If you're a gamer, not very old at all.
This week, Canada-based game developer Fuel Industries got approval from the city of Alamogordo, New Mexico, to excavate the site of the so-called Atari Dump -- a desert landfill where the famous video game manufacturer Atari buried hundreds of tons of broken and outdated merchandise in 1983.
Now, Fuel seeks to exploit the legend by filming a documentary about the excavation of the dump, perhaps hoping to find thousands of "E.T." game cartridges and Atari 2600 consoles -- or at least hoping that viewers will hope to find that.
(Update: We've since confirmed with Fuel their plans for the dig.)
And they might indeed find them -- along with a lot of other stuff. Historical records suggest that the dump may be full of all manner of industrial detritus.
In 1983, Atari, Inc. -- suffering from a combination of poor overall sales and overconfident ordering that left its distributors with too much merchandise on their hands -- decided to change course.
It closed its manufacturing plant in El Paso, Texas, and opened one in China -- a harbinger of practices to come. It also tried to divert the public's attention from its hoary 2600 consoles to the new Atari
That September, according to newspaper accounts, 14 trucks backed up to the dump and dropped their loads. Company spokespeople told the local press that the waste was mostly broken and returned merchandise -- consoles, boxes, and cartidges. Other accounts suggest it also included unused prototypes, and maybe leftovers from the manufacturing process. Although none mentioned Atari's most famous recent failure, the press dubbed the dump "E.T. Trash," and a meme was born.
City officials balked at the huge volume of Texan garbage brought to their town and passed ordinances that prohibited any such "extra-territorial" dumping in the city in the future.
But today, Alamogordo apparently hopes the Atari Dump will bring attention to the city.
"I hope more people find out about Alamogordo through this opportunity that we have to unearth the Atari games in the landfill," Mayor Susie Galea told KRQE.
In archaeological terms, one culture's midden is another culture's treasure trove. Thirty years after it was first interred, Atari's trash may find new life as precious artifacts of a bygone era.
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Atari 5200, not 5600.
ReplyDeleteTotally right. Sorry about that, and thanks!
DeleteHonestly, I owned one of those and I could never remember what it was called either.
ReplyDelete2 * 2600 it's not that hard
ReplyDeleteMATH
ReplyDeleteMore urban mining...
ReplyDeleteWe already cleared that up in our book "Atari Inc. - Business Is Fun" released last fall, going by direct interviews and actual internal documents.
ReplyDeleteThere were never thousands of ET games buried in Alamorgodo, that's a myth that sprung up later and was also never once mentioned by the actual press articles of the time. The dump there was simply a clearing out of Atari's Texas manufacturing plant as it transitioned to automated production methods and a focus on personal computer manufacturing. It had previously been one of the main plants for manufacturing of game cartridges and other hardware, and game manufacturing was being moved overseas to China.
As part of the transition the unused cartridge stock of a group of titles (not just E.T.), console parts and computer parts were all dumped there in New Mexico. It was covered in detail by the Alamogordo press at the time, and is just such a non-mystery that I'm surprised by all this.
Hi Atari Book,
DeleteThanks for writing! While researching this piece, we've seen you leave this same comment on other posts, so we're glad you chimed in. Agreed, there's a lot of misinformation out there about the dump. But there's no need to be surprised -- the Atari dump has been an object of fascination for decades, and media coverage at the time doesn't do much to enlighten, as you point out. We have calls out to Fuel Industries, so we'll follow up once we talk to them. Thanks again.
These guys are plugging this "Atari inc - business is fun" book on every website mentioning this dig. Unless you dug this up already you have no idea what's there. It may be nothing but broken bits of trash but you don't know.
DeleteI have 0 intention of buying your book - especially thanks to your shilling it everywhere
Any object fabricated by a sentient being is an artifact. Age has nothing to do with it.
ReplyDeleteDid you (Atari book author) speak to anyone in the small town in NM where this allegedly occurred?
ReplyDeleteConfirmation of what happened is pretty simple - it just takes old fashioned research. Check out the list of references for the Wikipedia article on "Atari video game burial" - the Alamogordo Daily News is cited repeatedly. And Curt and Marty have access to Atari's internal documents from 1983. Now, since there was some security present 30 years ago, does anyone have a complete, accurate inventory of everything dumped and buried? I doubt it. But after 30 years crushed in the desert are there going to be surprises, IF anything can be found? I doubt that too.
ReplyDeleteOh yes it can be found.........
ReplyDeleteI live in Alamogordo New Mexico and yes it's true.
ReplyDelete