The ET landfill

[Daikun]

Remember that game that caused a crash for the industry for a couple of years? It was, according to legend, overproduced and undersold, causing the remaining copies to be buried in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Well, after 30 years, the City Commission will be digging up the grave and the excavation will be filmed for a documentary.

[Commode]

Interesting.  I wonder how much there will be to see, because as I understood all the copies of ET and Pacman and the actual Atari consoles themselves were crushed and encased in cement.  Maybe if they pick apart the concrete blocks they'll find pieces of circuit cards and fragments of the Pacman labels.

[Lord Il]

I remember hearing of this legendary burial years ago. I found it funny then and I found this latest development funny now. Just one example of Atari being too overzealous of themselves for their own good. 30 years later, man, so much has changed in the way electronic waste is handled and sorted for landfill and recycling. Have to wonder if they'd get away with doing something like that now.

Depending how deep the cartridges were buried, protected from the elements, I'd be willing to bet they'd still work perfectly today. Although.... why anyone would actually want to play the game is beyond me. 

ET and Pacman and the actual Atari consoles themselves were crushed and encased in cement. 

This is the first I've heard of cement being used.

[Daikun]

I just found this amazing article on how to fix E.T.'s problems. It provides a download of the fixed game (or an unmodified version if you want to try it yourself) and a thorough analysis on where the problems arise and how to repair them. It's pretty cool if you want a peek into game design.

[gunswordfist]

I actually thought this was just some myth.

[Commode]

I actually thought this was just some myth.

A lot of people claim it is a myth, including Atari spokespeople, and even the programmer of the ET game himself, who claimed Atari would have lost even more money throwing all those cartridges away instead of scavenging them for parts.

The funniest thing about it is even though millions of copies of ET and Pac-man were reportedly destroyed, the games are in no way rare or even hard to come by; you can still find copies of them for like 25 cents.

[Commode]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=109602229&postcount=1

No longer a myth.

So crazy how intact it all is.  There's not only complete working cartridges, there's boxes in decent shape(as well as boxes that have been buried for 30 years could be) and even game manuals.

[Daikun]

That's pretty impressive.

I wonder what they'll do with them now. I know there's a documentary being made about it, but what else can they do?

I bet the Smithsonian could use a hefty donation. I would think game boxes and manuals would be pretty rare nowadays, harder to find than the carts themselves.

[Lord Il]

I would think game boxes and manuals would be pretty rare nowadays, harder to find than the carts themselves.

Absolutely. Those cartridges will literally last forever and will most certainly outlast their boxboard packaging.
Manuals, well.. they just seem to get inevitably lost.

Nowadays, this stuff is probably like gold to the right collector.

[Commode]

Well yeah, I'm sure if E.T. cartridges can survive sitting in used video game stores and pawn shops all across this great land for 30 years then being buried in the New Mexican desert should be a walk in the park.

[Daikun]

The programmer of ET talks about the game.