They manufactured many notable titles including Death Race (1976), Circus (1978), Star Fire (1978), Venture (1981), Mouse Trap (1981), Crossbow (1983), and Chiller (1986).
Harold Ray “Pete” Kauffman had worked in the technological field at Data Disc Corporation with Charles McEwan and John Metzler.
[1] When the two broke off to form the graphics terminal company Ramtek Corporation in Sunnyvale, California, Kauffman joined them as a marketing executive.
[3] The name was a portmanteau of the phrase, “Excellence in Dynamics.”[4] Exidy’s first products were in the ball-and-paddle genre, including a basic clone of Atari’s Pong and TV Pinball (1974), which may have been modeled on an unreleased Ramtek game called Knockout.
Needing to make a distinct game to compete with Demolition Derby, another engineer who had joined from Ramtek named Howell Ivy was assigned to create a quick turnaround.
The resulting controversy gave Exidy a national profile with stories appearing on 60 Minutes and The New York Times as well as increased sales of the game.
Circus inspired a number of clones in both Japan and North America, becoming Exidy’s best-selling game at the time with 7,000 units sold.
Partnering with early commercial computer retailer Paul Terrell, Exidy developed the hardware of a S-100 bus compatible system first sold in 1978.
It later found support in Australia and Europe, particularly in the Netherlands where it was offered with a course on the educational channel TELEAC, in place of the Belgian DAI computer.
Exidy released Star Fire (1978), the first arcade video game with a high score table, developed by independent company Techni-Cal.
Chiller, like Death Race before it, attracted attention due to its violent and graphic content, including shooting body parts off of torture victims.
The system featured four titles licensed from computer game company First Star Software: Boulder Bash, Flip and Flop, Bristles, and Astro Chase.
The company relied entirely on its products and the fundraising efforts of President Pete Kauffman to sustain the operation who liked to maintain control.
Exidy had a bonus program for engineers who created hit games,[4] but did not start accrediting its developers until fairly late in its history.
Long term game designer Howell Ivy departed the company for Sega Enterprises USA to help start their product development apparatus.