Andromeda Stardust Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 No. They bury some polonium in a shell made from crushed ET carts (cause you know ET has super powers and can shield the radiation better and more efficiently than lead. Now fill the landfill with popcorn instead of cement. The radiation causes the popcorn kernels to pop. People from abroad come to snack on the nuclear feast, and a race of super-mutants emerges from the wreckage. They are short, stubby, and have ugly bulbous heads and a healing beam that radiates from their fingertips. The military gets involved and quarantines all but one of the mutants at area 51. The one that escaped befriends a little boy. Supreme alien beings pick the little mutant up as the chosen one. The "phones home" bit is just a ruse to make the documentary more believable. Then they make a game about it, bury it in a landfill with nuclear waste under a mountain of popcorn. 1982 loops in an endless ET cycle forever as moviegoers are forced to watch ET over and over again, in true Clockwork Orange fasion, whilst having nuclear popcorn forced down their throats. Choking commences, and ET performs the Hymleck manuver on all 170-190 dead survivors and saves the day! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Because in late 1983 the bulk of any buried ET carts would have been from 1986? Yes, Marty McFly brought them back. On a serious note, most of the unsold warehouse stock across the country in '83/'84 were emptied out and shipped back to Sunnyvale for disposal.That's why Tramiel had to remanufacture an assortment of games in '86, including E.T. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Still don't get how ET 1982 carts can be one of the most common Atari 2600 cart decades later if 75% of the original run were returned and destroyed. One thing I do get that any person that headed a multi-million dollar company and knowingly allowed cheating on their federal income tax for any given year (even decades prior), would not now, nor ever admit to it. It is pretty amusing that this went from a thread about proof that ET were buried in one location (with multiple instances of "evidence" to back up the claim) and people lining up on both sides, mostly in favor of the nonsense Alamogordo story, to now a fresh turn that wants us to believe that yes millions and millions of ET carts were returned and they were buried, but not where everyone thought they were!! Haha I dunno. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Still don't get how ET 1982 carts can be one of the most common Atari 2600 cart decades later if 75% of the original run were returned and destroyed. When a cart is common, how many copies of that cart still exist? I wonder if this chart might help: Atari 2600 games that have sold or shipped at least one million copies If you can believe that chart and other sources, at one point, there were 1.5 million E.T. carts from 1982 floating around out there before people started smashing them with sledgehammers or microwaving them or tossing them into blenders or gluing them together to make coffee tables. How many E.T. carts were made in 1986? Would they have made more than 1.5 million of them? If not, that would explain why there are more 1982 carts out there (at least until dimwits destroy most of the carts from 1982). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Yeah if that chart is to be believed, I guess that does make sense. Seems like the cart is more plentiful than that though. Just based on the number of copies of doubles you get collecting mixed lots over the years, doesn't ET seem more in league with Space Invaders or Asteroids than where it's at on the list? Maybe it's not. Maybe I just pay attention more when I see one because it's such an awesome game! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulBlazer Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Not to mention it boggles my mind in how millions of carts could be destroyed in 82 and yet so many carts were made and still around years later that even today hidden stashes and long forgotten warehouses with sealed Atari games turn up, and how easy it is to get some games in sealed form. No other console has so many games that are easy to find in sealed state, or common titles for so cheap. I realize that Atari made games are not the only ones out there, there's a lot of third party games also and we don't know how many millions of carts were produced for the 2600 between 77-84 but it's still amazing to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Not to mention it boggles my mind in how millions of carts could be destroyed in 82 and yet so many carts were made and still around years later that even today hidden stashes and long forgotten warehouses with sealed Atari games turn up, and how easy it is to get some games in sealed form. No other console has so many games that are easy to find in sealed state, or common titles for so cheap. I realize that Atari made games are not the only ones out there, there's a lot of third party games also and we don't know how many millions of carts were produced for the 2600 between 77-84 but