Midway

History

Midway Games Inc. was established as Midway Manufacturing in 1958 by Henry Ross and Marcine Wolverton in Chicago, Illinois.

The company initially manufactured amusement equipment and became Bally Midway in 1969. In the 70's, it became known in the arcade for games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders. By 1996, it was rechristened Midway Games Inc due to it entering the home console market, but it also released its first touch arcade machine, the Touchmaster, to directly compete with Merit's Megatouch hardware, at one point even selling a conversion kit to put their hardware into a Megatouch chassis. From 1996 to 2000, Midway updated its Touchmaster line yearly, being based on the 68000 processor.

By the late 90's, it became clear that the Touchmaster was never going to have the recognition as Merit. With increasingly more powerful hardware, Midway released one more Touchmaster, the Infinity. A rather powerful PC for touch arcade, it was ultimately unsuccessful. Midway forfeited the Touchmaster platform in 2001, and went defunct in 2010.

Machines

Year	Name
1996	Touchmaster
1996	Touchmaster 2000
1997	Touchmaster 3000
1998	Touchmaster 4000
1998	Touchmaster 5000
1999	Touchmaster 7000
2000	Touchmaster 8000
2000	Touchmaster Infinity

Software Releases

The Touchmaster series (also known as Touchmaster 68k) is ROM-based, so new updates are simply new ROM chips. There is a universal set called ''Standard'' and there are specific sets for specific states or countries. Starting from the Touchmaster 2000, games for a later Touchmaster can be played on the same hardware - e.g. A Touchmaster 8000 romset will work in a Touchmaster 2000 machine.

The Touchmaster Infinity, being PC-based, uses a harddisk to store its games.

Midway Touchmaster:

• v2.2-01: Standard

• v3.00: Euro

Midway Touchmaster 2000:

• v4.00: Standard

• v4.02: Standard

• v4.XX3: Spanish Evaluation

• v4.63: Standard (2000 Plus)

Midway Touchmaster 3000:

• v5.01: Standard

• v5.02: Standard, Spanish

• v5.XX: Standard AMOA Evaluation

Midway Touchmaster 4000:

• v6.01: Standard, Minnesota

• v6.02: Standard, California, England, New Jersey

• v6.03: Standard

Midway Touchmaster 5000:

• v7.01: Standard

• v7.10: Standard, California, Minnesota

• v7.11: U.K.

Midway Touchmaster 7000:

• v8.00: Standard, Minnesota

• v8.04: Standard, Germany, Minnesota

• v8.05: New Jersey

• v8.1X: ASI Standard Evaluation

Midway Touchmaster 8000:

• v9.02: Standard

• v9.04: Standard

Year	Touchmaster (Original)	2000	3000	4000	5000	7000	8000	Infinity
1996	v2.2-01, v3.00
1996		v4.00, v4.02, v4.xx3, v4.63
1997			v5.01, v5.02, v5.xx
1998				v6.01, v6.02, v6.03
1998					v7.01, v7.10, v7.11
1999						v8.00, v8.04, v8.05, v8.1x
2000							v9.02, v9.04
2000								Version 1