Starpath Supercharger 'Large Box' Variation

[Dino]

Negative.

 

Interesting... never seen one of these sell in the US before...

 

It was 6 or 7 years ago when I bought it, have not seen another one since, not even opened.

 

I've seen about 5 in PAL territory over the last 5 or so years, so its much more common there.

[Dino]

OPEN IT!!!!!!!!!

 

How is it you bought something when you were 6 and didn't open it? Just curious what was going through your head? (If you can remember that far back!!)

 

I didn't realise CPUWIZ was only 12 y.o.

[moycon]

I didn't realise CPUWIZ was only 12 y.o.

 

Ooooooo I misread that one!!!

[Atari_Bill]

 

I have a sealed one of these and it doesn't feel heavy enough to contain 5 extra games. Plus, the ad makes no mention of it. http://www.atariage.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/icon_wink.gif

Sorry to raise an ancient thread, but was any additional info uncovered on this? I snagged one of these recently and likely overpaid but I loved the look of it and was hoping to know more about it. Why the big box for this version?

[CPUWIZ]

I dont't know, I am not even sure my sealed one is NTSC.

[Atari_Bill]

I dont't know, I am not even sure my sealed one is NTSC.

It appears to be NTSC to me but I guess not 100% sure. Either way it's beyond cool to me. It just screams 80s in the box design. I don't think I've ever seen another in my 25 years of collecting other than the couple in this thread.

[williamc]

Apologies for resurrecting such an old thread, but I thought it was warranted in this case.  This thread is one of the few places I've seen online to mention this box variation.

 

I recently found one at a retro game store in Southern California.  All that came with it was the box and Supercharger unit (and a Video Touch Pad for some reason, but no games or manuals).  The Supercharger has a regular blue label, not the rainbow one pictured on the box, unfortunately.  I haven't had the chance to test it yet to see if it's NTSC.

 

Here's some more pics of the box.  Lighting in my house isn't very good, but I can try to take better ones if anyone wants them.

 

That last pic is of a store price tag stuck to the box that has been partially removed.  The remaining letters look like "EDCO" but it's nothing I recognize.  I'm curious who sold this.

 

Front

 

Back

 

Side panel

 

Top flap

 

Supercharger

 

Partial price tag

[TrekMD]

If I'm not mistaken, that is the box for the European version of the SuperCharger.  The actual SuperCharger in the box is the US version.  What I've never known is if there is a difference regarding NTSC/PAL with these units, though.

[+jgkspsx]

15 minutes ago, williamc said:

That last pic is of a store price tag stuck to the box that has been partially removed.  The remaining letters look like "EDCO" but it's nothing I recognize.  I'm curious who sold this.

 

Partial price tag

I am normally not much for system boxes but that is too cool! How much was it, if you dare to say?

 

Pretty sure it’s the Fedco membership department store: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedco

[williamc]

3 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Pretty sure it’s the Fedco membership department store: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedco

That's got to be it. Fedco went out of business before I moved to California so I'd never heard of it before, but that article tells me I live within walking distance of one of their former locations.  Thanks for digging that up.

 

Interesting that article mentions they would purchase directly from wholesalers, I wonder if they acquired their Supercharger stock that way.  Would be cool to check out their catalog archives at Cal State LA sometime.

 

This cost me $50. I almost didn't buy it because I already have a Supercharger, but since I'd never seen this box in almost 30 years of collecting I couldn't pass it up.

 

[+jgkspsx]

Seems like a great deal!!

[Turbo-Torch]

I bought a SuperCharger when it first came out and that's the box they used.  I definitely remember the 49X more RAM power.  Unfortunately that box is long gone.

And NO it's not PAL thing.  I bought it at Camelot Music in our local mall and the price was 44.95.

 

I bought a 7800 in 1990 and it killed that original SuperCharger.  A few years later I bought 2 new sealed units off RGVC from someone who found a large stash of them.  I was surprised when the boxes arrived as they were totally different.

You were no longer buying a SuperCharger with the free game Phaser Patrol.  You were now buying Phaser Patrol which included the SuperCharger.  There is very little information about the SuperCharger itself on those boxes. 

 

 

 

 

[williamc]

1 hour ago, Turbo-Torch said:

I bought a SuperCharger when it first came out and that's the box they used.

Very interesting, I wonder if they didn't stick with this oversized packaging very long before swapping over to the Phaser Patrol pack-in.  I expect most who bought the big box trashed it, it's so big that I can't imagine anyone hanging onto it unless they were already a collector.

 

It's funny you mentioned the RGVC seller... that's how I got my original Supercharger (plus Phaser Patrol, Communist Mutants and Killer Satellites).  I forget who the seller was, but I recall he bought a huge surplus of shrinkwrapped Supercharger stuff at an estate sale and sold it in lots on RGVC for quite some time, at great prices.  I should have bought more.

[Atari_Bill]

7 hours ago, williamc said:

That's got to be it. Fedco went out of business before I moved to California so I'd never heard of it before, but that article tells me I live within walking distance of one of their former locations.  Thanks for digging that up.

 

Interesting that article mentions they would purchase directly from wholesalers, I wonder if they acquired their Supercharger stock that way.  Would be cool to check out their catalog archives at Cal State LA sometime.

 

This cost me $50. I almost didn't buy it because I already have a Supercharger, but since I'd never seen this box in almost 30 years of collecting I couldn't pass it up.

 

Great deal!  These are extremely hard to find. I’ve only had a chance at one in some 30 years and I grabbed it.  Don’t know what, but there’s something about that box that’s so great. Just so 80s.  

[TrekMD]

8 hours ago, Turbo-Torch said:

I bought a SuperCharger when it first came out and that's the box they used. 

Was it branded as Arcadia when you got it or was it already Starpath?

[Turbo-Torch]

7 hours ago, TrekMD said:

Was it branded as Arcadia when you got it or was it already Starpath?

I can't remember.  I think I still have the dead SC, I'll see if I can find it.

[Turbo-Torch]

This is the opposite of what I thought it would be...

 

SC on the left is my broken original that was in a large box.  SC on the right was in the small box which was more or less the Phaser Patrol game that just so happened to include the SC.  (this is funny, I'm watching an episode of CHiPs and they keep talking about taking some old lady to her house on Arcadia St.) ?

 

Now the small boxes (which I still own) have the added/afterthought Starpath name change and disclaimer sticker under the shrink wrap.  As seen in the photo, the SC that came out of the small boxes only has Arcadia decals.  On the big box model, they actually spent money changing the decal on the SC to Starpath. 

 

Sooo...I'm assuming the small boxes were the older versions and maybe it was strictly going to just be Phaser Patrol?  The box has a vague mention of other games, but it doesn't mention names of other games in their library.  It has a 1982 date on the bottom of box.

Maybe they were just testing the market at first and then decided to make a library of games and push the SC itself, hence the big box with information and photos of all available games.

 

I do know Camelot Music was the first place in my area to sell the SC.  About a year later Toys R Us started selling them and all the games.

 

It would be interesting to see if there was ever an all original Arcadia box without the legal sticker added.  Or if there was ever an all original Starpath model with no mention of "formerly Arcadia."