Odd Looking Atari Cart… What is it ???

[Mr.Faxanadu]

Hello,

Does anyone know what this is? I was looking to purchase one but the auction went down Anyone know anything about it ? Any idea about it’s value ?






Thanks

[tom]

X-Box? No seriously, cannot see it, 'red x' comes up

[Mr.Faxanadu]

Sorry just fixed it now

[HardcoreGamer]

I believe that it's a test cart. Don't quote me on it. I've seen one before, I just can't remember the specifics.

[InsaneDavid]

Hmmm... maybe some kind of cased passthrough for ROM to actual hardware development?

[googlefest1]

are you sure its atari ? - i cant tell

i know that the C64 had eprom programmers that plugged into the cart slot

[Mr.Faxanadu]

Ya, it's atari.... comes with eprom looking chips that have a game on it. Titles are pitfall, pac-man etc....

How much do you think it's worth ???

Was planning to spend $300 on it as I've never seen one before!

[InsaneDavid]

Ya, it's atari.... comes with eprom looking chips that have a game on it. Titles are pitfall, pac-man etc....

Now that you say that, what this is pops into my mind again. It's a retro bootleg gaming device. Instead of buying individual cartridges you'd buy bootleg duplicates of the individual chips. I've seen pictures in old gaming books of desktops LOADED with bootleg repro chips for these carts.

[Jibbajaba]

That definitely loks like what that is. That would be a really cool think to have, as with an eprom writer you could make yourself copies of released homebrews and bootlegs. Oh course you can just buy a socketed board from AA for that, but this think looks much cooler. Would be really easy to make your own though.

I wonder though, what do you guys think that toggle switch is for?

Chris

[Hammy]

not sure, but if you do get one of them, a pcb scan would be excellent

[fairyland]

It's a device to play Atari 2600 games that was copied onto a chip. I actually had a similar one of those about 8 or so years ago. I've sold mine on ebay for about $125.00 or something close to that amount. I was rather surprised that ebay did not take it down, but I made sure not to use the keywords that they normally look for.

Anyway, I bought it in a church sale in a milk crate full of Atari games with boxes for $5.00. I really wish I found the devce that they used to make these boots (for curiosity sake mostly) as it really blows my mind to how this process was done, how long it took to make a copy, and at what cost.

Anyway, the one I had came with two plastic cases of chips stuck in styrofoam to protect their connector pins. There was something like 14 chips all together and each one was sticker labeled with a name of a game. The names was written in pen. No prototypes or anything special, just bootleg stuff. I tried them out by shoving the chip into that slot and flipping the switch. The switch holds onto the pins and keeps it from falling out. You unflip it to release the chip. All but two worked. A few needed a couple reattempts to get them working though.

It is mostly a curosity piece and probably pretty rare in this day and age. I know that I'll never see another one in the wild again. Some fans will say it's worthless bootleg garbage, but I think it's a great representation at early piracy and should be in anyone that is madly serious about collecting their Atari 2600 stuffs.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

That's way cool. I personally love pirate stuff and it's cool to know that they were doing it even ack on the 2600. Nice looking cart what with the woodgrain and sweet metal toggle switch and all. The great thing about backup devices is, like JibbaJaba said, that you can use them for playing homebrews and protos on your real hardware, which is always nice.


...word is bondage...

[evg2000]

There usually made at home to run eproms, and they come in different shapes and sizes. They also exist for the 7800.





"I wonder though, what do you guys think that toggle switch is for?"
Chris, the switch is for selecting rom size, the one that I have says 2k and 4k

later,
Charles

[The Shawn]

What a groovy addition to your 2600 collection!

[googlefest1]

how economical was that back in the day?

I would think eproms were expensive back in the 80's (i realy have no idea) and dont forget about the programmer and eraser (sure you could build one in the 80s for much cheaper than it cost off the shelf and you could leave the chips in the sun for a day to erase them.)

Today they are cheap -- you can get a nice lot of 50 chips on ebay for somewhere around 15$ -- i got to try many atari games i never had the chance to play this way.

Other than an electronics hobbiest i can't realy see the average joe using one of these. Unless they sold individual chips through the mail or local shop. But then again the question of cost comes into mind (per chip).

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

I'm betting that most people who had one of these carts did indeed go to some sort of shady local shop to have games added to their chips rather than owning the EPROM writer themselves. Video game piracy has really only become a do-it-yourslef thing fairly recently.

As for the cost of the chips, while it would have been higher than it is now certainly, wouldn't it have been quite a bit lower than the price of a new 2600 game? And plus, the chips could be re-used, so it was more economical in the long run.

But you're probably right anyway, that is was only pretty tech savvy people that would have gotten into this in the first place.


...word is bondage...

[christhegamer]

I don't know what it is, but you should definately keep it. That has got to be the coolest thing since the General Lee horn's availability!!!