Atari Ultra Pong C-402(S)!

[BassGuitari]

I found one of these rare birds flying under the radar on eBay last week and had to grab it! ?

 

 

This cleared up a lot of questions I'd had over the years about the "singles" version of Ultra Pong--it's frequently described in lists of Atari dedicated consoles, but all you ever really see is Ultra Pong Doubles. Does Ultra Pong only have two controller jacks, or any other difference in the case and/or board that distinguish it from Ultra Pong Doubles? Was it even actually released?

 

It was interesting to find out that it's the exact same console, with the full complement of four paddle controller jacks despite including only two paddles. I was curious about whether it would play the four-player Doubles games if I plugged in extra controllers from my Super Pong Pro-Am Ten, and at first I actually thought the "B" jacks (for Players 3 and 4) were disabled when I plugged a third controller in and nothing appeared onscreen. But apparently Ultra Pong makes you connect both Paddle 3 and Paddle 4 for them to come up (which threw me because 1 and 2 can be activated individually!). ? No three-player 2 vs. 1 funny business!

 

So it turns out that there was really only one Ultra Pong console, just released as two different sets. The only differences are the box and the number of paddles included. Even the blurb on the boxes is the same! ? (I'm sure others out there have long since cracked this case already, but getting information about "Ultra Pong Singles" in particular proved to be largely fruitless for me over the years.)

 

All the same (pardon the expression!), I'm super stoked to have this in my collection. Definitely don't see Ultra Pong C-402(S) boxes every day!

 

It does make me wonder, though, if people ever bought the singles set BITD and then ordered "replacement part" paddle controllers (they're listed with other replacement parts in the back of the manual) from Atari to play the 4-player games...

 

 

 

 

As an aside, can anyone identify this signature? I found it when I was checking out the board when I thought the Player 3 and 4 jacks were disabled. ? Just curious as to who this early Atari employee might be. ?

 

Edited June 15, 2020 by BassGuitari

[Voxel]

Good find.

 

Sounds like one of the first hidden easter eggs on a console, you have to plug in two extra controllers to release 16 extra game variations.

[BassGuitari]

7 hours ago, Voxel said:

Good find.

 

Sounds like one of the first hidden easter eggs on a console, you have to plug in two extra controllers to release 16 extra game variations.

Nah, just a case of me not knowing what I was doing. ?

 

The manual is kind of ambiguous about this, though. It mentions that if you have Ultra Pong Doubles (or basically if you have four paddles instead of two), you can play 4-player games by plugging in the 3rd and 4th paddles into the "B" jacks (and notes that you should already have controllers connected in the "A" jacks), but it doesn't explicitly state that both paddles have to be connected for Players 3 and/or 4 to appear onscreen. ?

[Voxel]

We've all been there before.