Atari Inc. International Division — European Silver Boxes (not Clamshell)

[Fred_M]

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.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Fred_M

[lbaeza]

Just found this Euro Dig Dug listed on Ebay, so we have to add this one to the list.

 

Kind regards,

Luis.

[abbotkinneydude]

1 hour ago, lbaeza said:

Just found this Euro Dig Dug listed on Ebay, so we have to add this one to the list.

Hi Ibaeza,

 

Great find!

 

Do you have a link for this one?

 

This is actually the first time I see Dig Dug offered with a multi-lingual manual (note that the box is still the U.S. version).

 

For Pole Position, the Atari Corp © 1987 version is not rare at all. Pole Position and PAC-MAN (RX8022, not CXL4022 Euro Silver Box) were the only 2 multi-lingual packagings produced during the Tramiel era.

 

Pole Position was also very much available during the Warner era (Atari Inc.) as a Euro Silver Box. Pac-Man was only at the very end of 1984. I'll have to look if it was Atari Inc. or Atari Corp.

 

Here are more pictures of JUNGLE HUNT in its European packaging:

 

[lbaeza]

Here it is https://www.ebay.ca/itm/284065041807

 

Kind regards,

 

Luis

[abbotkinneydude]

5 hours ago, lbaeza said:

Here it is https://www.ebay.ca/itm/284065041807

 

Thanks Luis!

 

This is actually the same seller as the one from the previous Canadian auction mentioned on page 1 of this thread.

 

He broke his initial listing into solo listings on an "item by item" basis.

 

After going through all of his solo listings, only the NTSC 600XL (previously mentioned) and DIG DUG offer multi-lingual packaging and/or multi-lingual manual(s).

 

While he's not located in Québec, he's in Ontario leading me again to believe that some of the muti-lingual material ended up in Canada due to the French language aspect of the country.

 

On 10/26/2020 at 12:12 PM, Fred_M said:

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.

Hi Fred!

 

This is true for most of the 400/800 black boxes. They for sure were the large boxed U.S. versions with only a translated manual included.

 

Some of the black boxes also came out in smaller packaging during the Warner era in France but, except for a couple of cartridges (Computer Chess, Video Easel), that mostly was for tape based software such as the tape version of Space Invaders.

 

I remember seeing plenty of them as a child at FNAC (at the time the major computer reseller in France) which is where I got my PAL 600XL.

 

When ATARI Inc. switched to silver packaging (game cartridge wise) for european distribution, every new silver title went small format BUT for Robotron 2084 which needed the 2 joystick holder.

 

Then, when Tramiel acquired the consumer assets of ATARI Inc., everything went small (disk releases included) except for the XEGS blue boxes.

 

A couple of notes about the Tramiel / Atari Corp. era:

 

1) The quality of the silver boxes was poor:

   a) It reverted to a matte finish vs. the slightly glossy feel of the Atari Inc. era.

   b) Boxes felt less sturdy.

   c) The Atari Corp. © was never properly spaced (font wise) and felt out of place compared to the rest of the text.

   d) PENGO came out as black & white title.

 

2) No more european packaging except (*):

   a) Every reprint was based on the 82-83-84 original U.S. packaging.

   b) Sole exceptions were Pole Position and Pac-Man which did survive as silver era multi-lingual titles (both in the U.S. and in Europe).

 

I wonder if it was due to the appeal of those titles (multi-lingual manuals being more expensive to manufacture) or if it was limited to the assets found by the Tramiels when they acquired the consumer division.

 

I really would like the European Silver Releases of those 82-83-84 game cartridges (not the clamshell stuff) to be more than a footnote in ATARI packaging history as I really find them era defining for the brand.

[Fred_M]

13 hours ago, abbotkinneydude said:

Hi Fred!

 

This is true for most of the 400/800 black boxes. They for sure were the large boxed U.S. versions with only a translated manual included.

 

Some of the black boxes also came out in smaller packaging during the Warner era in France but, except for a couple of cartridges (Computer Chess, Video Easel), that mostly was for tape based software such as the tape version of Space Invaders.

 

I remember seeing plenty of them as a child at FNAC (at the time the major computer reseller in France) which is where I got my PAL 600XL.

 

When ATARI Inc. switched to silver packaging (game cartridge wise) for european distribution, every new silver title went small format BUT for Robotron 2084 which needed the 2 joystick holder.

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?

 

13 hours ago, abbotkinneydude said:

I wonder if it was due to the appeal of those titles (multi-lingual manuals being more expensive to manufacture) or if it was limited to the assets found by the Tramiels when they acquired the consumer division.

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....

 

 

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Fred_M

[Fred_M]

 

13 hours ago, abbotkinneydude said:

Then, when Tramiel acquired the consumer assets of ATARI Inc., everything went small (disk releases included) except for the XEGS blue boxes.

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.

