JayAre

Awesome! Great job.

From the movie Max Dugan Returns (1983). There are several 2600 game boxes (all from Atari) in Matthew Broderick's room.

Carlsson, thank you so much for this information. The details you provided were very interesting.

Spriggy/Bill, thanks. Boy, I was just thinking about how much Activision must have spent on this trip. I have an Activision corporate brochure which mentions that, in July of 1982 (which is roughly when this trip would've taken place), the company had grown to 131 employees. And each employee was allowed to bring along a guest. So you figure the following: 262 round-trip tickets to Hawaii, 131 hotel rooms for maybe 4 nights; plus food, drinks, activities and the specially-made souveniers. And I'm sure there were other expenses. Just goes to show how much money Activision was making those first few years. It must have been a great place at which to work. Kudos to the Gang of Four and Jim Levy for creating that kind of corporate culture.

The following information was provided to me by a former Activision employee: One day in 1982, all Activision employees were called to a meeting room at a hotel near the company's headquarters; it was the only way to get everyone in one room. Activision's President, Jim Levy, took the podium and announced that the company had been doing very well, and its employees had been working so hard, that he was taking the entire company to Hawaii. Shortly thereafter, every employee (and a guest) was taken on an all-expenses paid (including drinks) 4-day vacation to Maui. The event was dubbed the Activision Family Vacation. Activities included sightseeing, horseback riding, golf, tennis, beach games, sampling Mai Tais, dancing and lavish dinners. The employee went on to say that the trip was absolutely incredible. And that working at Activision was the best job she ever had; the company really knew how to treat its employees and make them feel valued and appreciated. I also found a Digital Press issue with the following comment that Garry Kitchen made about the trip: "I remember one particular incident that occurred right after I started at Activision. Activision was flying all of its employees & their spouses to Hawaii for a vacation. One programmer, who I won't name, was adamant that it was nothing more than a scam & that they were going to have us in meetings, training, & seminars for the whole time we were there. He declined the trip & didn't come along. Naturally I jumped at the chance of going to Hawaii. When we got there & checked into our rooms, I found a sheet of paper on the hotel bed listing a series of meetings & seminars for us to attend. I thought to myself, "Son of a gun, he was right!" I caught up w/ one of the execs that was running things & asked about the meetings. His reply was "Don't pay any attention to that. We had to do that to make it look good for tax purposes. Have fun!" Needless to say, the programmer who didn't come was kicking himself when we got back." One last thing. I was fortunate enough to acquire a couple of items relating to this trip from the former employee. One is a golf towel, and the other is a pair of Maui sunglasses with an Activision case. I'm attaching pics of these items. Aloha!

Well, I decided to go straight to the source. I was able to contact Howard Scott Warshaw to see if he knew anything about this YARS' REVENGE Fly Spray. He was kind enough to answer, and this is what he wrote: Hi. My understanding is that it was a promotional item produced by Atari. I had one once, it sprays scented water. It's a lot of fun. I no longer have any. Thank you for writing, HSW I then wrote back thanking him for the information. This is what he responded: You are most welcome! Yars truly, HSW Well, it's great to finally get to the bottom of this. Thanks to HSW for this information.

Save, thanks so much. Very nice of you to take the time to do this. Well, it's great to finally get to the bottom of this. Boy, the resolution off your DVD really makes a difference; you can see the wooden trim much clearer. Thanks again, my friend.

You're very welcome, Rom. In case you'll be putting it in chronological order with respect to the other M Network catalogs, it looks like this Sears version is the second-to-last one that the company produced, right before the white one, which appeared to be the last one. I'm basing that on the catalog numbers, as it seems that the numbers increased with every subsequent catalog.

That would be great, Save. Thanks. I don't know if you have the info. already, but this scene is from Season 5, Episode 14 titled "Furley vs. Furley". If it's not too much trouble, as far as that cart that appears on the table, please see if you can tell what game it is. And thanks again.

I was able to contact Scott Stilphen today regarding the console in the Three's Company episode. His site, Atari Compendium, had originally posted the pic from this episode and had mentioned that the console was a Vader. He had a chance to take a look at the video of the episode, and he believes the console is actually a 4-switch woody. He had originally found a low-resolution pic of the scene, and the console looked like a Vader. While looking at the video, he thought that the front edge of the console looks slightly lighter than the rest of the case. Now that I look at it closely, I definitely agree with him. But the main thing is that it would still be at least another year before the Vader's release, so it definitely seems like it's a woody. Scott also pointed out something interesting about the scene. At the 1:35 mark, what appears to be a 2600 cart mysteriously appears on the table. It wasn't there at the beginning of the scene, then it appears, and then it disappears later on. Looks like it might be a text-label cart, but I don't think it's possible to make out what game it is.

Bill, thanks for the information on my version of the manual. It looks like yours is the rarest of the bunch. I'm guessing your manual and mine are, as you mentioned before, early-release manuals. Out of curiosity, did you get a chance to test your cart to see what scoring system it has? I'm assuming it scores the same as outlined in the regular version of the manual, and that the alternate scoring system described in your manual and mine are just errors. But you never know. If your cart scores just as indicated in your manual, then you have a different version of the cart on your hands. Probably not, but it's worth testing. It would just be a matter of playing game 7 and seeing how much you score every time you destroy a ship. If you score 125, then it's a regular cart; but if you score 175, then your cart is a different, rarer version.

