Originally referred to as the Bally Home Library Computer, it was released in 1977 but available only through mail order. Delays in the production meant none of the units actually shipped until 1978, and by this time the machine had been renamed the Bally Professional Arcade. In this form it sold mostly at computer stores and had little retail exposure (unlike the Atari VCS). In 1979 Bally grew less interested in the arcade market and decided to sell off their Consumer Products Division, including development and production of the game console.
At about the same time a 3rd party group had been unsuccessfully attempting to bring their own console design to market as the Astrovision. A corporate buyer from Montgomery Ward who was in charge of the Bally system put the two groups in contact, and a deal was eventually arranged. In 1981 they re-released the unit with the BASIC cartridge included for free, this time known as the Bally Computer System, and then changed the name again in 1982 to Astrocade. It sold under this name until the video game crash of 1983, and then disappeared around 1985.
There were about 50 game cartridges released for the system, many of which contained more than one game. This system used the same display chip (designed by Dave Nutting Associates) as used in many Midway games at the time such as "Wizard of Wor" and "Gorf". The home system only had a design change/flaw, though, so it could only do 1/2 the resolution of the arcade chipset. Still, "Incredible Wizard" is a great port of the arcade hit "Wizard of Wor".
