This is all correct to the best of my knowledge...

> I'm not entirely sure of what role Gremlin had in the 1970's coinop machines.

Lots ;)

> I know this company only as a game developer for home computers in the 1980's.

This was Gremlin Graphics, a UK based company that developed games for most of the 8bit and 16 bit computers, they had nothing to do with the arcade Gremlin.

> What exactly did Gremlin do?

The full story is...
"Gremlin Inc." a US based company, was aquired by Sega shortly after the videogame boom of the early 70's, and "Sega/Gremlin" or "Gremlin/Sega" were responsible for all of the early Sega related arcade software and hardware manufactured and designed in America. Later on Sega decided to drop the Gremlin title and changed the names of every company they owned to Sega.

> Safari was distributed by Taito in Japan and distributed by Gremlin in the US. But MAME says it uses *Sega* VIC DUAL hardware... I would remove this game from the Taito Project if someone can establish that it's an American game.

Gremlin were responsible for this game, it was designed and built in America on Sega Vic Dual hardware.

> What's the story behind the Sega/Gremlin vector games? are they Japanese or american? Was Sega acting as a US distributer, Japanese distributer or game developer?

Gremlin were the developer and distributor...

Hope this helps and clears a few things up, I`ll have to add it to the history section really thinking about it :)

Cheers,

Six...

System16 - The Sega & Namco Museum