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Fred_M
picture added

[abbotkinneydude]

Hello @Fred_M & @lbaeza,

 

Very brief update re: the switch from Atari Inc. to Atari Corp. when it comes to the European Silver Boxes.

 

For lbaeza, you'll find below the 1983 Pole Position copyright you inquired about earlier. As was written before, Pole Position was very much available as a european silver title in 83-84 under the Atari Inc. regime. There might be a few differences but the bulk of the artwork was reused by Atari Corp. starting in 1987.

 

Pac-Man is a little bit more murky. While the artwork was definitely prepared under the ATARI Inc. Intl Div. regime, it only got released in 1985 during the Tramiel era (european silver packaging version) as CXL 4022.

 

It again got re-released (or at least packaging altered) in 1987 where it switched to RX8022. Again, using the european silver edition but with the green sticker ("also plays on ____") of the XEGS era.

 

There's actually an attempt at emulating the Atari Inc. international division on the copyright section of the 1985 version.

 

This time being called the "ATARI, CORP. International Division".

 

Notice the typo ("All RIGPTS Reserved") and twice the mention of "All Rights Reserved" when only one sufficed on earlier european silver editions. (Edit: The 2 mentions of 'All Rights Reserved' are on the back of the 1987 Pole Position release, not the 1985 Pac-Man early Atari Corp. release).

 

Suffice to say, not much thought was put into this and the font / type spacing is just WRONG compared to earlier Atari Inc. efforts. It really screams cheap.

 

(Not pictured here) The 1987 Pac-Man offers a copyright section similar to Pole Position 87 with a (sic) © 1987 Corp (Instead of Atari Corp.!) at the very bottom.

 

Again... Cheap.

 

To quote Doug Neubauer when he sent his notes for the Solaris Manual:

 

"But little did I suspect that they would take my engineering notes, almost verbatim, and make a manual out of it, including the primitive little sketches I did. Apparently Atari was cash strapped at the time, but so strapped they couldn’t afford a graphics artist? Sheesh!"

 

More to be said...

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by abbotkinneydude
The 2 mentions of "All Rights Reserved" are on 1987 Pole Position. Not 1985 Pac-Man.

[abbotkinneydude]

On 11/3/2020 at 6:13 AM, Fred_M said:

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....

 

Hi Fred!

 

That's amazing to hear. I don't think I ever saw the U.S. variations (large sized boxes) of the silver style at Fnac around 83-84. Only the small sized European versions with the sole exception of Robotron 2084 (European style box) due to the need to accomodate the 2 joystick holder.

 

Having said that, maybe some of the U.S. titles that did not get a euro style box such as QIX were imported that way. Considering I saw my first ATARI 600XL at someone's Parisian home in 83 with a QIX cartridge, this has to be the proper explanation.

 

And maybe the switch to the European style box was gradual. Maybe the U.S. version trickled in first and then you'd get the ATARI Inc. International Division version when this one was ready.

 

Again, I'm only talking about 83-84 Warner era / ATARI Inc. and what I saw in Paris, France.

 

Please note that the Tramiel era / ATARI Corp. version starts late 84/early 85 with the releases of TRACK & FIELD, FINAL LEGACY and Euro PAC-MAN. All those designs were finalized during the Warner era but released at the outset of the Tramiel era. The same applies to the LFL 5200 titles: Rescue on Fractalus and Ballblazer.

 

As I have never seen a box of TRACK & FIELD in good condition (mine has no proper cardboard holder inside), the build quality during the Tramiel era probably went down very quickly.

 

As for the re-releases, some actually were (re-releases) and some actually were not (anything finalized during ATARI Inc. but released by ATARI Corp.: Euro PAC-MAN, T&F, FL) but true, all of them were in small form factor except for what you posted: SR, EF1941.

 

BTW- If you have a 1982 PENGO Euro box, that's a rarity. I've only seen a 1983 © on those - both the U.S. and the Euro styles.

 

On 11/3/2020 at 6:17 AM, Fred_M said:

 

Whoah!! That tall EASTERN FRONT box is completely new to me. I've only seen the APX, U.S. Silver (double depth - photo below) and XEGS versions of it (+ the French Canadian stickered version that Rhod has) but never this one. This is really new to me. I knew of the small silver box re-release before the switch to the XEGS style but that's about it.

 

Addendum: ATARIMANIA has a scan of the tall version you have in your possession and it's actually the regular style but flattened out: notice how the red diagonal bars are empty on their left and the negative space -top/left- around the title header. Also, I don't know why they lost the red color for the sub-header as it's the same background color as for the diagonal tag lines.

 

I'm amazed ATARI Corp. was so clueless about the XL era packaging and what must have been lost during the transition. After the Tramiel purchase, I never saw a U.S. style Pole Position manufactured post-84, the black box version of Pac-Man obviously went dodo, the tall Silver Eastern Front 1941 you're showing is effectively poorly formatted, Pengo, Dig Dug, Galaxian went black & white, etc.

