Quiz time! (about time!)

[Q*ris]

the word "accidental" is a big hint already 

[level42]

Not googling because unfair:

They developed it in a Jamma-cab from the dump  

(The first guy to say that there was no Jamma at the time of Robotron deserves to win the fridge.....)

[Etienne MacGyver]

I have absolutely no F.....  clue 

[Laschek]

Wasn't it because the programmer couldn't handle buttons because of an injury he had at that time?

[Q*ris]

Exactly Laschek!
"(...) in 1981, Eugene Jarvis crashed his MGB and broke his right hand. (...) His car accident played an important role in the designing of Robotron 2084 (...).
When Jarvis returned to work, his cast made him unable to handle the standard joystick and button configuration used with most of the games, so he and DeMar rigged a two-joystick controller by attaching 2 Atari 2600 controllers to a panel. In this configuration, one joystick controlled the hero and the other aimed the gun."
(from Steven L. Kent)

[Belike]

Thomas T. Goldsmith, Jr. ....if wikipedia is correct   

Bingo....it's pretty amazing that most books about the history of video games miss this...

I found a section(top left corner) from this game in my arcade book, it's very interesting.
It says, that this game was inspired by the radars of World War 2.

It's a bit offtopic, but I also found one from the first known wooden joystick for Spacewar.