264 replies to this topic

[Philflound]

Thanks for the updates. I didn't get to it this past week. Stuff came up, and with all these new additions Staberinde just posted, it was probably better I didn't update it yet. I had actually intentionally skipped several of variations listed on his site because he was away and I couldn't ask him for more info. I'm glad he gave me these updates. Anyone on the list, I promise to get this done within the week. Thanks.

Phil

[Philflound]

[quote name='staberinde' date='Sun Oct 16, 2005 8:41 AM']
Hy Phil,

checked my stuff by Atari, here are differences/additions to your list (see my [url="http://www.xenophobe.de/atari/cartridge_by_name.html"]homepage[/url] for pictures):

Asteroids CX2649
? PicGr1 ©1987, CART3, ML: no “use with…”, EL: blue letters, PAL

This is a broken photo of the main label. What I don't like about something like this is that it is easy to glue a blue end label from a regular version to this. Can anyone confirm this is the way the cartridge was made?

BMX Airmaster CX26190
a) C Picred2 ©1990, Cart3, Hong Kong, EL: CA400064-190 on lower right (PAL)

Unless there is a variation printed somewhere on the cart, technically this is the same version. I'm not noting PAL variations on games that do not specify PAL on the main or end labels, or have a "P" sticker on the cart.


Crossbow CX26139
? Picred2 ©1987, CART3, "Made in Hong Kong" , ML: CX26139P, PAL
? Picred2 ©1987, CART3, "Printed in Hong Kong" , ML: CX26139P, PAL

I have now listed this as 2 separate listings instead of just Hong Kong.


Finished up thru M right now. Will get to the rest later.

Phil

[staberinde]

[quote name='Philflound' date='Mon Oct 17, 2005 5:46 AM']
[quote name='staberinde' date='Sun Oct 16, 2005 8:41 AM']

Asteroids CX2649
? PicGr1 ©1987, CART3, ML: no “use with…”, EL: blue letters, PAL

This is a broken photo of the main label. What I don't like about something like this is that it is easy to glue a blue end label from a regular version to this. Can anyone confirm this is the way the cartridge was made?

BMX Airmaster CX26190
a) C Picred2 ©1990, Cart3, Hong Kong, EL: CA400064-190 on lower right (PAL)

Unless there is a variation printed somewhere on the cart, technically this is the same version. I'm not noting PAL variations on games that do not specify PAL on the main or end labels, or have a "P" sticker on the cart.

[right][/right]
[/quote]

Hy Phil,

I cannot confirm the Asteroids (fixed the link!), since I got it from ebay, so it might not be an original release.

Concerning the BMX, I just wanted to add the cartridge type (in case there are differences).

So far, looking forward for a new release
staberinde

P.S.: I think the 16 in 1 Cartridge by Atari is still missing in the list

[Philflound]

According the the Digital Press guide, there is a company called Atari Mania, which I was never told was the original Atari. There are many games released by this company in PAL format. Since I don't believe this is the Atari that everyone knows and loves, I will not be including carts from this company. I've mentioned before that this is a list of companies that mainly released NTSC games and that, for the most part, I've excluded PAL companies and games. A few exceptions exist like Action Man by Parker Brothers, some of the Telegames carts, Playaround game that was only foreign released and a few others. I have not included Coleco games released on the CBS label either. I've included PAL versions of originally released NTSC games for the purpose of label/cart variations, and of course those are duly noted. So if you can come across a BMX Airmaster NTSC and PAL side by side and can come up with some sort of physical variation with the cart or label, then I'll add it. Thanks for all the help.

Phil

[CPUWIZ]

Philflound, on Mon Oct 17, 2005 4:32 PM, said:

According the the Digital Press guide, there is a company called Atari Mania, which I was never told was the original Atari. There are many games released by this company in PAL format. Since I don't believe this is the Atari that everyone knows and loves, I will not be including carts from this company.

Atari-Mania is a Brazillian pirate company, they are not PAL carts though.

[Philflound]

Ok, then it's established. Whatever is on the list of games is all that will be on the list of games. The only changes that will be made will be additions and revisions of variations of those games only.

Has anyone thought up making a list for the home brew games? I know that some of the older games have had label revamps, or limited "con" editions vs the common release.

