Fixing E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600 (2013)

neocomputer.org

33 points·colejohnson66··11 comments

It's an old article (2013 as krallja notes) but I hadn't seen it before, and even without understanding the Atari 2600 op codes I enjoyed it.

The game will forever live in infamy because it creates a compelling narrative along with folklore around carts buried in desert landfills. The small changes the author makes show that the game was salvageable given modern testing and had some ideas ahead of it's time.

The cartridges really were buried in the desert. They dug them up a few years ago.

Further details here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial

I wonder if anyone is willing to dig them up and sell them online for cheap, I would like one but don't really want to spent the effort of excavating one (physical nor legal effort).

Unfortunately, one needs a permit to dig, and “Joseph Lewandowski, who had worked to arrange the unearthing with the city, said that this was a one-time shot to recover materials from the site, as they do not expect the city to agree to a similar event again.”[0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial