Jump to content
IGNORED

Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.


Spud

Recommended Posts

lol Clearly you underestimate the fanatical obsession of some collectors, sure it seems stupid to you or I but trust me, there is always some idiot to buy this crap if it means they can say "OH LOOK WHAT I HAVE !"

Oh yes. I don't want to mention names, but to give just one example, there are certain people over in the Intellivision forum who would start a whole new thread because they finally found the 48th distinct variation of the French-Canadian version of the Coleco version of the gatefold version of the box for Intellivision Donkey Kong. Hardcore collectors are a unique species.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, the whole thing goes back to the documentary, and ET is what has been played up the most. They went looking for that, not all the other games and stuff that was uncovered. ET is the "known name," and what's highlighted in the documentary, which is why this was done. Right?

 

As a local news reporter for 20 years, I always try to get stories as complete, thorough and accurate as I can. I'd like to think that applies to most of my peers. But sometimes there's angles to stories and parts of stories I don't know about, or people don't tell me.

 

Also keep in mind - most reporters covering subjects aren't going to be experts, well versed, or even familiar with the subject. We all are well-versed in Atari and this "issue." If I was reporting on this, I'd have a "leg up," and know more about it. But I'd bet most of the reporters covering this don't have our level of knowledge on Atari or gaming in general.

Right, so you've explained why it obviously does happen, but no matter the intent, the result is the same. A lot of news is very misleading at best and often downright inaccurate. I doubt there's many news reporters intentionally writing incorrect info, but all news needs to be viewed with a suspicious eye, for the reasons you mention, and others.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Put me in the "I think it's fake" camp for now.

For a legendary mountain of ET carts buried the most I've seen in any of the photos is half a dozen.

 

I'd like to believe but so far I don't see convincing piles of cartridges.

 

Well I'm glad Chris Kohler has a name for me now ...... I'm an "Atari Truther" dammit and proud of it.

 

http://kotaku.com/some-people-think-the-atari-landfill-dig-is-fake-1569444040

 

There was a third group, one I did not expect: Atari truthers. Microsoft, they believed, faked the dig. There's no way the games could have survived so long, some argued. Others said there had to be more games than that in the hole. A few actually claimed the hard hat atop Major Nelson's head had been Photoshopped.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Well I'm glad Chris Kohler has a name for me now ...... I'm an "Atari Truther" dammit and proud of it.

 

http://kotaku.com/some-people-think-the-atari-landfill-dig-is-fake-1569444040

 

There was a third group, one I did not expect: Atari truthers. Microsoft, they believed, faked the dig. There's no way the games could have survived so long, some argued. Others said there had to be more games than that in the hole. A few actually claimed the hard hat atop Major Nelson's head had been Photoshopped.

Gotta love this pic. Sums up the wacko conspirists nicely.

podcyqpylhreecpz8s3c.jpg

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Well I'm glad Chris Kohler has a name for me now ...... I'm an "Atari Truther" dammit and proud of it.

 

http://kotaku.com/some-people-think-the-atari-landfill-dig-is-fake-1569444040

 

There was a third group, one I did not expect: Atari truthers. Microsoft, they believed, faked the dig. There's no way the games could have survived so long, some argued. Others said there had to be more games than that in the hole. A few actually claimed the hard hat atop Major Nelson's head had been Photoshopped.

 

Of course your entitled to your opinion, but I was there. And considering I smelled the funk of 30 years every time the crane scooped up a handful of trash littered with old Atari games, my opinion is of the contrary. :)

Edited by Joeh1974
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Of course your entitled to your opinion, but I was there. And considering I smelled the funk of 30 years every time the crane scooped up a handful of trash littered with old Atari games, my opinion is of the contrary. :)

I certainly don't believe they faked the dig, but I do agree with any one that said "there had to be more games than that in the hole"

The ones saying that were familiar with the actual myth, and obviously to prove the myth was true they would have had to of found proof of millions of more E.T. carts at the site.

They didn't.

What the dig did in my eyes was debunk the myth many people here already knew was debunked years ago.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Of course your entitled to your opinion, but I was there. And considering I smelled the funk of 30 years every time the crane scooped up a handful of trash littered with old Atari games, my opinion is of the contrary. :)

 

And, as I mentioned before, German ebay trades carts that have suffered way more abuse than being left alone in a relatively dry place for 30 years. And most of those still work great, too. All the "truthers" who claim that carts won't survive the burial must be "luxury mint condition" collectors - or have never seen an Atari cart up close. The number of times I wanted a tetanus shot immediately after opening a package or sorting through carts on flea markets...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

As a local news reporter for 20 years, I always try to get stories as complete, thorough and accurate as I can. I'd like to think that applies to most of my peers. But sometimes there's angles to stories and parts of stories I don't know about, or people don't tell me.

 

I'm sure not all news stories are misleading, but from the stories I've heard about the landfill, the news is that the myth turns out to be true; that there really are millions of ET carts buried, and that the game really was so bad that it put Atari out of business :roll:

 

I'll watch the documentary when it gets leaked outside of the Xbone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Of course your entitled to your opinion, but I was there. And considering I smelled the funk of 30 years every time the crane scooped up a handful of trash littered with old Atari games, my opinion is of the contrary. :)

 

What does 30 year old rubbish smell like, is it just the same as new rubbish? :P

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sure it's been said before, but...