I sort of put the Intellivision list on hold right now. I lost a bag with a few hundred instruction booklets, so I don't want to get ahead of myself too much, plus the only copy I've found of Backgammon was my sealed one, so I need to do some digging before I proceed. Intellivision has a lot of variations too. I've discovered a lot in the short time I've been doing it with just the "A" titles by Mattel. Definitely a fun project.

Phil

[staberinde]

Philflound, on Tue Oct 18, 2005 1:32 AM, said:

According the the Digital Press guide, there is a company called Atari Mania, which I was never told was the original Atari. There are many games released by this company in PAL format. Since I don't believe this is the Atari that everyone knows and loves, I will not be including carts from this company. I've mentioned before that this is a list of companies that mainly released NTSC games and that, for the most part, I've excluded PAL companies and games. A few exceptions exist like Action Man by Parker Brothers, some of the Telegames carts, Playaround game that was only foreign released and a few others. I have not included Coleco games released on the CBS label either. I've included PAL versions of originally released NTSC games for the purpose of label/cart variations, and of course those are duly noted. So if you can come across a BMX Airmaster NTSC and PAL side by side and can come up with some sort of physical variation with the cart or label, then I'll add it. Thanks for all the help.

Phil

Well, that's all o.k. with me, but the "16 in 1" I was revering to is this one (also mentioned here) which should be a PAL Atari release (not something like AtariMania). I dont know more about it but since the PAL rarity guide lists it as Atari Special Label ...

[Philflound]

My guess is that it is a pirate. I don't believe Atari released that, unless someone else has info on it. Anyone can slap a homemade label on a cart, and I think it's pretty easy to do, especially now-a-days. Anyone have further info?

Phil

[Philflound]

Sorry I haven't been around these past two months. Things have been hell for me and I don't know if it'll get better any time soon. Too many problems and very few solutions. Though I went through half of what was listed here to add to the list, I'm going to try and do the other half before the end of the week. I've promised that many times, but like I said, I'll try.

For those of you still waiting for the newest update, please have a little more patience and it'll be my Christmas gift to you.

So thanks for sticking with me and I hope things get back in order soon.

Phil

[Philflound]

Ok, after many months and lots of personal illnesses and mishaps, I've gotten the list updated. Anyone who is not on my email contacts and wants the list, feel free to contact me. Also, once you see the list, let me know if you see anything that needs correcting.

Phil

[Omegamatrix]

Off the top of my head:

http://www.atariage....showtopic=79110

Edited by Omegamatrix, Sun May 7, 2006 10:16 AM.

[Rom Hunter]

Welcome back, Philflound.

Great to see this list updated.

I have a question:

Are all the gray, red and black Atari re-releases from Christopher also added?

[Philflound]

Rom Hunter, on Sun May 7, 2006 4:10 AM, said:

Welcome back, Philflound.

Great to see this list updated.

I have a question:

Are all the gray, red and black Atari re-releases from Christopher also added?

Give me links. Since I've been away so long, most of the original posts are buried somewhere. I'm trying to figure out what I did and what I needed to do, but never got around to. The Atari bug hit me again, so I'm a little excited again about doing this, despite the fact I had surgery just 4 days ago, and still need more since they couldn't finish the procedure. I'm hoping to hit some good sales this summer and hopefully find more great stuff. So if you guys see any old links that I never got to with new or updated info, just send me a message or post here. Thanks.
Phil

[Rom Hunter]

Here you are:
http://www.atariage....showtopic=72550

The latest updates are in the first post.

[Philflound]

Ok, folks. I'm totally frustrated with all the ?'s on the list. If there is no confirmation of a label variation, it's getting booted altogether. I've already begun doing this, and hopefully will get it done in a few days. I believe it's easier to add a label that isn't on the list, rather than trying to confirm one that may or may not exist. I figure if a collector has seen the list, and he supposedly had one of the ? label variations, then he should have contacted me to verify that it really did exist and I would've give it a rarity.

Rom Hunter is in the works of doing scans of all variations. Within a couple of weeks, I'm going to acquire a new scanner and I'll be helping him. I made a suggestion to him, and hopefully he'll go ahead with it. What he wants to do, at least from what I perceive, is to show every label variation out there in a nice, larger photo so everyone can see it clearly and identify which version they own. What I wanted to do to help the collector out was to paste together the labels that are extremely similar and use a little arrow to POINT out the difference, so it's easy to spot what you're looking for.

