Saturday, November 25, 2006

The Atari 2600 Graveyard Fact or Fiction?


The video game crash of 1983 saw the near complete crash of the video game industry and the bankruptcy of a number of companies producing home computers and video game consoles in North America in late 1983 and early 1984. It brought an end to what is considered the second generation of console video gaming.

The Rumour:
1983 Atari Inc. send a reported 10 to 20 Truck loads of unsold/returned Atari game carts, unsold Atari consoles, and countless other related hardware from it's El Paso warehouse to landfill iin Alamogordo, New Mexico, and had concrete poured on top of the lot.

Truth or Fiction?
Update! May 2012: the original link I had to a pretty comprehensive piece on the mystery on atari.digital-madman.com is now defunct!!!

But you gotta love Wikipedia!, who've kept the important bits, well the bits we really need to know!  Atari video game burial on Wikipedia

And a big thank you for existing!!! to the Wayback machine, who have kept the original webpage referencing the original reporter!!! :) Atari.digital-madman.com Way back!

8 comments:

fatherkrishna said...

Holy feck Elderly!
This is quite simply the best post I have ever seen on any site ever!!
Conspiracy and gaming in one post??
Jayzus Elderly you're good... damn good!
I own one of these Atari babies, or at least I did... I looked for it recently. the Mrs. swears she didn't chuck it out... (I wouldn't blame her if she tried to fight back against my console obsession...)
Anyway FUCKING TOP POST!
I'm forming "The Atari Underground Resistance Popular Front Geurilla Red Guard Republican Sandanista People's Liberation Gamer's Collective Workers and Trade's Union Faction for The Disposessed And Under Represented Conspiracy Vegetarian Anarcho-Syndicalist Leninist Maoist Stalinist Pacifist Resistance" to get to the bottom of this sorry mess. Anyone interested in joining should check themselves into their local mental health institution and I'll be along soon to pick you up...

elderly said...

(typing with nose..... shifts uncomfortably in straight jacket...)

Okay i've reached the pick up spot..... please advise.....

fatherkrishna said...

Right I'm outside your window on the back of a large fire breathing weevil. I've got some sausage rolls, a sink plunger and a Phillip's Lady-Shave so we should be alright if the Atari Republican Guard turn nasty...
"No nurse not the electric cables... I'll be good, I'll be good..."
Dammit! We've been discovered! Thank God you're still with me Elderly... and you Groucho, and you Madonna, and you Joan of Arc... We're all in tnis together!

Unknown said...

...man the special detention centre always has the best parties......

fatherkrishna said...

We'll regroup at Candlemas in St'Gregory's R.C. Lydiate, Lancs circa 1976... my fillings have been radio-quiet for some time...
"No nurse i was just muttering about the football results..."
See? I fool her every time...

Unknown said...

..you lucky lucky b...strd the nurses talk to you..... oh what i'd give to have a nurse talk to me.... (rustles inside straightjacket)....damn!...

re routed rendezvous noted... i may be a bit late... owing to there only being one exit in my padded cell... give me about a month...... suggest coat hanger hanging from lip for improved dental reception.....

fatherkrishna said...

Coat hanger... CHECK! Lithium... CHECK! Life size cardboard cut out of Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft... CHECK! Dug up worms in a tin.... CHECK! (They might come in handy..)
Now let's soil ourselves and see what THEIR response is...
Elderly, I think we're WINNING!!!

Unknown said...

...ahh i remember when i could soil... damn those were the days....

since they've fitted this pooh sucker tube.... they've effectively eliminated one of the principal weapons in my armoury....

looks like you'll have to go soilo......

how come angelina ended up in your cell.... it took me three months to cut her out and glue here to the kellogs cornflake box...... i expect you'll behave appropriately in front of the love of my life.....

(lost in medicated reverie......)