 

I bet we could dig in any landfill in the US in the area that things were discarded from the late 80's to the mid 90's and find plenty of Atari cartridges.

The thrift stores were FULL of them at that time when I lived in Atlanta. It was the best time for Atari collecting.

icon_wink.gif

Edited by R.Cade
Link to comment
Share on other sites

can someone please help me make a list of all games/boxes confirmed to be found? proof by picture or video is basically needed.

 

in no specific order

 

-------

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

Centipede

Pac-Man

Superman

Space Invaders

Yar's Revenge

Warlords

Star Raiders

Circus Atari

Missile Command

Asteroids

Swordquest: Fireworld

Berzerk

Defender

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Air-Sea Battle

RealSports Baseball

(Ms. Pac-Man)

(Pele's Soccer)

(Baseball)

 

 

 

 

which ones am I missing?

post a link to the video or picture where you saw it as proof.

 

updating:

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

Centipede

Pac-Man

Superman

Space Invaders

Yar's Revenge

Warlords

Star Raiders

Circus Atari

Missile Command

Asteroids

Swordquest: Fireworld

Berzerk

Defender

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Air-Sea Battle

RealSports Baseball

Human Cannonball

Combat

Phoenix

Breakout

Vanguard

Qix (5200)

RealSports Football

Maze Craze

Pele's Soccer

(Ms. Pac-Man)

(Baseball)

(Night Driver)

(Adventure)

(Haunted House)

(Defender (5200))

(Super Breakout)

 

 

 

anyone got any more??

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Well I'm glad Chris Kohler has a name for me now ...... I'm an "Atari Truther" dammit and proud of it.

 

http://kotaku.com/some-people-think-the-atari-landfill-dig-is-fake-1569444040

 

There was a third group, one I did not expect: Atari truthers. Microsoft, they believed, faked the dig. There's no way the games could have survived so long, some argued. Others said there had to be more games than that in the hole. A few actually claimed the hard hat atop Major Nelson's head had been Photoshopped.

I'm sorry but that sounds so fake. I really think Mr. Kohler just made up the whole "Atari Truthers" crap just to make his article more interesting.

 

Allan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just popping on quick, not really on this site anymore except to check personal messages. Mostly over in the Atari Museum group on Facebook. Since I have a connection to the recent dig, wanted to make some comments/share some info.

 

Curt and I are actually helping out with resources for the documentary, plus I was supposed to help out with the dig but could not make it down. I did lend one of my ROM switching carts though, and was in contact with everyone during the process including some of the ex-Atari people on site.

 

1) The location dug up was next to the concrete cap, they didn't dig into the main concrete cap area. They dug down towards the main layer the Atari portion of the landfill was in on Friday and saved the actual digging up of that layer for Saturday.

2) Some of the important ex-Atarians there were of course Howard Scott Warshaw, Jerry Jessop, and Jim Heller. Jim was probably the most important, he was the Atari person responsible for the dumping and the eventual steamrolling and covering with concrete. Jim brought with him the original paperwork, which verified there were only 728,000 games dumped there. Not "millions" and only a small portion of those were ET. The rest of the truckloads were the previously mentioned consoles, computers, peripherals and parts. It should be interesting to note that a lot of the kids who originally looted were actually there as well (with the carts they originally took and/or ROM chips taken from crushed carts) and many are now city officials. icon_smile.gif

3) There was a team of actual archeologists leading the dig efforts (volunteers from various universities). They are the ones in charge of cataloging what was found and compiling the final list.

4) In total there were 21+ titles cataloged from the dig (I'm still waiting for the final list) and it included Atari 5200 titles as well. These were everywhere from individually retailer shrink-wrapped boxed carts to full Atari shipping boxes of titles. There was also various peripherals recovered in the day's dig as well. Here is my current list of found titles, based on my direct talks with people there and the photos that made it out. I will be getting the official list, but can't release it until after the documentary.

 

Atari 2600
---------------
Adventure
Asteroids
Air-Sea Battle
Berzerk
Centipede
Circus Atari
Combat
Defender
Dodge 'Em
Haunted House
Human Cannonball
Maze Craze
Missile Command
Night Driver
Pac-Man
Pele's Soccer
Phoenix
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Real Sports: Football
Space Invaders
Star Raiders (with the original video touch pad pack in)
Super Breakout
Superman
Swordquest: Fireworld
Vanguard
Warlords
Yars' Revenge

Atari 5200
---------------
Defender
QIX
Robotron

Hardware wise: 2600 parts, joysticks, paddles, driving controllers, video touch pads

 

 

