Spud Posted March 22, 2005 Author Share Posted March 22, 2005 Typo: The newspaper employee I spoke with had not heard of the reporter who did the story. and ignore my various spelling errors, I need to proof read before pressing send. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 There is no way Atari could verify millions of carts as being crushed down to the very last cart. That would cost more than the writeoff would save them to personally verify this. There are certainly a percentage of carts that remain playable, probably just intact PCBs but also carts that just didn't get properly crushed. I'm sure the concrete alone was enough to consider the carts unusable. I'd say its possible you cou could dig up a working cart if you knew where to dig and you had the right tools. It was good enough for the bean counters at the time...if it wasn't, somebody would have faced charges of fraud. A few points here: NO - a company does not usually "document out the ass" of what is written off and thrown away. Their only concern here is to satisfy the auditors. I know for a fact that this is how it works...because I've done my share of trashing dead weight inventory for other companies that I've worked for. NO - any product found at the site would not be in any salvageable condition (done in order to fulfill the above). Forget about being able to use them in any way if the product was written off as excess/obsolete. YES - everybody here knows the story and is already sick to death of it. YES - this trip would be a wasted effort. Go to the beach instead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spud Posted March 22, 2005 Author Share Posted March 22, 2005 Here is a scan of the first article. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 NO - a company does not usually "document out the ass" of what is written off and thrown away. Not the company, but surely someone would have snapped a pic or two. I know when NationsBank tossed old equipment that's exactly what they did, tossed it in the dumpster. I could understand there be no documentation of a couple people tossing 50 old dumb terminals in a dumpster, but you mean to tell me there'd be no documention, no paperwork of this? No bills to rent bulldozers? Or did Atari keep a couple bulldozers at the warehouse? No bill for cement? Someone just gave Atari enough cement to cover a million carts? I think there would be some physical evidence after a project like this. Sorry. I rememeber when a video store was caught selling duped videos the lot was gathered up and crushed (by a bulldozer no less) and there was video of the entire process on the news in VA. Granted maybe this was hush hush, altho you'd think Atari would have wanted proof, maybe not tho. Obviously not since folks that worked there didn't ever hear about til after the fact. Hopefully Spud will be able to provide the proof. Looking forward to seeing it, so this mystery can be cleared up once and for all, and E.T. can rest in pieces. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spud Posted March 22, 2005 Author Share Posted March 22, 2005 Here is a photo of whats left, not much in this pic. It's hard to see because it's a copy. There are some silver label boxes in there. The video I have of the photo is better. I'll get to it soon. I'm learning some new software for editing video and it's not going as quick as I'd like. Albert can you pull these images off here or should I email them directly to you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Yancey Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 If these games were put into a town landfill, there certainly was no cement used in the process! Cement would not be used in a landfill. The article says nothing about cement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 If these games were put into a town landfill, there certainly was no cement used in the process! Cement would not be used in a landfill. The article says nothing about cement. Yeah, I always doubted the cement part. When you throw things away, you generally do it in the cheapest way possible. Atari just wanted to make sure the parts wouldn't be resold by scavengers, so they crushed them (probably drove a steamroller over them or something). As far as the reissue of ET, this isn't that strange (especially for a complicated company like Atari). Someone gave the order to clean out a warehouse or two, and that's what someone did. Later, someone was putting in a manufacturing order for things they were out of, and ET made the list. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolt Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 So is someone going to appologize to Spud? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 It's not April yet, is it? :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gospeedde Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 So, who's gonna go look for the hijacked truckload? It would make an excellent excuse for a road trip to Mexico. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 I never would have imagined after all these years that we would finally see proof of the land fill... amazing. Let's all go digging in NM ! :-) (and no cement! woohoo!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spud Posted March 22, 2005 Author Share Posted March 22, 2005 There were more then 8 truckloads (try 14, wow) and there was cement, just haven't scanned that story just yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Thag Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 and now you know....the rest of the story 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeepnut24 Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 Wonder what else got crushed / dumped with the ET's??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 So is someone going to appologize to Spud? Not I, That pic dosen't cut it. what is it a picture of anyways? It looks like a coral reef or something. Was that taken under water? Maybe the other proof he has will convice a skeptic like me. It's not April yet, is it? Getting very close. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted March 22, 2005 Share Posted March 22, 2005 So is someone going to appologize to Spud? Not I, That pic dosen't cut it. what is it a picture of anyways? It looks like a coral reef or something. Was that taken under water? Maybe the other proof he has will convice a skeptic like me. There's more Atari stuff dumped in the ocean?!?! maybe the trucks were just a decoy! -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Tomlin Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 (someone needs to make a version with an E.T. cartridge flying in the air) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 Well if the newspaper article is a fake, it would be awfully easy to check out, since it has the exact date of the article listed. An obvious fake wouldn't have the date on it. Has anyone written the newspaper to see if they could confirm it with their own archives? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobra Commander Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 Good job Spud. Wish that pic was better though, but what do you expect a bunch of crushed garbage to look like. Meaby if there was something identifiable for a size comparison. I can see what might be a flatened cardboard box, but how big is that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 I believe the article and pic are both genuine, but what the hell is that indeed a pic OF? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 I believe the article and pic are both genuine, but what the hell is that indeed a pic OF? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iguana Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 well if it is fake it is pretty good. I checked the football scores across the top and they are right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 There's more Atari stuff dumped in the ocean?!?! maybe the trucks were just a decoy! -Bry There is the rumor of the I, Robot machines that got dumped en route to Japan.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogstar_robot Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 This was just a five minute Gimp quickie but what the hey. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted March 23, 2005 Share Posted March 23, 2005 Very cool newspaper scans and definitely helps add credence to this somewhat mythical story. How did you obtain scans of this issue? I have to imagine that the picture the paper printed turned out better than it appars in the scan. I'm looking forward to seeing the article that talks about the cement. ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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