Museum of the Game ®

International Arcade Museum® — Killer List of Videogames®

Tapper

Description

You are a bartender serving Budweiser beer to patrons. You must serve everyone a beer before they work their way up to the kegs. You must also grab empty mugs before they slide off the end of the bar. Extra points for collecting tips. Bonus rounds involve locating the one beer that has not been shaken, and serving it.

Tapper was produced by Bally Midway in 1983.

Bally Midway released 96 machines in our database under this trade name, starting in 1980. Bally Midway was based in United States.

Other machines made by Bally Midway during the time period Tapper was produced include: Baby Pac-Man, Blue Print, Bump 'n Jump, BurgerTime, Earth Friend, Domino Man, Discs Of Tron, Grand Slam (4 player version), Gold Ball, and E2088

Specs

Name	Tapper
Developer	Bally Midway (United States)
Year	1983
Type	Videogame
KLOV/MOG #	12839
Class	Wide Release
Genre	Platform
Monitor	Orientation: Horizontal Type: Raster: Standard Resolution Color: Color
Conversion Class	Midway MCR III
Game Specific	Tapper Pinout
# Simultaneous Players	1
# Maximum Players	2
Game Play	Alternating
Control Panel Layout	Single Player Ambidextrous
Sound	Unamplified Stereo (requires two-channel amp)
Cabinet Styles	Upright/Standard Cocktail
Instructions	Tapper Instructions Image
Control Panel	Tapper Control Panel Image
Side Art	Tapper Side Art Image

Video Clips

Tapper Arcade Game Video Review - MCR High-Score Save Battery

Tapper

Game Play

There are four different levels:

Cowboys
Athletes
Punk Rockers
Aliens

Tapper KLOV/IAM 5 Point User Score: 4.31 (19 votes)

Fun Factor: 4.40

Overall Like	4.67
Fun (Social)	4.39
Fun (Solo)	4.26
Collector Desire	4.78

Technical Rating: 4.40

Gameplay	4.67
Graphics	4.22
Originality	4.72
Sound/Music	4.00

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

Holding down the joystick and both tappers and pressing both start buttons on the title screen will reveal a credits screen in both Tapper and Root Beer Tapper.

Images

Trivia

There are two common versions of this game -- one with Budweiser beer and another with root beer. In the late 1990s, a couple of boards made by SEGA featuring the Suntory logo were discovered. Sega denies they ever produced the board and it is not listed in any of their databases. The Suntory Tapper board is a complete re-engineering of the MCR/III hardware. Suntory is a defunct brand of Japanese beer.

Around 3300 Tapper uprights were made and maybe the first 100 or so were released with color side art. About 300 cocktail machines were also made.

According to programmer Scott Morrison, sometime during the development of the game, the programmers thought it would be fun to hear belching in the game to correspond with the belching action of some of the customers as they finished their drinks. The design team got a speech chip from Texas Instruments, and they took turns belching into a microphone to create a chip full of their own belches to be used in the game. However, although this feature was very funny to the programmers, Scott Morrison says that it got obnoxious after a while, and they scrapped the chip, figuring that the rest of the audience would feel the same way.

Cabinet Information

The cabinet is set up to resemble a bar. There is a brass rail that runs along the bottom and two brass drink or ashtray holders one on each side of the control panel. The cabinet and game play on the beer version features the Budweiser logo. The pour spouts have Budweiser handles to resemble the actual pour spouts in real bars.

VAPS Arcade/Coin-Op Tapper Census

There are 15,364 members of the Video Arcade Preservation Society / Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, 9,708 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 167,365 machines (7,023 unique titles).

Very Common - There are 294 known instances of this machine owned by Tapper collectors who are active members. Of these, 276 of them are original dedicated machines. 2 of them are conversions in which game circuit boards (and possibly cabinet graphics) have been placed in (and on) another game cabinet. 10 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.

For Sale - There are 17 active VAPS members with a Tapper machines for sale. There is one active VAPS member with an extra Tapper circuit board for sale.

Wanted - Very Popular - There are 84 active VAPS members currently looking for Tapper. There are 3 active VAPS members looking for Tapper boards sets.

This game ranks a 51 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

This game ranks a 87 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

Legacy or Series

Tapper
Root Beer Tapper

Manuals

Tapper Parts And Operating Manual - Tapper Manual — **Tapper Parts And Operating Manual**
(54 pages, 3 MB File)

Foto-Finder® (Books)

Arcade Treasures Kurtz (ISBN 088740619X) Page: 167; Color photo
The Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 185; Color photo Price guide: No
The Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 234; Color photo Price guide: No
Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 185; Color photo

Additional References (logged in members often see more)

3D Model (External): Upright (467f01e2db3add59c3864156e4194aad)

Arcade Map - Play This Game

Our members have reported that Tapper is playable at 4 locations:

Name	Location	State	Country	Details	Check-ins
Bit Bar	278 Derby St, Salem	Massachusetts	United States	Unknown	1
District 82 Pinball Arcade	800 O Keefe Road, De Pere	Wisconsin	United States	Arcade	0
The Hopp Shoppe	372 Van Duzer St, Staten Island, NY 10304, Staten Island	New York	United States	Bar + Arcade	0
Upstate Pinball & Arcade Museum	109A West Trade St, Simpsonville	South Carolina	United States	Arcade	2

eBay Listings

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