Tank was an old arcade game released by Kee Games (a division of Atari), way back in 1974. This game was also sold by Fun Games Inc. under the name Tankers (same game, different hardware and cabinet).
The story
This is a rather historical title, as it was the first game ever to use solid, contiguous characters, and is the earliest known use of ROM chips for video game graphics. This title was so popular that it allowed Atari to drop the Kee name entirely, and put most future games under the Atari label alone (distributors used to require exclusivity, which was why Atari had about 8 names back in the early 70s).
Tank was followed up by four sequels, Tank II, Tank III, Tank 8, and Ultra Tank. It was also modified for the Atari 2600, where it was called Combat (Combat added airplane sequences, dropped the mines altogether, and had different levels).
The game
This is a rather basic game. Each player uses a set of two levers to control a simple tank inside a maze. Blast mines and your opponent to win. (This is a two player only title, so you will need a friend to play).
The Machine
There were two different types of Tank cabinets made. The first was an upright with woodgrain sides, and no sideart at all. The main monitor bezel and marquee have all the art (they are done in orange with primitive pictures of tanks). The control panel has four joysticks mounted on it (two for each player). These are of the lever type, and only move up and down.
The cocktail version was a spanking round table, done up in woodgrain, with a black surface. This only had minimal decoration (a simple instruction card by each players joysticks), and the control were mounted directly into the tabletop (most cocktail game had control panels that poked out of the side of the machine).
Where to play
This title has not been emulated, or properly ported to any other architecture. Atari's Combat is a watered down version, but it isn't the same.
You may want to add this to your
arcade game collection. It isn't a bad title, but it does require two players at once, which severely limits home use. Luckily black and white games like this often sell for very cheap prices, so you may be able to pick up this
historical title for next to nothing.
Top 100 Arcade games of all time
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