it's still amazing to me. You have to realize, the production across '81-'82 was staggering. The carts were considered as good as gold, and a lot of dealers and distributors were over ordering or in some cases (which we have documentation of) taking (stealing) other people's orders. Even organized crime Tony Soprano types were getting in to the game. On the returns front, Atari had a lot of the dealers order their entire stock for '82 at the end of '81 (a pressure tactic to artificially pump up claimed sales and earnings). When the returns started coming in they just didn't have the infrastructure to deal with that kind of volume. Then the sales started slowing down as well at the same time. Which all together is what caused the losses internally and then the changed earnings forecast in December, starting the market crash. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IHATETHEBEARS Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Why are people bothered by the notion that Atari dumped a bunch of inventory? What does it matter? Does that make Atari any less awesome? No. So who cares? I loved my Atari in the 80's. And I love it now. I don't give a rat's ass that they dumped some stock. I think it's a pretty cool story actually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bergum Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Yes, if we were to believe it REALLY happened, then it does. Tax Fraud is not awsome. Neither is Wasted Inventory. Tax Fraud is FAR more likely. (Perhaps atari was losing millions, so they removed the labels off half of their E.T. Carts, removed the EPROMS, and melted them down and sold them to Octopirate to make V-Cases. ) Probably not true. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marillion Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 Huh...I never knew Megamania sold 1 million copies. How strange that game did and not Ms. Pac-Man or Raiders of the Lost Ark or something like that. Peace, Chip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fabman99 Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 (edited) Here is some inside info from Atari Corp. Director of Quality in the 90's. I wrote this to him : The question I have is did you ever hear of the so called Mega dump of Atari games from a Storage warehouse in west Texas to a Landfill in Almagordo N.M. in the mid 80's. The story goes up to 14 trailer loads of Games were taken there and dumped, crushed, and covered with cement. Lots of talk on the atari sites about it but no one has so called proof positive, this may just be a big myth. His Reply : There is truth in the fact that Atari dumped thousands of games in the local landfill. It was me who dumped a huge amount as part of my task to clean-up the warehouse and discard obsolete products. There is a guy who now lives in the Sierra foothills (of California) who was a big Atari dealer here in the Bay Area. He loaded tons of stuff into his car before I had a chance to toss it out. Honestly, I have never heard of an Atari site in Texas scrapping anything. As far as I know, my Mountain View, CA warehouse contained the bulk of the material and we scrapped the majority at the Mountain View dumps (and we sold a small amount to Weird Stuff, a local company that sold obsolete products). Now mind you he worked for them in the 90's and may not of heard about it since it was Now Atari Corp. he worked for. I did did not ask for any other specifices of what it was that was being dumped. Edited November 15, 2012 by fabman99 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted November 15, 2012 Share Posted November 15, 2012 Well, that goes right along with what RetroRogue said about the NM dump site being the wrong location, or a decoy to steer people away from the real loot. We'll get a lot more questions answered whenever that Atari book finally gets published... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mock Posted May 21, 2013 Share Posted May 21, 2013 It's better to burn out...than to fade away....my, my,...hey, hey. :ponder: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapetino Posted May 30, 2013 Share Posted May 30, 2013 (edited) More fuel to the fire. A film company has paid the city in NM to film a documentary about digging up the ET carts. Interesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufTKXf6PP8k Though I suppose it could be another "Al Capone's Vault." Edited May 30, 2013 by lapetino Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Master Phruby Posted May 30, 2013 Share Posted May 30, 2013 How many E.T. cartridges are now Princess Rescue carts? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted May 30, 2013 Share Posted May 30, 2013 How many E.T. cartridges are now Princess Rescue carts? Probably more of them were Pacmans and Combats. More fuel to the fire. A film company has paid the city in NM to film a documentary about digging up the ET carts. Interesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufTKXf6PP8k Though I suppose it could be another "Al Capone's Vault." This is awesome. Apparently, some treasure hunters actually secured some venture capital and city approval. This is epic news!