Jed Yingst's Story
JY: "Now the fun really began. I had to assemble a working prototype and get it to Chicago in one week, and I knew nothing about digital electronics. Needless to say, I did not make this deadline. The first thing I needed to do was to
assemble a team to put the machine together. I contacted an arcade manager I knew, Larry Zern, who was very knowledgable about both solid state and analog pins. He agreed to work for an hourly wage, and he located several working machines his company was selling. We decided to purchase a working Atari Middle Earth to scavenge for parts. I also contacted Jim Capp, a
brilliant 15 year-old computer whiz that was programming his own video games in 8088 assembly language on a TRS-80. We soon came to the conclusion that our game was not going to be digital. Joe Cicak did indeed contribute significantly to the project, but he did not invent the game. His contributions were mainly in the areas of working with wood and plastic, and the artwork, in which Gottlieb had no interest. I tried to get his art into the machine, but Gottlieb had apparently just hired an artist in whom they had great expectations. Our second game presented was called Critical Mass, which they did not buy. After Critical Mass was rejected, we worked with Gottlieb's fledgling video division. We did a character editor for Q-Bert, but after Coke bought Columbia Pictures, the writing was on the wall."
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