Museum of the Game ®

International Arcade Museum® — Killer List of Videogames®

Qix

Description

Draw boxes to claim as much screen as possible without getting in the path of the "Qix" and "Sparx". Draw slower for more points and hope that you have enough coins. Simple but very addicting!

Qix was produced by Taito in 1981.

Taito released 486 machines in our database under this trade name, starting in 1967. Taito was based in Japan.

Other machines made by Taito during the time period Qix was produced include: Tri-Attacker, Speed Race CL-5, Moon Cresta, Defender, Western Gun, Part II, Alpine Ski, Colony 7, Fitter, Frog & Spiders, and Grand Champion

Specs

Name	Qix
Developer	Taito (Japan)
Year	1981
Type	Videogame
KLOV/MOG #	9185
Class	Wide Release
Genre	Puzzle
Monitor	Orientation: Vertical Type: Raster: Standard Resolution Color: Color
Conversion Class	unique
# Simultaneous Players	1
# Maximum Players	2
Game Play	Alternating
Control Panel Layout	Single Player
Controls	Joystick: 4-way (up, down, left, right) Buttons: 2 - Draw FastDraw Slow
Sound	Amplified Mono (one channel)
Cabinet Styles	Upright/Standard Cocktail
Instructions	Qix Instructions Image
Bezel	Qix Bezel Image
Control Panel	Qix Control Panel Image
Side Art	Qix Side Art Image
PCB	Qix PCB Image

Video Clips

Qix shortplay by Ivan Paduano

Qix KLOV/IAM 5 Point User Score: 3.48 (8 votes)

Fun Factor: 3.40

Overall Like	4.00
Fun (Social)	2.00
Fun (Solo)	3.88
Collector Desire	2.75

Technical Rating: 3.55

Gameplay	4.25
Graphics	2.29
Originality	4.63
Sound/Music	2.50

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.

Cheats, Tricks, Bugs, and Easter Eggs

The trick to scoring in this game is to isolate the Qix in a small section of the screen by building narrow "peninsulas" out of short quick segments. Then, once the Qix was fairly "trapped", bridging a small gap with a "slow" segment would result in almost all of the screen being filled with the red (double score) color and bonus for area over 75. It is possible to confine the Qix in as little as 1 or 2 of the screen.

Images

Cabinet Information

The upright version of this game has basic stenciled side graphics. The cocktail version has a rather large glass top with gold scripting on a black background.

Conversion

Other games that run on nearly identical hardware are Zoo Keeper, The Electric Yo-Yo, Space Dungeon and Kram. Those games use the same boardset as this game but have the addition of a coin processor board to prevent ROM swaps. A ROM hack exists to make those games run without the coin processor board, so there is a possibility that a conversion could be a straight ROM swap, except for Zoo Keeper which has an additional daughterboard to accommodate more ROMs.

VAPS Arcade/Coin-Op Qix 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 236 known instances of this machine owned by Qix collectors who are active members. Of these, 187 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. 43 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 Qix machines for sale. There are 2 active VAPS members with a Qix circuit boards for sale.

Wanted - Popular - There are 24 active VAPS members currently looking for Qix. There is one active VAPS member looking for a Qix circuit board set.

This game ranks a 64 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

This game ranks a 33 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

The sound PCB uses a TMS5200 speech synthesis IC. The main processor is a 68A09E.

Fixes

If the original NiCad battery is still on the PCB, remove it and replace it with a 3.6v rechargable, mounted away the board. The 4116 video RAM ICs often fail and since they are becoming hard to find, they can be replaced with modified 4164's.

Legacy

Manuals

German Manual - Qix Manual — **German Manual**
(15 pages, 2 MB File)

Qix Revision 1 - 72-00008-001 - Qix Manual — **Qix Revision 1 - 72-00008-001**
(60 pages, 4.1 MB File)

Qix Service Tip 81-16 - Qix Manual — **Qix Service Tip 81-16**
(2 pages, 275 kB File)

Operation, Maintenance and Service Manual - Qix Manual — **Operation, Maintenance and Service Manual**
(56 pages, 8 MB File)

Schematic - Qix Manual — **Schematic**
(10 pages, 1.4 MB File)

Foto-Finder® (Books)

The Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 106; Color photo Price guide: No
Arcade Fever Sellers (ISBN 0762409371) Page: 82; Color photo
Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 106; Color photo

Additional References (logged in members often see more)

3D Model (External): Upright (866d209f7988341f73b4ec5aa28d567a)

eBay Listings

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