Ronbotics Corporation was founded by Ron Borta and Dave Brain Sr. As they put it, Ron designs it and Dave makes it work. Ronbotics was their first venture together, but both had been in the video game industry for many years. From 1982 to 1984, Ron Borta had a company called Rocklan Corporation, which did many of the arcade to home video game conversions, which, according to Ron, were about 450 titles.
In the University of Delaware’s magazine ‘Messenger’ Volume 9, Number 2, 2000, Features “A roller-coaster job”, it’s stated that at the time, Ronbotics was just a 24-employee company, Leslie Davis. At the time, the president and chief operating officer were quoted saying: “We did the Coaster Rider as a proof-of-concept, People went crazy with it, so we’re focusing on that in the future. A lot of people are looking at how much the Coaster Rider costs, and they’re looking into the motion base, which, in the long haul, will be the bulk of our business.” The article goes on to say that orders were flying in for the Coaster Rider with originally projected sales of 600 Coaster Riders being bumped up to an expected 1,300 by 2002.
However, in court files in 2004 in the DUNN v. Ronbotics lawsuit, it is stated that Ronbotics in a Memorandum to DUNN had stated that they had sold 225 CoasteRider machines prior to 2001. However, DUNN alleged that was false and that they had in fact sold less than that. It’s also asserted that in that Memorandum, manufacturers including Sega, Namco, and Gaelco were all designing machines with the Ronbotics platform. However, DUNN also alleged this was false.
The magazine article goes on to claim Ronbotics’ next machine is in pre-production and will be a white-water rafting simulator. However, it seems plans for this were scrapped as nothing ever came of it and later Ronbotics started designing and even patented a motion pinball machine, “Ricochet”, but nothing other than a prototype and some renders were ever made.
It is also known that Ronbotics was working on a motion flight simulator to simulate an F18 Jet. It is not known if any full-motion ones were ever completed, but apparently, NASA space camp purchased several non-motion versions. It was supposed to use a version of Jane’s F/A-18 Flight Simulator and use a projector to make all the displays work. But no production units are known to exist.
On August 13th at 7:30 AM, the Landlord showed up with the sheriffs and a locksmith to change all the locks on the building and the court took possession of all the company’s assets in the building. The few remaining employees were only allowed 20 minutes to get their personal belongings before being dismissed for good. Ronbotics Corporation physically stopped operating that day. In May 2003, a group of Ronbotics investors filed for “forced bankruptcy” so the assets could be liquidated to pay the financial judgments against the company. After auctioning off the equipment and properties of the company, over $2.1 million dollars of the judgments still went unpaid, resulting in the as mentioned prior DUNN v. Ronbotics lawsuit in 2004.
The Ronbotics Factory in Manassas Virginia