The sales flyer for Centipede Released in 1981, three units were produced; an upright, cabaret and cocktail variants rolled off the production lines. I wrote about the tale behind the cocktail version here.Just 25 units housing a 19″ monitor were produced (despite it appearing on the sales flyer), before a decision was made to revert to a traditional 13″ monitor version. I guess we could argue that the 19″ monitor cocktail is a prototype of sorts, as the run was cut short at such a low number. A few have turned up, so whilst rare, it’s not impossible to find one if you hunt around hard enough. “Prototype” versions of arcade cabinets are highly sought after by collectors for obvious reasons. These would be pre-production cabinets, often built by hand with usually interesting variations to the final cabinet designs. Atari prototypes typically might house different PCBs, hand-drawn artwork, etc. Typically they would be produced in very low numbers – maybe even just a single cabinet. 
The production version of the upright cabinet. Given the game’s popularity, they are plentiful and reasonably priced. This is an Atari ireland built cabinet that I personally restored a few years back. You can read the restoration process here So when a prototype does turn up, especially one not seen previously, there is a certain amount of excitement in arcade collecting circles. Which is precisely what happened earlier this month. A Centipede cabinet was listed on eBay The seller claimed it was a prototype. The following description was added: [INDENT]Very rare Atari Prototype Centipede arcade game. Game is complete and working! Factory hand colored and drawn marquee, does have fade from light. The Control panel is held down by carriage bolts not clips and is a different shape, with printed and laminated artwork. Monitor bezel is printed on a translight material with paper backing between two pieces of plastic like marquee. Game has factory white sides. Does show bumps and bruises from being moved around over the years. Game Pcb looks to be built by hand and is fully working. Original G07 monitor. Looks great low burn in.[/INDENT] The photos accompanying the listing appear to back this up:
White sides, different bezel and CPO art and a hand-drawn marquee 
A close up of the control panel 
Notice the blue ink has run over the years from the heat of the marquee light 
Interesting detail on the Centipede here. Looks like the artist made a start outlining the creature 
The cabinet is definitely Centipede shaped, but has white sides. This is pretty typical of a Prototype – often constructed before the final artwork is drawn and approved 
Here’s the left-hand side. If you look closely, you can just make out the clean outline of some artwork that once adorned it. Would be interesting to know what that might have looked like The cabinet was purchased by Greg McLemore, curator of the International Arcade Museum. He had this to say about the cabinet: [INDENT]I’ve been offered other similar types of rough protos before, and I usually have passed on them if they are for some random unreleased game. But this is for a released game. And not just any released game… one of the most famous and popular of them all. We already have several other protos for famous games.I looked at the circuit board. Besides the hand wiring, this one has a dozen and a half more sockets than a production board. That in and of itself means close to nothing. And the wires on the board, while supporting evidence, was just that, as someone could always have added some. And even if it was a proto board, did it actually belong to the cabinet?[/INDENT]
[INDENT]The board is a white PCB, as opposed to the production boards that are green. There are several subtle differences in the build of the board too (besides extra wires and sockets). Also, all other centipede boards I’ve looked at have an extra printed layer… a yellow layer. This yellow label includes the Atari name and logo, as well as labeling every single resister on the board and identifiers such as ‘GND’, ‘HSYNC’ and ‘VSYNC’. This layer doesn’t appear on the proto board.[/INDENT]
In making a decision as to the cabinet’s authenticity, Greg compared the artwork to a previously seen cabaret prototype machine: [INDENT]I compared the machine art, design, and build to both the caberet proto photos (before they were posted in this thread I was already on it) as well as Atari design art. I re-looked at Atari proto design art… a lot of which sites at the Strong Museum and a lot of which we have here in Los Angeles. The marque work was consistent with other similar work. And the panel stripes on this machine were consistent with the style of both the cabaret centipede proto as well other proto work. I found this evidence supportive and consistent, but meaningless in and of itself.[/INDENT] Here are those pictures:
The Centipede cabaret prototype cabinet. Found a few years back 
The artwork here is a little more detailed than the upright. Presumably, this cabinet was put together after the upright and bears some of the hallmarks of the final cabinet – particularly the stripes on the CPO 
Comparing the marquee of the upright prototype with this cabaret marquee, you can clearly see similarities. The Centipede is the same design and the two mushrooms above the “Centipede” logo are the same 
I mocked up this comparison of the two cabinets, showing the similarities between the two The creator of the game, Ed Logg was shown these pictures and seemed to authenticate them: [INDENT]Well it looks like a prototype. It has my handwriting on the EPROMs and the board is modified which was not unusual for those days. The Cabinet looks like a prototype although I do not remember the control panel artwork for the prototypes.[/INDENT] So there you go. It’s very hard to put a value on these things, and the market is going to be limited to collectors with deep pocket. This was an $8,000 one-of-a-kind Centipede, and it sold pretty quickly. Amazing how these things just keep turning up, filling in another small piece of the history jigsaw of the ‘Golden Age’ of classic arcade gaming, which is exactly what this blog is about. Now it’s in the hands of the International Arcade Museum, let’s hope at some point, the public will get to see this cabinet in the flesh. Thanks for reading this week. Tony [h=2]Follow Blog via Email[/h] Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
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