[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

6 hours ago, matthew954 said:

Being thoroughly inspired to make a basic template, I made a simple straight forward template to cover the mid and late 2600 releases, as well as the 7800. With luck you should only need to copy art from artwork online, or a box scan. I left the rear empty for anyone to decide if they want either the game variant tables, or a screen shot and description like the original boxes. I will say that despite my best efforts, GIMP won't let me adjust the print size. With luck someone can figure out where I'm going wrong. My test prints were printed via Microsoft Paint at 66%.

Looks good. We should be able to get a large number of boxes done pretty quickly hopefully

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

1 minute ago, sramirez2008 said:

I love the classic Combat style box?

They're definitely the most iconic. Most of them seem to have an image on the manual scan so they'd be pretty easy to do

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

A few people have said about the original text labels which don't have boxes so I've tried a few ideas for Air-Sea Battle. Either the classic Combat style box, the silver style box or a custom 2600 inspired box.

 

 

 

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

25 minutes ago, Nathan Strum said:

Very cool idea! A nice way to clean up and display loose carts. Especially ones with beat-up labels.

Cheers. That was one of the thing that annoyed me. I store mine in a box, alphabetically, with the top labels facing up. Some of mine don't even gave the top label any more so you can't see what game it is you just have to go on the games around it

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

7 hours ago, Brian O said:

Love 'em! Came up with a similar concept back in 2011, but never went through with it. You should sell them!

 

Not sure on the legalities of selling but I see loads of repros on eBay etc. But the more you have printed the cheaper each unit is so it would make sense to do a large print run.

 

I think with large print runs reach box could be sold for around £1 / $1

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

6 hours ago, Brian O said:

Love 'em! Came up with a similar concept back in 2011, but never went through with it. You should sell them!

They look really nice. A collection of those would look sleek on a shelf. I was surprised it hadn't been done before. Originally I assumed they're be somewhere online and was looking for some to download but couldn't find any.

 

I thought about doing one off designs. I noticed there's another thread about top 10 games etc. It would be good to do custom artwork for something like that that, Atari Age Top 10 sort if thing

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

11 minutes ago, matthew954 said:

Well I tossed this composite together in GIMP last night. The stock size is too small, I had to scale it up to about 110% to get it close. But the shape is off.  I took a little creative license with it as I wasn't sure what the various game variant were off the top of my head.  I used my Endless Snow UGC cover as the starting point. I'm not sure if my printer is out of whack, or I'm just out of ink lol.

Nice. The dimensions I've been working to are (H) 100mm X (W) 84mm X (D) 21mm. I did it like that originally then I swapped the front and rear sides. If you look at my originals the Realsports Boxing was like that and then you get the join at the front. I switched it on the ones since so the Join us around the back. I'll try and get a PSD up tonight.

 

When the box artwork is scaled down the front comes out at 100 X 73mm so I've just been expanding the canvas to 84 then filling with the background colour rather than stretching the image.

 

Only thing what might be a pain is doing the tables in Photoshop. It might be worth doing collaborations of people can do 300dpi CMYK front panel Tiff's I can do the tables etc

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

5 minutes ago, Atariboy2600 said:

Kind of remind me of them smaller Famicom Box games that just small enough to fit all game carts.

Yeah they look really nice. So much nicer than having a loose cart

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

6 hours ago, matthew954 said:

Well being an Adobe product, you should be able to use the export function to export the file as a Photoshop .PSD file.  Then the template could be opened in both Photoshop and GIMP.

I'll have a play around and see how the layers come out as there's no direct way. Might have to go InDesign to PDF, open the PDF in Illustrator then to Photoshop from there. I'm still running 5.5 at home.

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

3 hours ago, matthew954 said:

Just a thought, considering how large the 2600 library is.  You could just do a template for the box like I was using for my 2600 and 7800 sleeves I made from card stock.  A simple template made up, and the artwork can be had from the UGC covers at thecoverproject.  Doing it this way, we all could contribute to available titles for download here at AA or at coverproject.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've been using the cover project, this site and archive for the covers. The only problem with the box net template is that it's an InDesign file so people would need a copy of InDesign to open it. It would definitely help of others could do some as well though

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

11 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:

Ohh, H.E.R.O. would be great!

I know it might sound daft and it might be different for others but it makes me want to play them more too. My H.E.R.O cart is just the ugly white lable text version. My beamrider is also one of the later cheap looking White lable Activision ones.

 

I love the game but haven't played it in a while. The minute I put it in the mini box I wanted to play it as the original artwork is so nice.

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

1 minute ago, nads said:

This look Fantastic!!

 

You'll definitely need to do the Activision Titles first!

 

I would love a Dragster one!

Yeah they're definitely some of the nicest. I've got Ice hockey and H.E.R.O to do in my own collection.

 

I think I'll move on to the text lable launch titles so I can have a go at some original artwork and the Activision titles.

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

2 minutes ago, Arenafoot said:

Awesome creation!

 

The only thing is you will want to make a box for (almost) every title as most of us have ALOT of loose Atari VCS/2600 carts!!!! I know its like opening a can of worms, but it just wouldn't look right if only a few game titles had these boxes and other carts in our collections didn't.

 

 

Yeah I know it's going to be a big project. Even if you say there's 200 games the majority of people would want. 5 a week would be 40 weeks.

 

Now I have templates set up some don't take to long at all. Then you get to some like Asteroids where it took me ages to figure out how to fit 66 game modes into a tiny table.

 

I'd say if I could get the most popular games done then do the more obscure ones as they are requested rather than setting out to do all 1000+ games.

 

I'd imagine there would be a great deal of games which never get requested.

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

2 hours ago, willis said:

Interesting idea, especially for the text # label launch titles.
 

 

Yeah I might try custom art for those ones. I've been wanting to have a go at 70s style game art for a while so this will give me a good excuse

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

I've got another 19 to go in my collection. I think when I've done them I might stick a link up so people can download the pdfs.

 

One I've got them all done I'm going to look into having mine printed professionally so I can let you guys know how it goes and send a link to the site I use.

 

After that I can take requests but work, family etc will mean there might be a little wait. It would be nice to build a bank up so people can download the ones they need.

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

Beamrider and a comparison between the mini boxes and an original 2600 box.

[2600 DIY AV mod quesiton]

Not sure if it helps or if it's the same thing but I work for a CCTV company we call the rolling lines humbars.

 

In CCTV systems these are usually caused when there are two earth's which create new circuit we call groundloops. The monitor thinks this is part of intended video signal and tries to display them resulting in humbars.

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

5 minutes ago, sramirez2008 said:

Do it...Do it...Do it!  I love them and would be interested in a set for the original (Text # Label Variation) launch titles, as well as, some of the classics (e.g. Asteroids, Space Invaders, Missile Command). 

 

Very cool.?

 

Funny you should say that I've just finished Asteroids. Had some fun trying to fit all 66 game modes on the back

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

16 minutes ago, save2600 said:

Very cool, love 'em! Would be great to see these printed professionally, on glossy stock and sold for mere peanuts.  

I was thinking the same, I've been looking at a website where they can print on glossy 170gsm card. 25 designs are coming out at about £8.50 +p&p so they wouldn't cost too much

[Custom Mini Boxes For 2600 Carts]

I was a bit bored in lockdown and for a while I've been wanting to do something for my loose 2600 carts.

 

I decided to try some custom mini boxes just big enough for the carts. I wanted to include the key info you're missing without the manual.

 

The front is the original box artwork. One side has 1 or 2 Player icons. The other side has basic controls and the rear

has difficulty switches, game modes, tips etc.

 

Just wanted to throw them out there and see what people think