Romox Carts

[Ed Fries]

Making Halo 2600 recently got me digging through my old stuff and I found some original Romox Carts from back when I was working for them in the old days. The bottom 3 are the games I wrote. The others are just random ones they sent me from time to time. I may have a few more lying around if I dig a little deeper. Just thought I'd share this here in case anyone is interested.

 

-EdF

 

[+Sauron]

Very nice, thanks for sharing! It looks like those boxes are all in pretty good condition still.

[atari-passion]

Hello,

 

very good

 

i am interested by your games

 

Arnaud

[Ed Fries]

Sorry, I've received several private messages asking to buy the carts. I didn't mean to imply they were for sale. They are a reminder of part of my life and so I'm sure they are worth more to me than they would be to you. I guess I was just showing them off...

 

-EdF

[Tempest]

Very impressive! It's nice to see all those boxes, they look amazing when lined up all that. The boxes for Romox games are really hard to find for some reason so you don't see them very often.

 

Tempest

[FULS]

Ed, I loved the games you authored. Sea chase was my favorite.

[Ed Fries]

I found a few more things in the furnace room... The things in the lower right are marketing flyers for the first three atari games from Romox. I guess I just need Spark Bugs to complete the collection?

 

[Ed Fries]

Ed, I loved the games you authored. Sea chase was my favorite.

 

Sea Chase was my favorite too. It was my third game and by then I had started to figure out what I was doing. Too bad that was just before Romox went out of business...

[Ed Fries]

Huh. I also noticed that two of the packages don't have writing on the side. I wonder if they are box mock ups or if they released some that way?

 

[Ed Fries]

Here's the backside of the flyer and a price list I found in the same stack. The price list shows the fourth game I was working on but didn't finish before Romox went out of business: "Nitro". It also lists a game called "Eliminator" that I don't know anything about.

 

[qix_maniac]

Ed,

thanks for sharing. If not too much trouble, could you take a picture of the cartridges? I'm sure in the box most of them are mint or pristine conditon.

 

I have several of those titles but the labels are not in good shape.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

ps- if you posted the entire lot of ebay you probably would get $1500-$2,000 if not more for them :>

[qix_maniac]

Sorry, I've received several private messages asking to buy the carts. I didn't mean to imply they were for sale. They are a reminder of part of my life and so I'm sure they are worth more to me than they would be to you. I guess I was just showing them off...

 

-EdF

 

LOL, funny!. I bet those private messages involved some slick ricks trying to buy them for $5 a piece?

Edited September 12, 2010 by qix_maniac

[+Psionic]

Great stuff Ed, I just wish you'd resized the pics before posting them. :!:

[Defender II]

WOW! Did you see the Distributor & Dealer costs VS the Suggeted Price/

 

Also...Were these ever sold?

AC-106 NITRO

AC-108 ELIMINATOR

 

Wasn't Eliminator also a projected Atari release Part Number: RX8126? See Digital Press.

Atarimania has it listed as released on cassette & disk, but not cart.See Atarimania

[Ed Fries]

WOW! Did you see the Distributor & Dealer costs VS the Suggeted Price/

 

Also...Were these ever sold?

AC-106 NITRO

AC-108 ELIMINATOR

 

Wasn't Eliminator also a projected Atari release Part Number: RX8126? See Digital Press.

Atarimania has it listed as released on cassette & disk, but not cart.See Atarimania

 

As I said above, I was working on Nitro when the company went out of business so it was never released. I suspect the same is true for Eliminator. The one you link to from Atarimania is a different, older game.

 

I was surprised by the distibutor cost spread too. By comparison, at Microsoft we would sell a game at about $37.85 for a $49.95 retail price.

[Ed Fries]

Someone asked me to post pictures of the individual carts. Here they are (sorry they are big...):

 

-EdF

[Atari8bitCarts]

As I said above, I was working on Nitro when the company went out of business so it was never released. I suspect the same is true for Eliminator. The one you link to from Atarimania is a different, older game.

 

I was surprised by the distibutor cost spread too. By comparison, at Microsoft we would sell a game at about $37.85 for a $49.95 retail price.

Ed, I'm trying to document some of the games I have and noticed the blurb about Nitro. Tim McGuinness has that listed as his work and copyright? He also says that for castle and keys but that has diferent credits on it???

Did you ever see a Motorcycle game called RACE?

 

Here's what I have:

Romox ECPC - Color Sounds, 1983, M. Bell (Manic song) - Romox

Romox ECPC - Color Sounds, 1983, M. Bell (Michael Jackson Beat It!) - Romox

Romox ECPC - Porky's, 1983, ?? - Romox

Romox ECPC - Spark Bugs, 1983, Mory Mirzazadeh - Romox

Romox ECPC - Ripper, 1983, Sam Law - Romox

Romox ECPC - Race, 1983, ?? -Fox Video Games

Romox ECPC - Dancing Feats, 1983, Christopher Chance - SoftSync

Romox ECPC - Castle and Keys, 1983, Marlan Meier - Romox (2, one listed as FINAL)

Romox ECPC - Retrofire, 1983, Tom Hudson - Analog Computing

[Ed Fries]

The way it worked was someone from Romox would send me a game idea. Usually that involved a one page description and maybe a sketch and then I would make the game. In that case I guess you could say that they (Tim?) were the designer and could say it was their work, but I did the actual implementation which usually involved big changes to the initial idea. Then other people would port the finished Atari game to other platforms.

 

I never heard of Race, sorry.

 

I still need a Spark Bugs in box to complete my collection!

 

-EdF

[Atari8bitCarts]

do you know who's responsible for the Facebook page? To my question someone replied that Tim's site was going back up.

https://www.facebook.com/ROMOX.ESD

 

It seems that there is question as to if Romox actually owned or properly licensed some of the titles on the ECPC's. I found an article that stated that Atari would not sign, though there are clearly Atari titles on them???

The Retrofire I have says Analog computing.

 

And Tim's site stated he owned the rights to many of those games? How does an employee (or even partial owner) get the rights? Purchased them? Those rights would have been part of the company assets.

 

Thanx for your input, just trying to uncover more information.

 

I have two Spark bugs, both loose. I've only seen one boxed.

[Ed Fries]

Sorry but I don't know the answer to any of your questions!

[Atari8bitCarts]

Thanx for the reply. Did you participate in the deployment of the games, meaning, how did you get them to cart?

[Ed Fries]

I wasn't set up to burn roms or anything. If I remember right I would develop a game in normal memory and then reassemble it to run in the right address space for the cartridge and then transfer it to them somehow (maybe by modem?). They would test it and let me know if I screwed it up somehow.

 

I have a new in-box Sea Chase I will trade for a boxed Spark Bugs. I'll even sign it if that's what the receiver wants!