Single-Sheet Instructions?

[Ballblaɀer]

In the course of collecting I've come across a number of instruction manuals that are printed on a single sheet of paper. Text is cut and pasted neatly (well, for the most part) from the original manuals, but the Game Select Matrices have hand-drawn Xs or letters, and the grids themselves appear handmade as well.

 

 

Above are two that I own, Combat and Pac-Man for the 2600. I've seen these instruction sheets in the same style for Adventure, Dodge 'Em, Indy 500, Maze Craze, and Video Pinball. For the 5200, I have Super Breakout (front / back), and I've seen that a sheet for 5200 Mario Bros. exists as well.

 

Does anyone know the origin of these oddities? Are they Atari Corp products, maybe produced after their leftover manual stock ran out and they didn't want to incur the expense of printing more? Or were they perhaps made later by a third party re-seller, like O'Shea's? Has anyone found one in a previously unopened game box? As far as I can tell they're quite uncommon, but at the same time I suppose they're not exactly super-desirable to most collectors.

 

If you know of these existing for other games, please let me know so I can update my spreadsheet of existing 2600 manuals. Likewise, if you can share photos of any other manuals that I don't already have marked as existing, contact me please!

[BassGuitari]

I've had a couple of these forever and never really thought anything of them. IIRC one or two of them were actually for Atari 5200 games (Defender?), but I'm sure I have the Pac-Man and Combat ones you show here.

My best guess is that they might be from a second-hand retailer like a FuncoLand or RSC Gamestar something; I remember buying NES carts from there BITD that sometimes had little printed instruction sheets with them.

My next guess would be Atari Corp., but even they weren't that cheap. My first 5200 was a 2-port that came in a square gray Atari Corp. box and I know at least one of those manuals came with it, along with four games: Defender, Berzerk, Pac-Man, and I forget the fourth one. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure my single-sheet 2600 Pac-Man manual was in there.

I doubt it would be O'Shea's or any other liquidator since they just bought NOS merch; all games they sold were already NIB and would be assumed to have regular manuals in the box, right?

[+atari2600land]

never mind.

Edited June 11, 2017 by atari2600land

[Video]

If it was for a newer system I'd say it was a video rental store instruction sheet. They needed something cheap that was easily replaced when lost. Around here though rental places started at new, I'm sure bigger towns had older systems.