In 1972,
Atari founder
Nolan Bushnell considered creating a driving video game as one of the company's first games, inspired by
Chicago Coin's
first-person electro-mechanical game Speedway (1969). He decided not to pursue the idea, however, due to the perceived complexity. In late 1973, Atari revisited the idea of a driving video game, unrelated to any prior arcade game. The design was instead created by
Cyan Engineering, which had recently become a semi-independent research and development subsidiary of Atari and had previously handled the prototype design of
Gotcha. Larry Emmons developed the circuits to control the car itself in the game, creating the feel of braking, acceleration, and movement. Emmons also used
integrated circuit-based
memory—specifically,
mask ROM (read-only memory)—in his circuit design to store graphical data such as the tracks, rather than the
diode arrays that previous arcade games used. This is believed to be the first use of integrated circuit-based memory in an arcade game, and ROMs thereafter became the standard for arcade and console video games. The mechanical designs for the game, including the steering wheel, pedal, and gear shift controllers, were developed by Eigen Systems, located in the same building as Cyan and founded by ex-coworkers of the Cyan founders Emmons and Steven Mayer. At one point, the game's design included a small printer that would print high scores when achieved, but this was removed prior to the final design.
Allan Alcorn, the designer of
Pong, took a leave of absence from the company beginning in September 1973, and around the same time Steve Bristow, who had previously worked with the founders of Atari on the first arcade video game
Computer Space, left to co-found
Kee Games. This in turn left Lloyd Warman, new to the company, as the head of engineering for Atari during
Gran Traks development. Alcorn and Emmons have stated that they believed Warman was a good engineer but a poor project manager, which led to the
Gran Trak project running behind schedule and having several design problems. This was exacerbated by a new short-lived Atari management team and product development structure, which led to several communication problems and cost overruns. When Atari began production in early 1974, it had difficulties getting enough circuits to build the cabinets from
National Semiconductor, who cited a "hybrid" integrated circuit design by Emmons as non-standard, first refusing to sell them to Atari and then producing only small production runs. According to Alcorn, the non-standard design was a tactic to prevent competitors from copying the design, as other manufacturers would be unable to produce it at all. A short run of
Gran Trak systems was produced in March 1974 and revealed other design problems, such as the steering controls; in their prototype system, Eigen used a real car steering wheel and pedals, but the production run used different parts. Alcorn returned to Cyan that month and redesigned the game to fix the flaws and use more standard parts; the copying protection scheme was changed to use a custom-designed integrated circuit that was named the same as a standard
Texas Instruments integrated circuit. Alcorn later stated in an interview that neither Warman nor Emmons understood the challenges in converting a prototype design to a product that could be manufactured. The game entered production soon after, and Atari announced it was shipping a full production run in May 1974. Although the design flaws were fixed, the communication problems during development led to one final problem with the game: Atari was unclear on the actual cost of producing the game. As a result, a single
Gran Trak game ended up costing US$1,095 to manufacture, while Atari was selling them to distributors for only $995, losing $100 per sale. Atari soon corrected the problem, but ended the fiscal year with a large loss due in part to the financial failure of the game. ==Reception and legacy==