Kirkland

I never noticed a color version of the manual floating around when I was looking for it. 4K goodiness. http://www.atensionspan.com/Gravitar (Atari) [4k].pdf Cover was a little scratchy, and of course once you start touching things up then it's a "custom" manual. At least I'm happy with the gradient at the top now so I can apply it on projects going forward.. Keepin' it clean and watermark free *cough* .. and at a viable resolution ?

Since the printed rainbow arc of "2/3/ / /6" layout closely resembles the year+month format found on later manuals, I always assumed that was just the month it was printed. They were unlikely to do multiple full production runs within the same month, so that would be easy enough to track down which production run was which. Would help if there was some with 7-12 prints out there as well for verification...

Minor update (aka progress report) I've sourced a decent chunk of the Atari (TM) manuals. There are a ton of ugly placeholders, but it gives an idea of progress. (green=have, yellow=exists, red=verify/hunt, blue=bad scan- very few marked of what I actually have) http://www.atensionspan.com/A26/Atari_2600_Manuals-International_Kirkland-pics.xlsx Still waiting on overseas shipping for a handful, but a little sample of what has been scanned so far: http://www.atensionspan.com/A26/ There's still a good stack to go for scanning, then it's back to the 3rd parties for awhile. (known) Missing: http://www.atensionspan.com/evil/a26/ Doesn't include a bunch of reprints, etc- mostly for my own quick reference

Because I'm not allowed to get bored, I've begun a very preliminary listing of manual revisions I either have, have scans of, or have noticed out in the wild. Obviously, it would be great to crowdsource some fresh eyes while all of us are experiencing a pandemic and are stuck at home with our vast collections. I know some of you are quite proud of your collections and knowledge on these matters, and I'd love to get some feedback/assistance to fill in the blanks. I stumbled onto Ballblazer's excellent Atari & Sears list (from another site) over the weekend, so I've slowly been plugging a bunch of holes in my data. Preliminary spreadsheet attached: If an item has a "Y", that manual exists in the wild, and should have an empty yellow placeholder under it for a part number/revision. If the yellow is filled in with a number (or "(none)"), then I have a crappy scan of it. If it's green, then I own it and most likely have a raw 800dpi scan sitting around. (Did I say that out loud? That's the next project *cough*) The "one hit wonders" and "PAL-only/Pirate" companies are mostly just placeholders for now- stick to the major 3rd parties until I can fill those sections out properly. I'm slowly going through AtariAge, AtariMania, AtariBoxed, Atari Compendium, thevgatv.com, wikipedia, etc. to build those sections out eventually. Hit me up if you can assist, or are willing to part with some of your duplicates for me to buy and scan. My (known) missing list: Atari 2600 Missing list I'm also hunting for international color multi-language manuals (anything in yellow on the International Big Book/Newer columns). Atari_2600_Manuals-International_Kirkland.xlsx

Ahh.. one of my favorite Christmas stories. As told by my mother... to my new wife when I was 20 (in 1994). Summer 1983- I was nine, and I was the video game king of the area. I shoveled my allowance into the local arcade. I was a sucker for the likes of Donkey Kong Jr., Roc n Rope, Time Pilot, Sinistar, Mario Bros., Excitebike, Defender, and Mr. Do. I begged and pleaded for an Atari for my birthday (mid-June) and begged and pleaded more. Growing up on a farm, we didn't have fancy pants electronics and were used to doing without the finer things, but I argued an investment in this would save money in the long run. In the end, I was denied. It was unfair to spend $300 on a system for just me with my older sister's birthday a few months away and she would merit $300 then and it was just far too much money. As Christmas approached, a few boxes of a familiar shape arrived under the tree. Some for me, some for my mother, a couple for dad, and a few for my sister. Odd.. that we would get similar sized gifts. And as Christmas arrived, Santa dropped a big ass box in the middle of the living room. I tore into my presents- Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Missile Command, and E.T.; Mom opened Sky Diver and Indy 500; my sister had Super Breakout and Slot Racers; Dad had Raiders of the Lost Ark, Berzerk, and Yar's Revenge. (I might be off a game or two, but these are the boxes I still have in the basement). And from Santa: a beautiful Sears Video Arcade System II. Holy shitballs!!!@#! So my dad, a 45 year old farmer, spent time going through the manuals and fiddling with the TV until we got things hooked up. I played all morning until mid-afternoon. It was *glorious*. Then my dad, who scowled at my foolish game playing, asked if he could try playing a few. I walked him through the controls, pointed out stuff in the manuals, put it on kiddie mode ("I think I can play as an adult"), and he proceeded to DESTROY ME IN EVERY GAME. WTF!@#$ I AM THE GAMESMASTER! And this guy who drives a tractor ran loops around me (full disclosure: he was in the Army for 4 years when he was 18, and flew a Cessna plane). It took until the following summer to get to his level. And by then we had Warlords, Canyon Bomber, Star Raiders, Superman, Outlaw, and later the Swordquest games and Asteroids. The video game crash of '83 blessed our local Alco store with loads of cheap family entertainment. ....... So then my mom continues on- "...and do you remember when you came home from school early once that September and I met you at the door and shooed you back outside? That's because your Dad was busy yanking the Atari out of the living room and jamming it under our bed. You see, we DID get you that Atari for your birthday, but Dad didn't want to look like a hick farmer to his son, so he hooked it up and tried out one of the games. And from June 1st until December 24th, when he wasn't out working in the fields or with the livestock, he was glued to the TV playing video games the moment you kids left for school. We started out with just Pac Man and Space Invaders, but once they started getting cheap at True Value and Alco, your Dad was all 'one more won't hurt'." I was stunned. And to this day, my old man was awesome.

http://www.atensionspan.com/evil/Berzerk (Atari) [4k].pdf http://www.atensionspan.com/evil/Donkey Kong (Coleco) [4k].pdf

http://www.atensionspan.com/evil/Asteroids (Atari) [4k].pdf http://www.atensionspan.com/evil/BASIC Programming (Atari) [4k].pdf http://www.atensionspan.com/evil/Basketball (Atari) [4k].pdf

http://www.atensionspan.com/evil/Air-Sea Battle (Atari) [4k].pdf http://www.atensionspan.com/evil/3-D Tic-Tac-Toe (Atari) [original] [4k].pdf

They just don't do artwork like they used to... Air-Sea Battle cover

I've been scanning my manual collection, and told myself I'd just "clean up" the Adventure white revision manual "a little bit". Oops, turned into a rebuild. http://www.atensionspan.com/evil/Adventure (Atari) [4k].pdf PDF appears dark in a browser, but vibrant orange in the standalone viewer. Oddly the 800dpi jpgs only clock in at 24MB. (TIFFs were 100MB, 80MB for just the cover)