Xybots is in production. 81 were built last week starting 10/26/87 and 65 were
built yesterday. (11/2/87). Production is working 12 hour days to make up for a
slow start. Recognition is in order for several contributors to this
significant product. It was developed in near record time and uses new
electronics throughout. Even the cabinet is a brand-new design with an internal
plywood structural sheet running the length of the cabinet.. Only the
power-supply assembly is "old" in terms of being used in a previous game. 

 1) Bob Flanagan and Ed Logg: This programming team took the product from
			      project intiation to production in less than one
			      year! It was initiated 10/28/86; production 
			      started 10/26/87. This includes a significant
			      re-design switching from "Gauntlet characters" to
			      robots. Overall, the design manages to squeeze a
			      great visual sensation from limited hardware.
2) Doug Snyder:		      Doug designed one of the cheapest video hardware
			      set-ups we've seen in a long time. The board,
			      without EPROMS or the associated SA audio PCB,
			      costs about $105 (total cost is under $260 for
			      materials including amps). In addition Doug 
			      worked very closely with Fujitsu engineers to 
			      design a standard cell custom IC that contributed 
			      significantly to the cost-effectiveness of the 
			      product. It worked first time with apparently
			      good yields and even at elevated temperature
			      for over 100 hours.
3) Leon Fritz:		      Leon laid the densest 4-layer PC board in Atari
			      history. It pushes all the guidelines to the 
			      limit. Manufacuturing was afraid they would not
			      be able to build it efficiently, but after 
			      tweaking their equipment, all appears to be O.K.
4) Pat McCarthy:	      Pat designed and re-designed a new SA audio PCB
			      that combines all audio functions from the 6502
			      to the audio amps. Hopefully, this PCB will 
			      become a standard audio platform for subsequent
			      games. Pat took great care to minimize noise
			      in the analog section and did much of the PCB
			      layout himself.
5) Gary Stempler:	      Designed the gatearray serial communication 
			      chip SCOM which also worked first time. This chip
			      simplified the video-audio interface and
			      did so at a modest cost.

Did I leave "your" name out? I know there are other important contributors.
Cris, Sam, Earl, Milt, Mike J., Marty V. Mike A. come immediately to my mind.
Please let me say "thanks" to all of you, and to the six listed above
in particular. It took a lot of cooperation and coordination to pull off such
a significant new-design in near record-time.

Ed Logg is always cautious until he sees how the prodcuct sells. Let's hope the
players find the game as appealing as we do. But regardless of the product's
success in the marketplace, the technical achievement still stands. 

The Zybots bonus split meeting is coming up and I have been assigned
the catagory of engineering.  The allocation of bonus in the past has
been unstructured and sometimes rather arbitrary.  I would like to set up
a meeting to discuss this betwwen all of the engineers.  Topics include:

	1. Semi-standard Audio Boards
	2. Custom chips
	3. Circuit innovations
	4. System innovations
	5. Anything else

If we (the engineers) put our minds to it, a more equitable system of
bonus allocation could be formulated.  If you are interested in attending
this meeting, it will be in the Engineering Conference Room at 2:00 PM
tomorrow (Nov. 10).

					Thank You
					Doug

Friday at 2:00 PM there will be a meeting to discuss the allocation of
bonus for the electronic hardware.  The allocation of other bonus (software,
audio, animation, etc.) will not be discussed.  If you have any input or
comments reguarding this issue please attend.  A copy of the XYBOTS 
schematics are available in my office.  Topics include:
	1. SA Audio PCB
	2. Custom chips
	3. Subcircuits
	4. Anything else
					Thank you
					Doug

The Xybots hardware meeting has been changed from Friday (tomorrow) at 
2:00 PM to 3:00 PM.

					Thank you
					Doug