Leisure Play

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, • Ricky Tailford,
• Keith Lindley.
DUTCHFORD ARE VERY HAPPY WITH
THE CENTURY SYSTEM
In a little more than two
years Dutchford Ltd., of
Fairford, Glos. have made
a tremendous impact on
the amusement machine
industry. The business
was launched in Novem-
ber 1979, to manufacture
sound effect systems for
kiddie rides but pro-
gressed through the
various stages of the
video "era" and now
Dutchford hold the dis-
tinction of being sole
manufacturers for the
Century Video System.
The three founder
directors were Ricky
Tailford, now Managing
. Director, Keith Lindley,
Technical Director and
Vince Saunders, Produc-
tion Director.
Ricky, who formerly
served in the electronics
branch of the RAF for
eight years, spent 14
years with Bill Tulloch
before forming Dutchford.
Vince Saunders also
worked with Bill Tulloch
when he was in charge of
testing at Subelectro for a
number of years. Keith
Lindley was formerly an
electronics design engi-
neer with Smiths Indus-
tries, and latterly Senior
Electronic Design Engi-
neer with Smiths Avia-
tion.
These three extremely
courteous and friendly
directors combine a tre-
Leisure Play - December
,nendous enthusiasm for
their business.
Earlier video games
were manufactured under
the System logo and were
titled System One, System
Two, etc. Dutchford were
the first British company
to design and manufac-
ture their own game
called The Boot, which
became System Three.
''Whilst we went along
with everyone else on the
video boom, we were one
of the first companies to
see the value of inter-
changability and we were
carrying out our own
research and develop-
ment," said Ricky .
"However, we were
prevented from carrying
out full research and
development due to the
limitations in the size of
the company. When he
heard that Century Elec-
tronics of Oldham were
thinking along the same
lines we left it to them.
Keith had all the same
ideas as Century and
when we saw their
systems we approached
them.
"The result was that
they now concentrate on
research and develop-
m en t and we have
obtained the sole rights
from them to manufac-
ture the Century Video
System in the U.K."
The first meeting with
Century Electronics took
place early this year and
by August the first game
- Dark Warrior - was
in production.
"How has this tie-up
with Century Electronics
affected you as a
company?" I asked Ricky.
"Oh tremendously,"
said Ricky, "we are now
into full production once
again after a lapse when
the video industry died.
"We are turning out 80
new machines a week and
now we have started
selling the orders are just
pouring in.''
"We took a lot of orders
at the London Preview,"
said Vince Saunders,
"from our point of view
we had a very good show.
We are now starting to
export."
In addition to Dark
Warrior, Dutchford are
producing Cosmos, Space
Fortress and Radar Zone
and forthcoming games in
the CVS series include
Dazzler and Voyager, all
of which will be available
through their main dis-
tributors, Rodstock Enter-
prises Ltd., of Wigan.
All of these games use
the inexpensive clip-on
module about the size of a
paper-back book. They
are solid state, use three
micro processors and
require no maintenance
or programming.
To change a game from
say, Dark Warrior to
Cosmos, the operator
simply unplugs the first
module and clips in the
new game module.
The game name is a
l
• Vince Saunders .'
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