thing you will notice is that the Red Baron auxiliary board is nearly two inches longer than the Battlezone. Simplified, the Red Baron auxiliary board is more or less populated with one extra column and one extra row of IC's whereas the Battlezone auxiliary board leaves many of the IC pads blank.

A Wells-Gardner 19V2000 monitor may be used in place of the Electrohome G05-802.

Fixes

The rubber centering bellows used on the joystick has most likely cracked with age and will need to be replaced. These are the same bellows used on Battlezone joysticks. Replacements may cost up to 30 if you can find them. The BW vector monitor may be bad. This can usually be repaired with a Zanen "Get-Well Kit", new deflection transistors and maybe a high voltage diode. Less than 25 in parts total.

As an alternative to replacing the rubber ring, a person could buy one Ultimate Joystick and one Ultimate Pushbutton from Happ Controls http://www.happcontrols.com/.

Foto-Finder® (Books)

The Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 101; Color photo Price guide: No
Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 101; Color photo

Additional References (logged in members often see more)

3D Model (External): Environmental (96fa131a-20f5-4fc8-a849-8ba66b32b28d)
3D Model (External): Upright (6efe51e58a07dce0c3864156e4194aad)

eBay Listings

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