international atari information from the 80s - please contribute!

[jahfish]

hi everybody,

 

i am doing some research for an exhibition that will be held next month, and i am trying to find out as much as possible about when and how the Atari 2600 came into your country.

 

if you are NOT from the following countries (USA, Germany, France, Spain, Japan, Argentina, New Zealand, Sweden, Turkey, Bulgaria, Russia) then please let me know if u have any answers to my questions. I already collected information for many more countries, but it is still very incomplete.

 

feel free to send me PMs or email to jahfish@(NOSPAM)gmail.com

 

 

here's the questions:

 

1) When did the first 2600 console appear in your country? what model was it (woodgrain / black / junior)?

 

2) was it imports or did it come from an official distributor? where were they usually sold?

 

3) Has there been any documentation or even packaging in your language?

 

4) Was there any pirate consoles or games? do you know where they came from?

 

5) Did the US market crash also affect your country? until when were the consoles & games available?

 

6) was there any offical atariclub, atari championships or any private videogamer clubs?

 

7) Any wild stories about how console were maybe smuggled into your country? any other interesting info you want to share?

 

 

i'd be very gratefull for any answer that u can give me ...

 

and thanx to those who already helped me so far ...

 

 

 

fish

Edited July 15, 2008 by jahfish

[jahfish]

while researching, i found this interesting phone list from atari HQ, compiled in 1983 ....

 

for all courious collectors ... here is the attachment:

adir83.txt

[jahfish]

b-b-b-bump!

[jahfish]

thanks for the replies i got so far .... anyone else? maybe someone from saudi arabia?

[Rybags]

1) When did the first 2600 console appear in your country? what model was it (woodgrain / black / junior)?

Pretty sure it arrived here in 1980 or earlier.

 

One of my mates was first to have one of the people I know - and I'm pretty sure it was the original woody with the more rounded front, and made in Sunnyvale (PAL). I got mine XMas '82, 6-switch woody with the more squared frontal look.

 

There were "clone" consoles released here, but AFAIK they were authorised productions. They appear on eBay once in a while. So far as that goes though, I've never seen anything other than a real 2600 in the flesh.

 

2) was it imports or did it come from an official distributor? where were they usually sold?

We had this shitty authorised Atari distributor "Futuretronics" who looked after Atari stuff. But, they only cared for the 2600 and games, did a poor job on the computer line, and Atari ditched them and started up their own subsidiary once the Tramiels took over. Of course, distribution improved massively, but by then the 8-bit range was yesterday's tech. The ST initially was lineball with the Amiga, but exceeded it once the first lot of price cuts came in. But, Amiga won out here ultimately, the Amiga 500 probably had near the success of the C-64 and the ST fell by the wayside. Evidence is in sales on eBay - you usually see several Amigas on sale at any given time, but only a couple of STs per week pop up, and probably 1 or less STe per month.

 

3) Has there been any documentation or even packaging in your language?

Pretty sure we got the bog standard stuff that the US and UK got, although usually with PAL either printed on it, or a sticker put on.

 

4) Was there any pirate consoles or games? do you know where they came from?

only one story - I heard that someone who my mate's father knew had made a device to switch among copied ROMs. So, I'm guessing he either made something from scratch, or simply did EPROMs on boards and just used one of the multi-cart selectors that was available at the time. Only did this for himself AFAIK, didn't make repros for sale or anything like that.

 

5) Did the US market crash also affect your country? until when were the consoles & games available?

Not sure about how much the crash affected us here - by 1983 I'd moved on to the 8-bit computer line, and the distribution and promotion for them here was always pathetic, so there was never a glut of games here locally. In fact, we usually had to resort to buying games interstate and even ordering them in from overseas. By 1983 other consoles had taken foothold anyway, and the C-64 exploded onto the local market too.

It's safe to say that the C-64 along with our shitty distributor probably dented Atari here more than the games crash ever could have.

 

6) was there any offical atariclub, atari championships or any private videogamer clubs?