So if you had Air Sea Battle, you could photoshop together some of the text labels and tell their differences, then a different photo would have a couple of picture labels and tell their differences. This would be good with things like the black re-release labels, where you could show the correct "use with.." line, the black tape "use with.." line, and the error "use with.." line.

I think getting all the photos individually would be the top priority, and then once we have them, just paste together a few that may need further explanation.

What do you think?

Phil

[Omegamatrix]

Philflound, on Thu Jun 1, 2006 3:44 PM, said:

Ok, folks. I'm totally frustrated with all the ?'s on the list. If there is no confirmation of a label variation, it's getting booted altogether. I've already begun doing this, and hopefully will get it done in a few days. I believe it's easier to add a label that isn't on the list, rather than trying to confirm one that may or may not exist. I figure if a collector has seen the list, and he supposedly had one of the ? label variations, then he should have contacted me to verify that it really did exist and I would've give it a rarity.

Rom Hunter is in the works of doing scans of all variations. Within a couple of weeks, I'm going to acquire a new scanner and I'll be helping him. I made a suggestion to him, and hopefully he'll go ahead with it. What he wants to do, at least from what I perceive, is to show every label variation out there in a nice, larger photo so everyone can see it clearly and identify which version they own. What I wanted to do to help the collector out was to paste together the labels that are extremely similar and use a little arrow to POINT out the difference, so it's easy to spot what you're looking for.

So if you had Air Sea Battle, you could photoshop together some of the text labels and tell their differences, then a different photo would have a couple of picture labels and tell their differences. This would be good with things like the black re-release labels, where you could show the correct "use with.." line, the black tape "use with.." line, and the error "use with.." line.

I think getting all the photos individually would be the top priority, and then once we have them, just paste together a few that may need further explanation.

What do you think?

Phil

This is an extremely good idea. It would make it easy to discern at a glance. I'm going to see what variations I have and post some pics. If you need them that's good, but if you don't that's cool. I like the idea of putting together a collage of photos pointing out the differences.

[Philflound]

That's the word I was thinking, collage. I'd PM Rom Hunter if I was you. Get his email address and ask him if you can send him scans directly. Maybe tell him what you are sending and if he needs it. Since I get free websites, I may create something temporarily once I get scanning, just to show the collage of specific labels.

Ones that come to mind but not covering all are:

Defender - ship touches or doesn't
ET - few diamonds or many in ship
Raiders - belt buckle touching bottom or not
Swordquest FW - skirt touching bottom or not
Haunted House - logo touching bat's arm
Video Pinball - logo inside or outside machine

There are many more, but I don't need to go into details. I'll keep everyone posted if I create a new website just for the collage photos.

Phil

[Omegamatrix]

Philflound, on Thu Jun 1, 2006 4:20 PM, said:

That's the word I was thinking, collage. I'd PM Rom Hunter if I was you. Get his email address and ask him if you can send him scans directly. Maybe tell him what you are sending and if he needs it.Phil

It's far too late for that Phil. Whether or not Rom needs these scans is irrelevant. I'm on a mission, and I'm going to post what little I have so that other people can see some differences. If Rom finds use in these then that's all the better. I send Rom lots of stuff and I look forward to this collage that is upcoming. If I can in any way, shape, or form help I will, but this is is most likely being left up to the superior label variation collectors like Crunchy, Christophero, and Pant Load to name a few among many. I will do what I can to start.

Here is some Missile Command Scans:

Note that one is Sears, one is an '86 Atari Corps, one is in upper case text, and one is in lower case text. The '86 Atari Corps version is "Cart2 - free sliding circuit board cover" under the Atari 2600 Label Variation list. Basically it's not open ended, nor is it completely shut. There is a cover in the way, but you can freely see the circuit board. A good example is a Track and Field cart. Also note that the copyright info at the bottom of the upper and lower case Missile Commands are different. There is also a fifth cartridge I have that I didn't scan, because it has the same labels shown here. The front label is an upper case Missile Command and the end label is a lower case Missile Command. The biggest and most yellow end label text of all belongs to the '86 Missile Command. The Sears end label is the top one, and clearly is in different fonts then the Atari counterparts.

