Proto Find? Earth Dies Screaming & Attack of Beefsteak Tomatoes

[PapaStu]

A few weeks back I swung by the mall of my youth while visiting my parents and hit up one of the two indy 'toy' shops that are down on one end of the mall. One of these two shops has games across most of the major systems and they overcharge for most of them. While looking at the stuff locked up in a display case I saw two games that stuck out like a sore thumb in the lone row of Atari games they displayed.

 

 

and three games down from that,

 

 

Now almost everything in that row was Fox interactive, save a Star Wars game and a blue label Activision game (not sure if that means they all came in together, but thats what was there). Being afraid of the potential prices I walked out after I snuck snapped those pics. My judgement got the better of me and I went back the next day as I was again in town for an eye doctor appointment and brought a fist full of cash just in case. Prepared to have to spend quite a bit, I got out with them for a pretty damn good price for the pair.

 

Better shot of their front labels

 

And the top

 

Now I do not have my 2600 hooked up to our tv (packed up for our move at the end of the month) and I don't have either of these games in a released format for comparison. I've done a bit of internet digging and based on some of the similar Fox protos seen here http://atariage.com/forums/topic/72075-10-just-found-prototype-games-need-help/ and Fox releases at www.Atariprotos.com I am pretty sure thats what these are. The AA linked thread does include both an Attack of the Beefsteak Tomatoes and an Earth Dies Screaming in it. Does anyone have any clue as to how many of either of these have popped up?

 

 

While I'm a new poster her, I'm not new to collecting and have been active on DP (and other collecting sites) for many many moons. Both of these were found in the East Bay of the SF Bay Area.

[AtariBuff]

Hey PapaStu. Welcome and congrats to your finds How's your PS1 NTSC collection doing?

[dustygraves.]

hey man i had a copy of tomato / revenge of the beefsteak tomatos but traded it to another member here few years ago)

cool that another has popped up! icant find my pics of it but if you do a search on you should find a post or 2

i made about it prety sure theres a pic of it showing insides. mine didnt have an end lable like the one you found.

Edited June 2, 2014 by dustygraves.

[Tempest]

Those are definitely protos. Congrats! You'll have to get them dumped to know if they're different though.

[PapaStu]

Those are definitely protos. Congrats! You'll have to get them dumped to know if they're different though.

Figured as much. Who'd you recommend for dumping services?

 

 

Hey PapaStu. Welcome and congrats to your finds How's your PS1 NTSC collection doing?

 

Slowly trundling along. Just about at the 1k point for released games, before Greatest Hits, variants, Lightspan, demos etc. Those would add another few hundred to the total. I'll get there eventually! How's that PAL set?

[Tempest]

Figured as much. Who'd you recommend for dumping services?

 

I'd contact CPUWIZ.

[Xot]

Those are definitely protos. Congrats! You'll have to get them dumped to know if they're different though.

Tempest, how can you be so certain having only seen these pics? The Tomatoes cart I can understand, with the typed end label and a different title from production. But if I had seen that Earth Dies Screaming cart by itself I would have assumed someone's labels fell off and they hand-wrote a replacement.

 

Is there something else that can be seen from these pics? I'd like to know so that I too could spot potential protos better.

 

Thanks!

[AtariBuff]

 

Slowly trundling along. Just about at the 1k point for released games, before Greatest Hits, variants, Lightspan, demos etc. Those would add another few hundred to the total. I'll get there eventually! How's that PAL set?

PAL complete - mission accomplished

[PapaStu]

Tempest, how can you be so certain having only seen these pics? The Tomatoes cart I can understand, with the typed end label and a different title from production. But if I had seen that Earth Dies Screaming cart by itself I would have assumed someone's labels fell off and they hand-wrote a replacement.

 

Is there something else that can be seen from these pics? I'd like to know so that I too could spot potential protos better.

 

Thanks!

 

While I'm not Tempest and not remotely close to being any kind 2600 expert I felt pretty confident with the labels after a bit of net sleuthing that it was worth a gamble if the prices were reasonable.

 

I thought this at first too that the labels may have been replacements seeing them in the case the first time, but once I handled them, I could tell that there had never been any other 'factory' label attached to Earth Dies Screaming or Beefsteak Tomatoes. Seeing the end label for Tomatoes sealed that one and from what I've seen of other 2600 (and NES/SNES/Genny etc) protos over the years I was pretty confident in that not being a generic replacement label on Earth Dies Screaming. It didn't hurt that they were both together and with a bunch of other Fox games. It all just 'felt' right even though I was buying them not near 100% certain.

Edited June 2, 2014 by PapaStu

[Tempest]

Tempest, how can you be so certain having only seen these pics? The Tomatoes cart I can understand, with the typed end label and a different title from production. But if I had seen that Earth Dies Screaming cart by itself I would have assumed someone's labels fell off and they hand-wrote a replacement.

 

Is there something else that can be seen from these pics? I'd like to know so that I too could spot potential protos better.

 

Thanks!

Those labels are a dead giveaway. After you see enough of them you can tell the difference between 'oops my label fell off' and a prototype label. It's just something that comes with having handled a ton of protos.

[Xot]

So was Earth Dies Screaming originally developed by Fox? I only know of the Zimag release.

[Foxsolo2000]

So was Earth Dies Screaming originally developed by Fox? I only know of the Zimag release.

 

I have never heard of that claim before? What Zimag release?

[Tempest]

So was Earth Dies Screaming originally developed by Fox? I only know of the Zimag release.

Actually it was originally a Sirius game called Final Orbit. They just licensed it to TCF and they stuck a move license on it (I *think* it was a movie anyway).

[+Mitch]

I'd contact CPUWIZ.

I can dump these as well, if he's busy.

 

Mitch

[PapaStu]

I can dump these as well, if he's busy.

 

Mitch

 

I reached out to CPUWIZ to see what kind of availability he's got. I'll let you know if I he's busy/otherwise occupied and we'll get these puppies dumped one way or another.

[atari181]

Awesome find, in such a place that I can't believe you would this.

Congrats!

[AtariBuff]

Great service to the community, as always, PapaStu

 

BTW, I have a sealed NTSC Psychic Detective if you're interested.

[Tempest]

I can dump these as well, if he's busy.

 

Mitch

I'll vouch for Mitch as well. He can dump your protos no problem.

[PapaStu]

CPUWIZ has kindly agreed to dump these for me. He'll have them tomorrow and I'll go forward from there.

 

I've got an unsealed Psychic Detective AtariBuff, I'm totally ok not having a sealed one.

 

Thanks for the help all. Tempest, let me know if you want better pics of these for your site.

[Tempest]

I think those should be ok. Once you get the roms let me know if they're different or not.

[PapaStu]

I've got the roms from CPUWIZ back already, i'll need to get them compared, it'll probably be a few days, but I'll update once I know more.

 

I forgot how small 2600 games are. 4k Made that 8GB thumb drive I sent along for them just a *tad* bit overkill.