Myles Posted April 28, 2014 #26 Share Posted April 28, 2014 From the atricle it seems no permission, or there would have been a record: The story goes that in 1983 Atari loaded their unsold stock of cartridges on to a lorry and drove them out to the New Mexico desert where they were unceremoniously buried in a landfill. The tale since became something of an urban legend with nobody really certain as to whether this event actually took place or not. My point is, with no permission, they should not be allowed to get away with dumping. There are rules when dumping rubbish, even at a landfill. I agree if that is the case. My assumption is that you do not use a landfill if you are trying to get away with something. Each year I bring a trailer load oflarge crap to the local landfill. I pay my $15 and dump it. There is no record of what I dumped and where in the landfill it is. But it is all done legally. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freetoroam Posted April 28, 2014 #27 Share Posted April 28, 2014 I agree if that is the case. My assumption is that you do not use a landfill if you are trying to get away with something. Each year I bring a trailer load oflarge crap to the local landfill. I pay my $15 and dump it. There is no record of what I dumped and where in the landfill it is. But it is all done legally. True, they could have used the rivers or seas, like some others do. Even though there is no record, do they not check what you are dumping.....like another load of atari games, come on admit it, you got cupboards full. Lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myles Posted April 28, 2014 #28 Share Posted April 28, 2014 True, they could have used the rivers or seas, like some others do. Even though there is no record, do they not check what you are dumping.....like another load of atari games, come on admit it, you got cupboards full. Lol I never had an Atari, but I did enjoy a friends. Pitfall and River Raid are the one's I remember most. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junior Chubb Posted April 28, 2014 #29 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Am I the only person who's "day was made" by this story? Nothing more satisfying than a myth being revealed to be the truth... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlanB Posted April 28, 2014 #30 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Am I the only person who's "day was made" by this story? Nothing more satisfying than a myth being revealed to be the truth... Same here. Was familiar with this urban legend but convinced that it was nothing but. Some one get around to Bigfoot and aliens! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theotherguy Posted April 28, 2014 #31 Share Posted April 28, 2014 Same here. Was familiar with this urban legend but convinced that it was nothing but. Some one get around to Bigfoot and aliens! I thought the cartridges were just wiped and recycled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junior Chubb Posted April 30, 2014 #32 Share Posted April 30, 2014 I thought the cartridges were just wiped and recycled. As far as I know cartridges cannot be 'wiped'. One of the pro's of cartridges is they are cannot (its very expensive) to pirate them. If they could be wiped and re-used I would guess the 'anti piracy' feature would be redundant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toast Posted April 30, 2014 #33 Share Posted April 30, 2014 What a wastre of everyiones time,Including mine for writing this comment What a waste of everyones time, including mine for reading this comment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theotherguy Posted April 30, 2014 #34 Share Posted April 30, 2014 As far as I know cartridges cannot be 'wiped'. One of the pro's of cartridges is they are cannot (its very expensive) to pirate them. If they could be wiped and re-used I would guess the 'anti piracy' feature would be redundant. Well, you learn something every day. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
:PsYKoTiC:BeHAvIoR: Posted May 1, 2014 #35 Share Posted May 1, 2014 (edited) Am I the only person who's "day was made" by this story? Nothing more satisfying than a myth being revealed to be the truth... I'm with you. I was always fascinated by this bit of video game history. Even happier to see it wasn't actually crushed. It's too bad the weren't able to do this last year, it would have marked the 30 year anniversary of the video game crash. Oh well. Edited May 1, 2014 by :PsYKoTiC:BeHAvIoR: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DecoNoir Posted May 1, 2014 #36 Share Posted May 1, 2014 Am I the only person who's "day was made" by this story? Nothing more satisfying than a myth being revealed to be the truth... I certainly agree! As someone who loves to study myths I found this extremely interesting, and like it or not, these modern day myths play a part in our culture. Also, to people saying this was a waste of time and money, remember that nest time you turn on the TV and see another Kardashian spin-off. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mysticwerewolf Posted May 1, 2014 #37 Share Posted May 1, 2014 if you want to get rid of something so that it will never be found then burn it and stir the ashes well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mojohand Posted May 5, 2014 #38 Share Posted May 5, 2014 Wow, just seeing that video still has brought back so many memories. The game was so confusing and had no point or end... