It WAS tested, in the Chicago McDonalds, twice, but was not produced for several reasons.
Also, the buttons did nothing but light up a few LEDs that the counter clerk could read, and IF the parent approved, manually enter into the register. The kids would always hit all the button of course, one of its problems.
After the purchase, the counter clerk pushed a button, the unit played a sick little "You deserve a break today" song and dispensed a McDonald's token, of which I believe I still have one!
Mike is right about the audio, all done by toggling an output bit at the right frequencies to control a few DACs and such, VERY primitive. That same methods was used to multiplex the lamps behind the buttons, and read the button on a multiplex circuit as well. It was VERY cheap and the processor did everything by brute force.
I do not recall the LED 14 segment mentioned. I recall a small panel with 12 to 16 LEDs next to the names of the food, each of which we could light when the button was pressed, as well as a reset and vend button on the top.
McDonald's rejected the first one because the coin was too small. They sent us a tube the size of a 10 year old throat. Nothing could fall into it. We had to modify the tokens and vend part to dispense large coins.
5 to 6 years after it was killed, one of the marketing people came to my house and took back the prototype (mid 80's) because Mac Donald's was interested again. Obviously, nothing happened.
From Mike Albaugh:Was this a game? Just hardware?
It was not a game. It was a strange device that was supposed to hang over the counter at a McDonald's restaurant, with an LED display facing the clerk and a membrane "keyboard" hanging below counter height and facing the customer. The quotes are because the "keyboard" had pictures of the various food items on it, not letters or symbols. The idea was that little kids would push the picture of the food they wanted, and the clerk could see the name/description. It also played a few tunes and sound-effects with a very primitive (i.e. "early 1980's video-game grade") synthesizer, made of a few programable counters and DACs.
IIRC, McDonald's appraoched us about this, and paid for the development. A prototype was made, but I don't think it was tested, let alone produced in quantity. Perhaps cooler heads prevailed and pointed out the downside of the ability of a two-year-old to smash a few dozen buttons and "order" a bunch of food that the parent would irately refuse to pay for :-)
When was it made?
Early 1980s or late 1970s. It was developed in 1272 Borregas, the first time we were there.
Hardware?
Custom, 6502-based. Pretty minimal, with a membrane keyboard, LED (14-segment? if so, possibly scrounged from the "Communicator") drivers, and audio.
Who was the programmer(s)?
Owen Rubin, IIRC.
How far along was it?
I believe it was killed about field-test time, possibly before.
Cracker barrel tales? =)
Well, we gained some experience in larger "hand-rolled" audio
synths, just in time to have the "Use Pokey, it's cheaper" mandate
come down. I have a soft-spot in my head for the non-video stuff,
like this, "Gum Ball Rally", and Norm Avellar's wall-game (Yes, that's
a teaser, but I'll have to get in touch with Norm to refresh my
memory)