Next is a Yars' Revenge:

Note that the difference here is in the thickness of the Atari Fuji and the CX numbers. I wish I had a better copy of the fat label version as it's quite sun faded. The thin label version is in good shape. I didn't scan the end label because they were exactly the same. It seems like someone zoomed in .75 of a millimetre on the front label as the fireball, wings, and stars are more outwards on the "fat" version.

Here is E.T.:

There is an '86 E.T. in there as well as example of the small diamonds and large diamonds in the UFO. Again the '86 E.T. is a "Cart2 - free sliding circuit board cover".

Lets get into some Atari Corps and comparisons:

The artwork on the Atari Corps E.T. and Raiders is quite different then the regular verisions. The Phoenix cart has basically the same artwork, but the noticeably "grey" label that was Atari Corps over the 'silver" label of earlier releases. The Phoenix and Crystal Castles Atari Corps carts are open ended like all Atari red label carts. The Raiders Lost Ark cart is just like the '86 E.T. & the '86 Missile Command. "Cart2 - free sliding circuit board cover". The top three end scans are regular Atari carts, and the last three are Atari Corps. Did anyone notice the Atari Corps end labels are slightly thicker?

Here is a second Atari Corps comparison:

Wow! The Centipede is hugely fat, and the Pole Position completely misspelt. The Jungle Hunt looks roughly the same despite some sun fading from one label or other. Again the regular Atari cart end labels are towards the top of the scan, and the Atari Corps are on the bottom. The difference here is that the '87 Jungle Hunt is in an open-ended case. All the rest are in regular Atari cases.

This is some more Atari Corps carts with a Vanguard comparison:

The very top end label is the regular Vanguard. The second label is the Atari Corps. The regular Vanguard seems to be slightly thicker in its end label font then its Atari Corps counterpart, and has a five-pointed star asterisk as opposed to the six-point asterisk on the Atari Corps. The Atari Corps Vanguard, Kangaroo, and Dig Dug are open ended. The '86 Asteroids is "Cart2 - free sliding circuit board cover", and the Gremlins as well as the regular '82 Vanguard are a standard Atari cart case.

Now for some regular black label Atari Corps:

I love the Codebreaker in this lot. It was a reverse picture of the original label. Also note that black tape is put over the Codebreaker controller information because of a misprint. Atari didn't have time to redo things, as they were scared the creditors were going to be banging down on the doors at any time.

Anyhow this is the best I can do. There is much, much more label variations to be found, and I have only scratched the surface. Of note to is that Sears and Atari carts use different fonts.

Hope this helps,
Omega

[Rom Hunter]

Omegamatrix,

Could you please tell me which ones are PAL and which ones are NTSC?
I can't add these scans to the database if I don't know their format.

My goal is to give each Atari re-release its own entry in the database of Atarimania, but I won't give each label variation its own entry.

For example, this is the entry of a re-release of a PAL Dodge 'Em with two different front-label variations:
http://www.atarimani...ERSION_ID=18171

When you click on the number above the uploaded picture, you can switch between the different scans.
This way the viewer can spot minor differences between front-labels of the same re-release.
If the differences are very difficult to spot, I could place an additional comment underneath.

The next step will be adding different end-labels.

Edited by Rom Hunter, Fri Jun 2, 2006 9:32 AM.

[Philflound]

I was venturing through some images on Google yesterday and came up with a couple of cool boxes not on the list. The first was Defender. The box has 5 languages. I saw a decent shot of the front, but there was no scan of the back. So I'm missing vital info. Also, it seems 3-D Tic Tac Toe also has a 5 language box not on the list. I did not add this yet. I'm hoping someone can email me scans of these boxes so I can add them with all appropriate info. Thanks.

Phil

[A.J. Franzman]

Omegamatrix, on Thu Jun 1, 2006 7:29 PM, said:

Here is some Missile Command Scans:
attachment
Note that one is Sears [...] The biggest and most yellow end label text of all belongs to the '86 Missile Command. The Sears end label is the top one, and clearly is in different fonts then the Atari counterparts.

The Sears label is not the only one with an interesting font. The second one down ('86) is also in an unusual font for such a late cartridge - Hammer Fat, or possibly Horatio Bold. (They're difficult to tell apart.)

