Joeh1974

It's already been confirmed at 728,000 carts. The overwhelming majority of them were buried under concrete caps, which were found, but not touched as they only had two days to find something and dig up for the documentary. Also, it's been confirmed that the carts buried were mostly overstock cartridges returned by retailers back to Atari for reimbursement. As Atari didn't have a formal return mechanism from the retailers, they shipped everything to the El Paso plant for disposal. Quite a few of the games uncovered still had shrink-wrap on them with retailer pricing. The other thing this dig confirmed was that this was not the great E.T. cartridge dump everyone thought it would be. The documentary crew did not have the time, nor the permission, to dig up hundreds of thousands of games. Honestly, they were lucky that they found a spot that proved anything was there. The landfill is close to 300 acres in size. They found the concrete and decided to dig close to the caps. Luckily, they found hundreds of games not encased in concrete. Good enough for the documentary.

The answers to your questions have all been addressed over the last 10 pages or so.

I was at the event. I believe that a few hundred games were found. It has been confirmed that 728k games were buried, so far from all games were found. Most of the games are under concrete which was not touched. It appears that they dug up just enough games to prove they found the site in the documentary. In fact, the city covered up the dig site the next day. The city has ownership of ~90% of the games uncovered. It has been alluded that the city will sell them in some way for revenue generation, but no details have been released so far. It will probably be a few months before Alamogordo decides what to do with them. As far as the t-shirts, they were handed out one per attendee. I saw most people using them as bandanas and screens to keep dust and dirt out of people's faces. I don't know how many "survived" the day. They handed them out early in the day, and many people left before any games were found. I'm alluding to that many of the people who received a t-shirt may have just stopped by to see what was going on, but didn't stay long. As such, they may not be treating the t-shirt as a collectible. Mine is never-worn, unwashed, and tucked nicely away. If you really want to get one, there is one currently up on e-bay. It ends today and is currently at a $140.00 bid. :wow: http://www.ebay.com/itm/181393562832?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2648

Thanks for the additional info, and confirmation on a few items that I had posted. Also thanks for the additional info about trying to tests the carts (I had left ~4pm or so and hadn't seen any testing yet). BTW, the books sounds interesting. Since I'm new here, can anyone give me the title?

Of course your entitled to your opinion, but I was there. And considering I smelled the funk of 30 years every time the crane scooped up a handful of trash littered with old Atari games, my opinion is of the contrary.

I wonder if this is the guy that was telling everyone that he was trying to get one for charity auction. It looks like they gave him one. I stuck around pretty late and didn't see any carts being handed out. I did see, however, see a copy of berserk dug out and snuck out by one of the workers. He handed it out to some red-headed lady he apparently knew who liked to play it in the past.

I wish I did. It was strictly one per person. If they had given them out after the wind had started and many people gone, it would probably have been easier to pick up more than one.

"The game's finding came as no surprise to James Heller, a former Atari manager who was invited by the production to the dig site. He says in 1983 the company tasked him with finding an inexpensive way to dispose of 728,000 cartridges they had in a warehouse in El Paso, Texas. After a few local kids ran into trouble for scavenging and the media started calling him about it, he decided to pour a layer of concrete over the games. "I never heard about again it until June 2013, when I read an article about E.T. being excavated," he remembers. He was not aware of the controversy and never spoke out "because nobody asked."" http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/04/26/diggers-find-ataris-et-games-in-landfill/8232609/ So I guess 728k is the magic number, and not millions as some have speculated.

Here's a picture of the souvenir t-shirt given out:

I don't know how it could have been fake. They dug for at least 90 minutes prior to taking the first cart out. It would have pretty hard to bury a game that far down and re-dig it up he next day. I also saw the subsequent loads brought up out of the hole mixed with other trash, and the boxes looked pretty good. Remember how dry it is down there. Plus I had the benefit of smelling the funk of 30 years of trash every time they dug down further...lol.

Thanks. No problem!

Sorry, getting the hang of the forum. It looks like the photo bucket links look a lot cleaner. Sorry for the large uploads before!

Pics #2.

Some pics...

Hello all, I've visited this forum in the past as a reader, but registered today. I would have posted earlier, but it took some time after registering before getting posting privileges. I live about an hour away from the dig site, so I decided to visit the dig today. I'll shed some light on what I saw/heard from today. I arrived at the site at 9:30am this morning. There were approximately 150-200 people standing in line waiting to get in. We were required to sign releases prior to entering. Lightbox handed out t-shirts as the digging began. Black t-shirts with a green 8-bit depiction of E.T. on it, along with the coordinates of the dig site. Very nice. They also provided free food and drinks all day long. I overheard Howard Scott Warshaw giving an initial interview. He stated that he didn't believe anything was here as he couldn't see the logic of Atari spending all that money to haul and dump the games when they were already deep in the red already. Coincidentally, I didn't know he was also the programmer for Yar's Revenge (a game he's very proud of btw). First announcement came at about 30 minutes after the digging began. We were told that they found a newspaper clipping from 1983, so they believed they were in the right spot. Second announcement came when one of the spectators found the top to an Atari joystick on this way to the outhouse. It was incredibly windy today (really a normal spring day in NM though...), and probably 2/3 of the spectators left prior to the first game being found. The found E.T. in an original box. Crowd cheered. Zak Penn was pretty relieved that they actually found something. They stated that they had found quite a few more games, and would be digging them up soon. Quite a few centipede boxes still in shrink-wrapping were found. I also noted combat, Yar's Revenge, Circus Atari, Breakout, Berserk, and Missile Command. They dug up about 8 more crane loads and then stopped to allow the "archaeologists" to catalogue and note everything they've found so far (they did categorize the dig as an archaeological excavation the entire time). You could see various games (with and without boxes) in each pile. It definitely wasn't just E.T. buried here, but a multitude of games. I hung around until about 3pm MDT to see if by chance, they would give away souvenirs, but no such luck. It appears that the city is keeping much if not all of what was found. A couple of interesting points in my few minutes of talking with Zak Penn: They had been searching for approximately 2 days prior to Saturday's dig. They wanted to make sure they were in the right spot for today. He confirmed that the first shipment of games were dumped in the landfill without any type of extra security measures other than a security guard keeping watch. After reported looting of the games, the remaining shipments had concrete poured over them. They found the concrete first, but since they knew those were not the first shipment of games, they decided to search nearby to see if they could find the first dump. Ultimately, they did. This means that there are games dug up in tact, AND games buried under concrete. The landfill has a very low water table. Because of the lack of moisture in the desert, as well as the lack of oxygen so far down underground, the games came out looking almost like when they were originally buried. They are on the hunt for the prototypes. Apparently around 5000 were made and possibly dumped there? Again, they stopped after digging up 8-10 crane loads from the hole. There were a ton of games found in each pile. I don't know about the "millions" of games claimed to have been dumped, but I could definitely conclude the thousands to be likely. Feel free to ask if you have any other questions.