Fred_M

Merry Christmas everyone! 12433627_521836094651957_551204973_n.mp4

I was not responsible for the copy protection, so I don't have any knowledge about it. I will ask the creator of the magazine if he remembers and I have multiple original copies, so I can make a dump of another copy if that helps?

Hey @abbotkinneydude I got my first Atari 8-bit computer (800XL) in October 1985. The first games I bought were Ms. Pac-Man and Jungle Hunt and I bought these from the biggest Dutch mail-order company in The Netherlands, a company called Wehkamp. Wehkamp was mainly selling clothes, furniture, electronics and toys. Both cartridges were the large silver box with (c) Atari Inc. I still have them in my collection So these large boxes were still available in The Netherlands in 1985. And when you know that Atari was established in The Netherlands in 1982 and they did not sell the 400/800 officially over here, it is kind of weird that these larger boxes were still available over here. Atari started selling their first 8-bit computers (the 600XL and 800XL) in The Netherlands in 1983. My Pengo is the 1983 version by the way The taller Eastern Front was quite common in The Netherlands, but that was in the nineties. As you can read in the Dutch timeline (https://atarimuseum.nl/history-of-atari-benelux) in the beginning of the nineties Atari in The Netherlands became the European distribution center, so stock from all European warehouses (including France) was moved to The Netherlands. A few years later everything was sold to various Dutch and German retailers. So for example in Dutch toy stores (Intertoys) you could buy a 65XE or 800XE with 10 cartridges and a light gun for 59 guilders (about 25 euros). The set of 10 cartridges was different for every set and included boxes from every country and from every era of Atari. Many years ago I found a lot of 15 sealed taller Eastern Front cartridges in a Dutch thrift store, they were probably donated by an Intertoys store. You can check every box I have in my "Collection Cover Database": https://atarimuseum.nl/atari-cover-database/ Here you can find scans of all software in my collection.

Not entirely true I have rereleases of Eastern Front and Star Raiders (black box) which are the same size as the blue boxes, I call them "medium" boxes 😁 Also the red box disk releases are the same size as the blue boxes.

Hi abbotkinneydude, You are right about the small black boxes. Some of those were available too in The Netherlands. Exactly the same titles you mentioned. And I know the FNAC They are in Belgium too. In The Netherlands during the Warner period, all silver boxes were the large ones which were available here. I bought some of them myself when I was a kid. There are a small number of exceptions, but those are all unfamiliar boxes like Track and Field and the Donkey Kong Gamekit. I have never seen the small silver boxes during those days. But I just checked my collection of small boxes and see that my "European" Pengo small box (which I did not buy as a kid, I had bought the large silver box in the 80's) has a copyright date of 1982 and includes the Warner logo... I have not noticed that before. Maybe Atari Benelux had more than enough stock of the larger silver boxes? We will never know but I think the latter as the rereleases were a mixed bag of old and new cartridges. My European rerelease of Pac Man (c 87) has 6 languages on the back of the box and 5 languages in the manual. Dutch is missing....

All those small box rereleases are by Atari Corp, the Tramiel days During the warner era all boxes are the large ones and were distributed in Europe in the US packaging and in some countries (like France, The Netherlands, Germany) a separate manual was included in the language of the country.

I have checked my collection. In Holland the XEGS included a Dutch translation of the manual, just one manual like your 1988 picture and 2 flight maps. I have also the Norwegian version which is also one manual like the 1988 one (but a larger paper size) with 2 flight maps. I have one English manual which is the 1988 one and that one included 2 flight maps too. The Dutch version can be found here: https://atarimuseum.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/flightsim2_manual_nl.pdf And the Norwegian one here: https://atarimuseum.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/xegs_manual_norwegian-watermark.pdf I did not scan the English version as I guessed it was already out there

There are some high resolution scans in this topic:

That example of Antic Magazine is very similar to the magazines in Europe You are right, improvements have been made since the new board. The paper part is looking much better now. Officially the disk is the magazine, but the paper part is (in my opinion) so much improved that you can hardly call it a "supplement". I know it is a small team, I have been a member of Abbuc for over 20 years and I know some of the guys personally.

I know the disk is the magazine 😁 I checked and you are right. But like you said, only since 2 issues ago. I probably have not noticed it. It is tucked away besides the foreword of Sascha and can hardly be called a Club information page. My example of Pokey's Magazine had an advertisement like layout and offered far more information about the club, not just the address and financial info 😉 Just printing a date on an envelope is in my opinion a very lousy solution to let someone know his or her membership is about to expire. These times I think an email (or old fanishioned mail) would be more effective and more user friendly.