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IHATETHEBEARS Posted May 30, 2013 Share Posted May 30, 2013 So there are newspaper articles from when it happened - and witnesses. Why would anyone believe it's fake? And why is anyone bothered by it? I'm sure Atari threw a lot of things in the garbage. Why is this a big deal? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mock Posted May 30, 2013 Share Posted May 30, 2013 word is that ArmorAll Ali has made a major discovery in this case...should be interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mkiker2089 Posted May 30, 2013 Share Posted May 30, 2013 Are people expecting to get usable carts out of a landfill? The carts were all crushed and paved over in the confirmed landfill. There's no reason to assume any differently in other landfills. Finding a warehouse full of games did happen though didn't it? I know a few vendors claim so anyway. Of course that was ages ago but apparently there's still a lot of new stuff to be had. New as in never opened that is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari181 Posted May 30, 2013 Share Posted May 30, 2013 Are people expecting to get usable carts out of a landfill? The carts were all crushed and paved over in the confirmed landfill. There's no reason to assume any differently in other landfills. Finding a warehouse full of games did happen though didn't it? I know a few vendors claim so anyway. Of course that was ages ago but apparently there's still a lot of new stuff to be had. New as in never opened that is. I would assume that the carts are not crushed, only the ones near the top, however the carts would probably be the common stuff so value isn't the reason people keep talking about this for years. The story is what is so intriguing. It did happen, there is more than enough information verifying it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted May 30, 2013 Share Posted May 30, 2013 (edited) I would assume that the carts are not crushed, only the ones near the top, however the carts would probably be the common stuff so value isn't the reason people keep talking about this for years. The story is what is so intriguing. It did happen, there is more than enough information verifying it. Are you sure? How do we know that there aren't valuable protos of unreleased games sprinkled amongst all the mess? Despite the game cart may be damaged beyond repair, it may be possible to remove PCB and ROM chip and extract the data. Even if the pins are rusted out, it still may be possible to probe the chip itself by soldering fresh leads onto it. Maybe Marty or Curt can comment on this new development? Edited May 30, 2013 by stardust4ever Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari181 Posted May 30, 2013 Share Posted May 30, 2013 Are you sure? How do we know that there aren't valuable protos of unreleased games sprinkled amongst all the mess? Despite the game cart may be damaged beyond repair, it may be possible to remove PCB and ROM chip and extract the data. Even if the pins are rusted out, it still may be possible to probe the chip itself by soldering fresh leads onto it. Maybe Marty or Curt can comment on this new development? I guess it could be, but IMO I think it's very unlikely. Of course, I'm just speculating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 It's a non-event publicity stunt. The dumping was simply a clearing out of stock from the Texas plant as it moved over to automated manufacturing and game manufacturing moved to China. What they'll find are parts of consoles, computers, and an assortment of game cartridges. Stardust - there would be no protos, there was no programming done in Texas. Atari's game design was back in Sunnyvale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torr Posted June 1, 2013 Share Posted June 1, 2013 (edited) Whether or not it happened is an interesting footnote in video game history. If you looked at video game companies as people in a tv show or something it would an example of Atari fucking up as usual and coming up with some over the top scheme to cover his tracks or something. I believe it happened, there's certainly enough evidence. I don't get why anyone wants to dig up a pile of old carts if they are apparently* only: a) mostly likely crushed/broken/deformed to the point they are essentially useless. 2) games that were purposely buried because apparently they couldn't GIVE 'em away. d) games that we today are purposely destroying for the sole point of putting a good game worth playing on them because there are already too many copies of said game in circulation. * Unless you're skeptical and until it's SEEN you can't say for sure what is where... (cue X-Files whistle...) Edited June 1, 2013 by Torr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sqoon Posted June 1, 2013 Share Posted June 1, 2013 Has anyone read a proposed date when this Fuel Industries company out of Canada plans to do the unearthing and actual filming? I have yet to see those details anywhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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