Not sure about 2600, but I was a member of ACTARI which was one of many clubs relating to the computers. There were also other groups like MACE (Melbourne Atari Computer Enthusiasts), and I think the major cities/states all had their own too. Unsure when our group wound up. I kinda lost interest in the late 1980s despite having a new ST, and I doubt they would have been going by the time Atari went under.

 

7) Any wild stories about how console were maybe smuggled into your country? any other interesting info you want to share?

I remember being a little jealous of one mate - he had import NTSC games which often took 6 months or more before arriving here officially, but of course had to put up with the normal compatability issues you get.

[jahfish]

thanks Rybags!!!

 

i'm still looking for more information about following countries:

 

ireland, iceland, norway, sweden, denmark, belgium, thailand, mexico, taiwan, honk kong, greece, italy, chile, russia, china .....

[pepax]

thanks Rybags!!!

 

i'm still looking for more information about following countries:

 

ireland, iceland, norway, sweden, denmark, belgium, thailand, mexico, taiwan, honk kong, greece, italy, chile, russia, china .....

 

I MAY be able to get some info regarding the situation in the former Czechoslovakia (yes, former, Mr. McCain ). Are you interested? Would you be interested even if it were about Atari products in general? (I think there were a lot more Atari XL/XEs and STs sold in and smuggled into Czechoslovakia than 2600s and 7800s.)

Edited July 21, 2008 by pepax

[jahfish]

thanks Rybags!!!

 

i'm still looking for more information about following countries:

 

ireland, iceland, norway, sweden, denmark, belgium, thailand, mexico, taiwan, honk kong, greece, italy, chile, russia, china .....

 

I MAY be able to get some info regarding the situation in the former Czechoslovakia (yes, former, Mr. McCain ). Are you interested? Would you be interested even if it were about Atari products in general? (I think there were a lot more more Atari XL/XEs and STs sold in and smuggled into Czechoslovakia than 2600s and 7800s.)

 

i have similar stories from bulgaria, but i'd love to add Czechoslovakia to the list!

 

thanks

 

fish

[so_tough!]

Hey dude, I'm not sure about these questions. All I can do is look online and try to find answers, but I did find some trivia out..

 

http://www.atarihq.com/pal-division/europe/europe.html This site may help you out...

 

On the topic of 2600 In Ireland, The 2600 VCS was released in Ireland.. Juniors where even built there,(just like Apple Macintosh's are today!) and look slightly different.. (just pasted that from the site)

 

 

Also found this, http://www.benwaysworld.co.uk/computersnco...ari2600VCS.html

 

The final model of 2600, the black model, was made in Ireland, and some sources suggest only sold in Ireland (though this is unconfirmed).

It's probable that the removal of the silver strip was another cost cutting move, and not beyond the bounds of reason to speculate that these models were only produced to use up remaining stocks of components.

On Jan 1st 1992, the Atari 2600 was finally discontinued, making its 14 year production run the longest of any games console, and around 3 times longer than that of your average console.

 

Value

Only slightly more desirable than the two "Rainbow" models, you could expect to see these sell on ebay uk (2007) for around £15.

 

Sorry, I can' help you out more!

 

[jahfish]

thanks

 

 

anyone else?

[jahfish]

i'm still looking for information from the middle east and africa ....

[Chris-in-NJ]

Looking at that "Made in Ireland" console, I think it rather unlikely that they'd sell a console with a "COLOUR / B&W" switch in countries that drop the U from the first word. Unless, of course, they also made them with "COLOR / B&W" switches...

[carmel_andrews]

All i remember is that ingersoll and cherry leisure were the original distributors behind Atari kit/gear in the UK....First Atari 2600/vcs i saw was 'woody', i did know someone that had a smaller version of the 2600 (so called 'jr') I don't know if it was the tramiel or the warners one

 

Also, you've got to remember that Atari didn't start properly marketing in UK and euroland till tramiel took the reigns, before that it was pretty much hit and miss