Bally Data Systems, Inc.

Midway Mfg. Co. was incorporated in 1969 when Midway Manufacturing Co. was acquired by Bally Manufacturing Corporation. Midway continued their business as manufacturer of electro-mechanical arcade machines, but starting in 1973 their main business became videogame arcade games.

The Midway team designed a video game console and simple computer which was released under the Bally name in 1978 - the Bally Professional Arcade (eventually renamed Bally Computer System and then Bally Astrocade). Using a custom video display chip, this 8-bit console had 4k of RAM, a keyboard, and used cassette-sized cartridges known as Videocades. Users could also do minimal programming with the BASIC program included. About 45 games were released for this console.

In 1982 Bally merged its pinball division with Midway forming Bally Midway Mfg. Co. That same year an important acquisition took place when Bally Midway purchased the American coin-operated assets of Sega Enterprises.

In 1988, Williams Electronic Games purchased Bally Midway Mfg. Co. for $8 million. The Bally portion was merged into Williams' existing pinball divisions and Midway was incorporated as a separate entity. A few years later, Williams bought the Bally name for exclusive use on its pinball machines.

The Bally Midway Mfg. Co. name was still used on game covers until 1990. It appears that, although Midway probably had a hand in the development of those games, they were based on arcade games developed cooperatively by the two companies when they were one entity and licensed by them.

The exact business of Bally Data Systems Inc., the name of the company after 1988, is not known. It was dissolved in 2003.