- ipdb.corporate_entity_name
- Williams Electronic Manufacturing Corporation
- ipdb_id
- 7002
- ipdb.manufacturer_trade_name
- Williams
- ipdb.model_number
- 222
- ipdb.notable_features
- Seven rubber balls, automatic shut-off timer, anti-cheat trigger relay. Spelling out C-R-U-S-A-D-E-R on the backglass is a carry-over feature. Scoring possibilities after the last shot. Cabinet was advertised as painted black with a gold fleck pattern. The gun mounted on a Formica top. Metal legs.
- ipdb.notes
- The backglass shows the word "DE LUXE" just below the manufacturer's name. Typically, Williams added the word "Deluxe" as a non-trivial way to promote that a game is a Replay model, to differentiate it from a non-replay version of the game. Williams announced this game in The Billboard, May-25-1959, page 98, as "Deluxe Crusader", saying sample shipments were on their way to distributors. However, that was the only instance we found in Billboard or in Cashbox or anywhere else that used that two-word name. All other references referred to the game as "Crusader" including Williams' announcement of the game in The Cash Box, Jun-6-1969, page 57. Williams' subsequent advertisements called it "Crusader" even as accompanying pictures showed the word "DE LUXE".
Several pieces of Williams company documentation each indicate Model 222 is "CRUSADER" and a following Model 226 is "CRUSADER REG". "Regular" means non-replay.
One document from the Service Department at Williams listed Model 222 as "Crusader - Empire" but no other information has been found about that.
We have no evidence yet of a non-replay version of this game nor can we find reference to a non-replay model in any of the manufacturer's few ads or statements about this game.
In any case, the schematic diagram in this listing, dated 5-1-59, is for a replay version and is labeled "Williams Deluxe Crusader 222", suggesting on that date a non-replay version was expected to follow.
It may have happened that a decision to not proceed with a Regular version eliminated the need to use the "Deluxe" appellation moving forward. If so, the decision would have happened in a very short time frame, perhaps between the time the Billboard announcement was submitted for publication and the time when the Cash Box announcement was prepared.
- month
- 5
- player_count
- 1
- technology_generation
- electromechanical
- year
- 1959