Unreleased Atari 2600 Game Found At Flea Market

VonGuard writes "I was at the flea market in Oakland yesterday when a pile of EPROMs caught my eye. When I got them home I found that they were prototypes for Colecovision games. A few were unpublished or saw limited runs, like Video Hustler (billiards). Others were fully released, like WarGames. But the crown jewel is what look to be a number of chips with various revisions of Cabbage Patch Kids Adventures in the Park for Atari 2600. This game was never released and has never been seen. It was a port of the version for Colecovision, and this lot of chips also included the Coleco version. So now I have to find someone who can dump EPROMs gently onto a PC so we can play this never-before seen game, which is almost certainly awful."

Launch Party

[glittalogik]

The unveiling and first attempt at this game requires:

- A projector.
- A camera to record footage for posterity.
- A celebrity guest, Either CmdrTaco, CowboyNeal, or one of the Diggnation guys.
- Huuuuuge quantities of alcohol.

This has the potential to be one of the most successful parties in /. history. There could easily be as many as 5, even 6 guests! Rock on!

Re:Launch Party

[PhantomHarlock]

Sounds like a Strongbad Email waiting to happen.

My secret plan, now I know this...

[thrill12]

1. Get access to some eproms, preferably the old, worn-out kind.
2. Put a cryptic label on them, something like "P0N 13S OMG", or "SR0 CKS TH1", plus some brandname like "Coleco" or "Atari"
3. Go to the nearest auction site
4. ...
5. Profit !

Somebody is getting their comeuppance

[bluemetal]

Somebody was paid to spend time and work hard on that game, no matter how horrible it is. This is your time lonesome programmer... your moment of fame has finally arrived after so many long years of obscurity. Will the effort of years past pay off now, or will you simply fade away from whence you cam to that cold, bleak corner of gaming history.

Dude. You're in the SF Bay area.

[marxmarv]

You probably can't swing a cat without finding someone who has a proper EPROM reader/programmer or can cobble together a little circuit to read out each location in the PROM. It could be terribly simple; two chips, a socket for your EPROM, a parallel printer cable and a bit of bit-banging code.

But to echo what Guido said, EPROMs typically aren't rated for "eternal" data retention and depending on storage conditions there could be anything from bit errors to blank chips. If both copies of the Park roms were the same you've at least got something to work with.

Maybe the cart has Duke Nuke 'em Forever on it

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a thought...

No! Don't do it!!!!!

[erroneus]

Some things are better left alone!! The "pappach" as my niece once called them died for a reason. Do not bring the parent of "Chucky" back to life. Nothing good could come of this.

Re:Never been seen?

[fbjon]

The game has been seen before, but not by the general public. The developers, their bosses, and most likely the previous owner have all laid eyes on this glorious piece of history.

No no, you don't get it. These ancient jewels of computing actually developed themselves! Powerful artifacs of magic they are. Bind them with an emulator only with the utmost care.

I worked at Coleco Advanced R&D in '79-'80...

[Two99Point80]

...and can vouch for the "dumpster diving" approach. For a while, physical mockups (without the electronics) were just tossed in the dumpster; I saw neighborhood kids brandishing their "prizes". Later on, one of the guys took to hanging them in a tree outside our 2nd-floor office window; that didn't go over well when our VP found out...

Re:Cool

[suckmysav]

Oh, OK, so we are excited about how bad the game probably is.

Sort of like a vintage Daikatana?

Re:What happens to today's games?

[somersault]

Sounds like you have a little in common with this guy [theregister.co.uk], he's a C64 artist ;)

Profit!

[countach]

1. Find some old EPROMS
2. Write the names of old video games on stickers and attach.
3. Go to flea market.
4. Profit!!

Re:Cool

[gronofer]

What's an Atari 2600?

I guess that's something people of each decade faces, people born in the 2000's will lament that people born in the 2010's haven't heard of the Playstation 3 or Windows XP. Or in the not too distant future senior citizens won't have participated in WW2 or remember a time before TV...

Lament an ignorance of the Playstation 3 or Windows XP? You must be joking. I hope that Sony and Microsoft will be only footnotes in dusty history lessons for the 2010's generation.

I wouldn't worry about WW2 either, there will be plenty of other wars to talk about. I hope I live to see a time after TV.

"Them"?

[mgkimsal2]

that didn't go over well when our VP found out...

I imagine the kids didn't care for hanging in the tree either.

Re:Cool

[Jason1729]

Although I can imagine some teenager asking that question. The Atari VCS/2600 is older than many people alive today (almost 31 years).

Thank you so much for making me feel old :P

I had one of these when I was a kid (actually a colecovision with the Atari 2600 adapter.)

I'm going to go play "Adventure" now.

Re:Cool

[sharkey]

What, no Custer's Revenge?

Re:Cool

[2names]

Your score took up 45K? That must have been one helluva high score!

Re:Cool

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> though note that the mouse makes a poor substitute for a paddle

Richard Gere might disagree.

Re:Profit!

[MarkGriz]

Change "flea market" to "ebay", for some real profit.

Re:Cool

[Skevin]

> What's an Atari 2600?

It's a whole new treasure trove of source material for Uwe Bolle.

Solomon

Are you kidding?

[Weaselmancer]

One of the great joys of being this age is listening to people your age whine.

I don't blame you though. We got all the cool games, bought houses before the bubble, got jobs before the dot-com crash, had gas cheap enough to have a pastime called cruising (that's were you simply drive just for pleasure)...and we got all the good music.

Your games are pretty, but not nearly as playable. Houses are now in the quarter-million range commonly - good luck paying that off. New cars can easily run 30k. Gas will be $4 a gallon by the end of the summer, so you're going to be home a lot. As for music, the thumping crap you have to force yourself to like if you're going to be cool is more like electronic artillery rather than anything musical. I only hope that continual exposure to high decibel low frequency bass causes sterility by jangling your balls into non-functionality.

Kids today are screwed. And I actually feel pretty bad about it - except in your case.