 

And the fact that they never got the typo / font right for the copyright change tells me that very, very little care went into capturing the magic of the silver era.

 

In a way, no taste, no budget and the less said about the greyish/red style (SRII, Planetarium, Silent Butler) the better. Some like the XEGS style but there was so little creativity with it, when not an atrocious exercise in kindergarten arts such as with the blue re-release of Donkey Kong, it never made a mark on me.

 

Only the XEGS console styling with the pastel buttons seems to reverbate after all these years.

 

To end on a positive note, I have some amazing news regarding the Euro version of DIG DUG. This is coming in the next post.

 

 

1983 Tall Double-Depth U.S. Silver Box for Eastern Front 1941.

 

Edited November 14, 2020 by abbotkinneydude
Clarifications; added b&w info for dig dug, galaxian.

[Fred_M]

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.

[abbotkinneydude]

@Albert Would it be possible to rename this thread with the following title: "Atari Inc. International Division — European Silver Boxes (not Clamshell)".

 

Thank you.

Edited November 16, 2020 by abbotkinneydude
this instead of that

[Albert]

4 minutes ago, abbotkinneydude said:

@Albert Would it be possible to rename that thread with the following title: "Atari Inc. International Division — European Silver Boxes (not Clamshell)".

 

Thank you.

I assume you mean this thread?

 

 ..Al

[abbotkinneydude]

Hi Albert,

 

Yes, I meant this thread.

 

Thank you,

AKD

[Albert]

Done!

[abbotkinneydude]

Thank you!!

[Kr0tki]

On 11/14/2020 at 10:49 PM, abbotkinneydude said:

an atrocious exercise in kindergarten arts such as with the blue re-release of Donkey Kong

I wouldn't be too harsh on that image. While the 1983 art is certainly nicer, the XEGS one is a mostly faithful recreation of the awfulness that was the DK arcade side art.

[abbotkinneydude]

Hello @lbaeza, @Fred_M, @Kr0tki and everyone interested in those elusive Atari Inc. International Division European Silver Boxes!

 

I want to thank Jim Warren (jim4420) of Windsor, ONT, Canada for providing the multi-lingual manual of DIG DUG (European Silver Box).

 

Until now, this manual was never supposed to exist or, at the very least, was never witnessed AFAIK so it's a huge archeological A8 find.

 

The accompanying 'European Silver Box' in itself is yet to be found but, if no other way, I can recreate it considering we have the screenshot, the manual cover for reference and the multi-lingual back cover text can be based on the 2600 Euro version.

 

Actually, look at the end of this post for a comparison between Moon Patrol (2600 Red Box Pal 1988) and Moon Patrol (1983 Atari Computers Euro Release).

 

The text is exactly the same except for the inclusion (or not) of '1 or 2 players' at the end of each paragraph.

 

In my next post, I'll start assembling a concise list of those European Silver Releases which deserve listings of their own on Atarimania.

 

In a way, this would be similar to how the European releases of the Parker Bros. catalog (Popeye, Q*Bert, Super Cobra...) are represented versus the domestic releases.

 

Those are very exciting times. I hope all lovers of the 1982-84 Silver look will get a thrill out of this manual.

 

Cheers.

 

 

Moon Patrol (1983 Atari Computers Euro Release) / Moon Patrol (2600 Red Box Pal 1988)

 

Edited November 22, 2020 by abbotkinneydude
Spacing

[lbaeza]

@abbotkinneydude

 

Hi

 

Attached to this post you will find some pictures of Robotron currently for sale on Ebay Canada, here's the link:

 

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/154340129596

 

No manual included ?

 

Kind regards,

 

Luis

 

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by lbaeza
Added info on manual

[abbotkinneydude]

Thanks @lbaeza!

 

The ROBOTRON:2084 International is actually quite common.

 

There is a DONKEY KONG JR (without the box) that's available on Ebay UK.

 

I'll list more information in this thread soon, I've just been very busy recently.

 

Cheers.

Edited June 2, 2021 by abbotkinneydude
Extra colon converted to period

[Rhod]

Hi,

 

I discovered the topic yesterday, late ;-(

in small European boxes, with the 6 languages on the back, I have :

Centipede
Donkey Kong JR
Joust
Jungle Hunt
Moon Patrol
Pac Man
Pengo
Pole Position

 

 

photo of the day

 

Edited August 9, 2021 by Rhod

[1450XL4ever]

Looking for big silver box for A8 Galaxian & Defender. For sure, they exist. Several silver Galaxian boxes were sold on eb from Columbian. No one have pictures of them.

[1450XL4ever]

Looking for big silver(or gray) box for A8 Galaxian & Defender (with graphic players as illustrations on the boxes). For sure, they exist. Several silver Galaxian boxes were sold on eb from Columbian. No one have pictures of them.

BTW boxes are Canadian version like Joust. They are also black&White or real Gray boxes like Pengo or Dig dug on small version (like I have) but probably other on small or large boxes, isn't it ?