Here's the alternate version of the manual that I mentioned in my earlier post. Anyone out there have this version? Not sure how scarce it is; I don't see it online.

I just realized something. The Three's Company episode first aired in February of 1981, but the Vader wasn't released until 1982. In the scene, the console appears to have the Vader's black front trim. But maybe it's the lighting in the room, and it's actually the 4-switch woody's wooden trim. We get a better look at the console the second time it appears in the scene, from 6:47 - 8:03. It's just that the dates don't add up. What do you guys think?

Could be. If you can, Bill, please update the thread with whatever you find. Thanks.

Wow, Bill, that manual's really interesting. I've never seen it before. It's missing the name of the game across the top, and the logo is on a white background. Have you read through it to see if there's any other difference compared to the regular manual? The regular manual has the name of the game in white across the top of the cover. I have one where the name is in black, which I've never seen anywhere else. In that manual, the only difference I see is in the "Maximum Heat-Seeking Missiles" paragraph of the SCORING section. The regular manual indicates that the scoring for Maximum Heat-Seeking Missiles is the same as that for Minimum Heat-Seeking Missiles. But my alternate manual specifies different score values for Maximum Heat-Seeking Missiles. You might want to pay particular attention to this section, when comparing manuals.

An image from the Three's Company scene was previously posted. Here's a video of that episode. As previously noted, Jack and Janet are playing football, but the sounds don't match up. There's a 2600 Vader on the table in front of them, but there's no cart in the console. The Atari scene takes place right after the opening credits, from 1:01 - 2:05, and then again from 6:47 - 8:03. The episode first aired in February of 1981. Incredible that it's been almost 40 years.

Just when you think you've seen every 2600 game catalog, along comes another one. This one from M Network is similar to some of the company's other catalogs, except that this one mentions Sears on the front and back covers, and has a different catalog number. And the unreleased Sea Battle for the 2600 (as it was named in all the other M Network catalogs) is called High Seas in this one (second-to-last pic below). I assume the catalog wasn't included with any M Network games, since it mentioned Sears. If it had been included with certain games, you would think there would be more of these out there, and this is the first time I've seen this catalog. Nothing online either. This must have been a hand-out at Sears stores, right? Albert/Rom, if you're going to upload the images to your respective sites, can you copy and past from here, or should I send you the pics a different way?

You're welcome, CVGA. I get the feeling that, in the U.S., these stickers weren't sold in stores. I'm guessing that they were promotional give-aways. Maybe similar to the way they were distributed in Spain, as per my original post.

Most of you have probably seen the series of lenticular stickers that Atari produced, circa 1983. Stickers were made for Pac-Man, Defender, E.T., Demons to Diamonds and Centipede. I believe this is the entire series, as I've never seen stickers for any other games. The Demons to Diamonds and Centipede stickers are somewhat scarce, with the others being easier to find. When the sticker is viewed from different angles, the sticker image appears to move. For Pac-Man, three different versions of the sticker were made. One is 2" in diameter, while all the other stickers in the series are 2.25". And the other two Pac-Man stickers vary slightly from each other in terms of the trademark/copyright text. I'm not sure how these were sold/distributed in the U.S. But I did find an AtariNews newsletter from Spain from Christmas 1983 which mentions the stickers. It appears to indicate that, if you purchased certain Atari-themed school notebooks, you would receive a free sticker. I'm attaching pics of the stickers as well as the newsletter. Well, since I didn't see a thread on this topic, I decided to create one, in case someone's interested in the information.

I remember reading somewhere that these record club companies would also manufacture their own versions of the LPs & CDs. I guess they made even more money that way. In the attached pic, you can see the disclaimer on the bottom-left corner. I don't know if they did this with the video game clubs though. If they did, would that open up a somewhat new category of box variants?

I came across this ad for the RCA Video Game Club, which I had never heard of. The club seems to be very similar to the Columbia House Video Game Club, and included a club catalog that members would periodically receive. There doesn't appear to be any info. online on the RCA club. A few interesting things about the ad. It states that all the games in the ad are playable on the Atari VCS. But one of the games is Advanced Dungeons & Dragons from Intellivision; the box is for the original AD&D game, Cloudy Mountain, while the gamescreen appears to be for AD&D: Treasure of Tarmin. Also, the box and gamescreen for Burgertime, as well as the gamescreen for TRON Deadly Discs correspond to the Intellivision version of the games. Was anyone ever a member of the RCA Video Game Club? Does anyone still have the club's game catalog? I'd love to see what it looks like. Thanks.

This isn't exactly what my original post was about, but it's pretty close, so I decided to update the thread. Below is a magazine ad that recently appeared on eBay. As I mentioned before in the thread, Atari ran promotions with MLB and the NHL. But from I've seen, nothing with the NFL or NBA. The attached ad is the result of some partnership between Atari and the USFL. Maybe Atari tried to strike a deal with the NFL but was unable to, and decided to go with the USFL instead. I had never seen this before and thought it was pretty interesting. I thought you guys might want to see it. Go Maulers!

CVGA/D-A, congrats on solving the clues. And, Karl, thanks once again for taking the time to do this. You did a fantastic job!

Great job, D-A!

Karl, I'm pretty sure these are wrong, but I'm just scrapin' the bottom of the barrel at this point. Let's try Spy Skipper for no. 4. And how about Word War I for no. 1?