There are some well meant points I want to make 😉 I agree with @ivop and @Gunstar that the communication can be much better. As many people are members for a very long time they would probably know that the date that is sometimes printed on the envelope means the end date of your members fee. But short time members or members which don't read German will probably not know this. There is nothing on the envelope or in the magazine that refers to it. Same for your member number. It is printed above your name and address on sticker. I did not realize for years that that number was my member number. Maybe that information can be found at the website, but it can be hard to find there. Those examples of "well-known" information is missing in the paper magazine. Actually the paper magazine does not give any information about the membership. Why not use some space in the magazine to tell more about Abbuc. As @ivop suggested to me, people might lend this magazine or show it to other atari owners and those (possible new) members don't see any info about becoming a member. I used to run Pokey's Magazine and in every issue on paper you could find half a page about the payments, becoming a member, the costs, contact details and so on. I tried to read the proposed changes to the statues too. I can read basic German but for this document I had to use Google Translate (luckily the proposed changes were also published on the German Abbuc forum) and it produced a readable document but probably not 100% correct. I have some difficulties with this. Abbuc has a fair share of members outside Germany. I applaud the English translation of the voting form, part of the website and that Abbuc even want to do a virtual JHV/Meeting in English. But why are these proposed changes of the statues not translated into English? Members outside Germany are also allowed to vote, but they can't read it. I realize that at physical JHV meetings only the members attending the meeting are allowed to vote, and those are mainly German (and Dutch😃). But now a virtual meeting is organised (which I think is great!) and it can attract many people who don't read or speak German. but are still allowed to vote. And finally 😉 During my Stichting Pokey/Pokey foundation days we made sure that the statues did not describe every activity in detail. We did this because every small change must be legalized and that costs a lot of money. Wolfgang warned for this on the German Abbuc forum and I think he has a strong point. I think it is very sad that money would be spend on legal actions in stead of Atari. So my advice is, if you want to change it, make it less detailed. So you don't have to change it again. In The Netherlands we have a similar construction like in Germany. Clubs must be a legal entity too. But there are 2 to choose from in The Netherlands. A "vereniging" (Verein/Association) and a "stichting" (Stiftung/Foundation). Abbuc is the first and Pokey was the second one. A foundation in The Netherlands don't give voting rights to its "members". So a meeting to vote about the club does not need to be organized every year. At Pokey we chose that the members could still vote, but it was not legally required. I can see that Abbuc as a foundation would not work, but for Pokey it worked like a charm 😉

Just to be clear 😄 "That was the way I obtained my copy" in 1993.

PAM was reviewed in British Magazine Page 6/New Atari User issue 56. The review included instructions how to order the game from Europe. That was the way I obtained my copy. https://archive.org/details/New_Atari_User_Issue_056_1992-06_Page_6_Publishing/page/n33/mode/2up

Here are 2 manuals. I just scanned them myself, so they are not taken from any other site. sm124_manual.pdf sm144_manual.pdf I guess you never visited my site. A few years ago I made a scan of an official Atari Benelux (Netherlands) leaflet which states the specifications of many monitors. It is in Dutch, but I think you can understand it "ja" = yes "nee" = no "geen"= none "aansluiting"= connection And I made some pictures of my SM-124 which is still boxed

SM-125 SM-144

SM-124 SM-124 variant

PCM-145 SC-1224

As promised, pictures of monitors in my collection. I have also some manuals and will scan them for you. If you want, you can use these pictures on your website. PCM-124 PCM-125

If people, who don't have a credit card like me, like to donate This is Pauls Paypal address: [email protected] Good luck to you Paul👍

If you like I can make pictures of Atari monitors in my collection too. I have: PCM124 PCM125 PCM145 SM124 (1 usual and 1 with a slightly different logo) SM125 SM144

And I am very happy with all the stuff you sent me 🙂 Thank you @ivop 👍👍👍

I hope that Jay11 is not the buyer of this cassette.... $ 167.50 is a LOT of money for this game

Yes, I know 🙂 I helped Marceau a long time ago with the Dutch releases and shared my investigation about Atari in Italy. 🙂 All European Atari branches changed their strategy after the Tramiel take over. Also in The Netherlands products were cancelled. I think only Atari UK continued to release software, but sadly not in the silver boxes. You probably already know all of this I am not so sure about that. Even in those days it was possible to create a picture, we don't see an actual box, just the front of it

Great find! Atari Germany announced a lot of products which were cancelled when Tramiel took over

You are right, you don't need a data recorder or disk-drive when you have the sdrive max. I don't have any experience with cartridge solutions, so I cannot help you choose. But I think 99% of all cartridge games are also available as disk/tape images, so getting one is not a must buy in my opinion I never heard of a plug and play memory expansion for the 64k machines which does not need soldering. But you can choose to buy a 130XE in stead (which has 128k). And in my opinion this is the same as your previous question. Having a larger memory than 64k is not a must have when you want to play games and demos.