BTW, Sears used at least 5 different font variations for the game names, but of these, two font pairs are actually the same font but using alternate versions of a few letter glyphs. Before the home computer revolution, it was fairly common for fonts to be designed with alternate versions of some characters.

Edited by A.J. Franzman, Sat Jun 3, 2006 5:11 AM.

[Omegamatrix]

Rom Hunter, on Fri Jun 2, 2006 9:24 AM, said:

Omegamatrix,

Could you please tell me which ones are PAL and which ones are NTSC?
I can't add these scans to the database if I don't know their format.

My goal is to give each Atari re-release its own entry in the database of Atarimania, but I won't give each label variation its own entry.

For example, this is the entry of a re-release of a PAL Dodge 'Em with two different front-label variations:
http://www.atarimani...ERSION_ID=18171

When you click on the number above the uploaded picture, you can switch between the different scans.
This way the viewer can spot minor differences between front-labels of the same re-release.
If the differences are very difficult to spot, I could place an additional comment underneath.

The next step will be adding different end-labels.

I don't know why, but it never occured to me to check these to see if they are PAL or NTSC. My primary TV plays both and I usually just fire in a cart to see if it works. I just pulled out my secondary TV that rolls with PAL carts and I can now say all these scans are NTSC. While I was doing all this I found two more Atari Corps:

[Rom Hunter]

Omegamatrix, on Sat Jun 3, 2006 10:04 AM, said:

Rom Hunter, on Fri Jun 2, 2006 9:24 AM, said:

Omegamatrix,

Could you please tell me which ones are PAL and which ones are NTSC?
I can't add these scans to the database if I don't know their format.

My goal is to give each Atari re-release its own entry in the database of Atarimania, but I won't give each label variation its own entry.

For example, this is the entry of a re-release of a PAL Dodge 'Em with two different front-label variations:
http://www.atarimani...ERSION_ID=18171

When you click on the number above the uploaded picture, you can switch between the different scans.
This way the viewer can spot minor differences between front-labels of the same re-release.
If the differences are very difficult to spot, I could place an additional comment underneath.

The next step will be adding different end-labels.

I don't know why, but it never occured to me to check these to see if they are PAL or NTSC. My primary TV plays both and I usually just fire in a cart to see if it works. I just pulled out my secondary TV that rolls with PAL carts and I can now say all these scans are NTSC. While I was doing all this I found two more Atari Corps:

Also NTSC, I presume?

Thanks for clearing this up, Omegamatrix.

I will add them to the database ASAP.

BTW: I'm having problems with the huge size of the scans you posted.
When I want to resize them to a smaller picture, they loose a lot of their excellent quality.

Edited by Rom Hunter, Sat Jun 3, 2006 12:54 PM.

[Christophero Sly]

A.J. Franzman, on Sat Jun 3, 2006 4:01 AM, said:

Omegamatrix, on Thu Jun 1, 2006 7:29 PM, said:

Here is some Missile Command Scans:
attachment
Note that one is Sears [...] The biggest and most yellow end label text of all belongs to the '86 Missile Command. The Sears end label is the top one, and clearly is in different fonts then the Atari counterparts.

The Sears label is not the only one with an interesting font. The second one down ('86) is also in an unusual font for such a late cartridge - Hammer Fat, or possibly Horatio Bold. (They're difficult to tell apart.)

That is the box font and also the font on the small black instruction manuals. There are several other re-release labels that have this font.

Air-Sea Battle
Basic Programming
Black Jack
Breakout
Concentration (end label only)
Flag Capture
Fun with Numbers
Hangman
Sky Diver

There doesn't appear to be any clear pattern as to why the font was used for the re-releases of these games. It makes sense that Black Jack, Concentration, Flag Capture, and Fun with Numbers used the font because they never had standard picture label releases with updated fonts on the labels and large white instruction manuals. It's interesting that, despite this, the Concentration re-release used the standard picture label font on it's main label.

[staberinde]

As Rom will know, there are a lot of scans also of label variations on my homepage. I focus on cards by Atari itself, but some others too, and most of my stuff is PAL. I will continue to add scans, whenever I get a new card myself. Feel free to use what you like .