5) Also verified: This was not a dump trying to hide mass amounts of Atari's stock from it's warehouses. This was all returned stock from retailers, and many of the individual items still had the shrink wrap and store price tags on them. For those not familiar, Atari did not ship games shrink wrapped, those were usually added on by retailers when the items were to be put on the shelves. Rather, large shipping boxes full of an individual title were shipped to retailers, and many of these large retailer boxes can be seen in the photos as well. It verifies another thing as well that we were told repeatedly during interviews and wrote about: Atari Inc. had nothing in place for returns (return of unsold stock by retailers for credit), because they hadn't dealt with the notion of large scale returns before. So they declared the stock "defective" and gave it to El Paso, since the El Paso plant was also the Atari Service Center hub., so these returns were simply marked off as "defective units" and given to the Service Center hub for disposal. Being the Service Center hub, it would have dealt with all "defective" products. Hence what was reported in the newspapers at the time about Atari officially stating it was all "defective merchandise" being disposed of was technically accurate. As for Andre181's question, again this wasn't unsold stock/overstock from Atari's warehouses. Many still had the shrinkwrap and price stickers from their respective retailers still on them. This was stock returned from retailers for credit (similar to what's often done in other industries like toys and books). That type of thing usually never gets recycled back out to retailers, and the tax write off on returned "defective" merchandise is usually more desirable. Likewise it would have zero bearing on manufacturing, as was already shown there wasn't much of a manufacturing vs. warehouse logistics/tracking system in place anyways. Additionally it's a little odd for Andre to discredit our entire book based on his misinterpretation of our research and what we did or did not ask or had as a resource, and I'm actually quite surprised at that attitude given our previous interactions in PM. However, that type of attitude is one of several reasons I'm not really on here much any more.

6) We were just as surprised at the relatively good condition of a lot of the materials recovered. However they weren't as good as many of you are taking them as. A lot of the cartridge casings were warped (can't tell if it's from the original crushing or just from the elements) and the actual electronics in them were very corroded. The team responsible for testing the sample of games that were kept couldn't get any to work at the time (Saturday night and Sunday), including after desoldering the game ROMs from the PCBs and putting them in my ROM switching cartridge.

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No it did not.

 

It is hard to impossible to prove the non-existence of something. And it is definitely no proved by just digging in a single spot.

True enough, as you can see the Bigfoot and Loch Ness Monster shows continue to this day!

I think it's pretty safe to say however millions of E.T. carts were never buried anywhere, and the game did not single-handedly kill the video game market.

People might disagree and that fine. Not unlike Bigfoot research, the ET myth research and digging will have to continue. This thread will never die!!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wasn't it great back then to be able to return an opened game that you didn't like?

:P

 

I remember returning King Kong and Swordquest Fireworld. Maybe my Fireworld cart is in that landfill. ;-)

 

I wonder who else they dumped stuff with.

 

"Millions of ET carts were dumped by Atari". I say we keep the myth alive!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The real interesting part of this subject is all the misunderstandings, misinterpretations, miscommunications and just plain old butthurt that has resulted from it over the years. May it never die!

Edited by Mirage
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

5) Also verified: This was not a dump trying to hide mass amounts of Atari's stock from it's warehouses. This was all returned stock from retailers, and many of the individual items still had the shrink wrap and store price tags on them. For those not familiar, Atari did not ship games shrink wrapped, those were usually added on by retailers when the items were to be put on the shelves. Rather, large shipping boxes full of an individual title were shipped to retailers, and many of these large retailer boxes can be seen in the photos as well. It verifies another thing as well that we were told repeatedly during interviews and wrote about: Atari Inc. had nothing in place for returns (return of unsold stock by retailers for credit), because they hadn't dealt with the notion of large scale returns before. So they declared the stock "defective" and gave it to El Paso, since the El Paso plant was also the Atari Service Center hub., so these returns were simply marked off as "defective units" and given to the Service Center hub for disposal. Being the Service Center hub, it would have dealt with all "defective" products. Hence what was reported in the newspapers at the time about Atari officially stating it was all "defective merchandise" being disposed of was technically accurate. As for Andre181's question, again this wasn't unsold stock/overstock from Atari's warehouses. Many still had the shrinkwrap and price stickers from their respective retailers still on them. This was stock returned from retailers for credit (similar to what's often done in other industries like toys and books). That type of thing usually never gets recycled back out to retailers, and the tax write off on returned "defective" merchandise is usually more desirable. Likewise it would have zero bearing on manufacturing, as was already shown there wasn't much of a manufacturing vs. warehouse logistics/tracking system in place anyways. Additionally it's a little odd for Andre to discredit our entire book based on his misinterpretation of our research and what we did or did not ask or had as a resource, and I'm actually quite surprised at that attitude given our previous interactions in PM. However, that type of attitude is one of several reasons I'm not really on here much any more.

Thanks for clarifying things up. Less than 1 million sounds right, and no uber rare or prototype hardware found. Shame there's no really rare or valuable titles on the list, but it makes sense if it was returned stock. You were right in your book that Alamogordo wasn't the mass ET burial people thought it was. I really enjoyed your book and find it sad that people on the site would argue with you on facts when you spent years gathering information, interviews, and research. I may have to give it a second reading in lieu of the dig. Can't wait for "Atari Corp: Business is War" to come out. Don't get discouraged.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...