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scowl Posted May 5, 2014 #39 Share Posted May 5, 2014 One of the pro's of cartridges is they are cannot (its very expensive) to pirate them. If they could be wiped and re-used I would guess the 'anti piracy' feature would be redundant. The cartridges could be read and duplicated. The guts just contained an inexpensive ROM chip on a PC board. There were devices that you could read them with (a friend had one for an Apple II) and it was possible to burn a ROM with the same contents. Experimenters who wanted to write their own Atari 2600 games (very difficult!) had a thing that plugged into the cartridge socket with a ribbon cable and had an EPROM (a ROM that you could erase and rewrite). There was something on the Apple II that would help you develop Atari games. It couldn't emulate the game but it could tell you if you got the extremely critical timing right (if your code took too long, the screen would fall apart). What really made the retail cartridges hard to pirate is that the ROM was just one thing that needed to be duplicated. Unlike a floppy disk or a CD, you had to make a PC board and case for the ROM and it had to fit perfectly into the console to be marketable. I guess that's why Atari did its best to crush these cartridges and make them unusable. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junior Chubb Posted May 5, 2014 #40 Share Posted May 5, 2014 The cartridges could be read and duplicated. The guts just contained an inexpensive ROM chip on a PC board. There were devices that you could read them with (a friend had one for an Apple II) and it was possible to burn a ROM with the same contents. Experimenters who wanted to write their own Atari 2600 games (very difficult!) had a thing that plugged into the cartridge socket with a ribbon cable and had an EPROM (a ROM that you could erase and rewrite). There was something on the Apple II that would help you develop Atari games. It couldn't emulate the game but it could tell you if you got the extremely critical timing right (if your code took too long, the screen would fall apart). What really made the retail cartridges hard to pirate is that the ROM was just one thing that needed to be duplicated. Unlike a floppy disk or a CD, you had to make a PC board and case for the ROM and it had to fit perfectly into the console to be marketable. I guess that's why Atari did its best to crush these cartridges and make them unusable. Cheers for the extra info Scowl Always nice to have the ramblings of my memory fleshed out into something more concrete. I have plenty of ROM images of cartridge games, but as you confirm no pirated cartridges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scowl Posted May 6, 2014 #41 Share Posted May 6, 2014 I have plenty of ROM images of cartridge games, but as you confirm no pirated cartridges. Which surprises me a little. The thing we used to read the ROMs on an Apple II and burn an EPROM cartridge was kind of expensive (at the time) but it had all the parts necessary to copy the code for pirated cartridges. Retail cartridges cost $15-$20 (double that for today's dollars) so there should have been a huge market for pirated cartridges just like there was for bootlegged albums and cassettes. I think what stopped it was just the physical manufacturing of the cartridges which had to fit just perfectly in the console to work. And I bet that's why Atari did their best to smash these unsold cartridges to bits so they couldn't be reused. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asadora Posted May 6, 2014 #42 Share Posted May 6, 2014 My husband had shared the following youtube link with me and I thought it was appropriate to share with the rest of this thread:) http://youtu.be/NHXK2mKtu20 To the people in the video, kudos to your retro gaming dedication! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junior Chubb Posted May 6, 2014 #43 Share Posted May 6, 2014 Which surprises me a little. The thing we used to read the ROMs on an Apple II and burn an EPROM cartridge was kind of expensive (at the time) but it had all the parts necessary to copy the code for pirated cartridges. Retail cartridges cost $15-$20 (double that for today's dollars) so there should have been a huge market for pirated cartridges just like there was for bootlegged albums and cassettes. I think what stopped it was just the physical manufacturing of the cartridges which had to fit just perfectly in the console to work. And I bet that's why Atari did their best to smash these unsold cartridges to bits so they couldn't be reused. I downloaded all my ROM images online somewhere, but have never came across a pirated cartridge despite playing SNES after (I think) Atari ST and Amiga with which piracy was rife. I think you are right about the hardware, having to physically make the cartridges was a big hurdle to cross back then which is why Nintendo stuck it out with cartridges for so long. I would guess its a different scenario today, you could get the components knocked up in China at a good price maybe making cartridge piracy a viable option. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now