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I too have some questions about the quality of the print, but at the same time color printing onto plexiglass probably wasn't as good in the early 80's either. I guess for me I kinda lean towards 'why would anyone *besides* Atari make this'?

And I forgot about this commercial, with the "launch sequence" and "is that legal" the end. Pretty clear WarGames references there. Plus the whole scene is very similar to the scene of Ally Sheedy and Matthew Broderick in his room. I think it's safe to say someone at Coleco was a big fan of the WarGames movie and used some artistic license in creating Coleco's ad's....

Reviving an old topic, but I have always felt that some of Coleco ad's tried to look pretty similar to the WarGames Protovision ad as well. For reference, here are some details for the WarGames Protovision ad: https://mw.rat.bz/wgmag/ There's two Coleco ad's in particular that come to my mind... First, this one from the back of the first Colecovision Experience Magazine: And second, this four-page spread for the Coleco Adam: It's this second one in particular seems really similar, given how both ad's are four page foldouts done mostly in black and white. Obviously it's not possible to draw a straight line from Coleco's ad's to the WarGames movie, but I feel that someone at Coleco may have done a bit of borrowing here....

I agree with @Crazy Climber. It's probably genuine Atari "something". Could have been used by Atari for a trade show, could have hung on an Atari executives wall, could have been given to the artist as a proof or gift, etc. It looks old enough to be from that time period, anyhow. Now if that makes it valuable or not, I can't say....

As far as the chips go: 4069 => 2 D Flip-Flops 4013 => 6 Inverters 4063 => 4-Bit Comparator And I'm sure the battery is for powering this circuit. The side button looks like a power switch so that it doesn't drain the battery when not in use, so that one's easy. As for what it actually does, it's still hard to say for certain without a wiring diagram (for me, at least). If I were to guess, I'd say it's an auto-fire circuit for one or both of the buttons. It's designed to count up to a fixed value, "fire", reset the counter, and start again. The center switch selects which button(s) have auto-fire enabled. Just a guess... Edit: It's also possible that the center switch is for selecting the auto-fire speed (lo/med/hi). Pretty cool whatever it is. Someone put some time and thought into it, getting it to fit in the case, etc. I love all these home-made mods from the olden days. Edit 2: Have you tried holding in the side buttons to see if auto-fires then? It may only auto-fire when the button(s) are pushed.

It would be pretty neat if Pixelboy is right. Could have possibly been used for early Turbo game development while the driving controller was also in development?

Rustproofing. Rustproofing is the answer....

Much like the Swordquest series, Cloak & Dagger was another great idea and opportunity blown by Atari. They should have had Clock & Dagger games on store shelves the day that the movie opened in theaters....

Keep an eye out for the never-released Atari 5200 Tempest! Plus, it's got Dabney Coleman in it -- what's not to love....

Cloak & Dagger features tons of Atari stuff (you probably already knew that). Also, there have been threads on this topic in the past. For example:

Sounds like how most software is released even today....

Maybe I'm not understanding what's being said here, but I thought Atari 2600 games famously had to be re-coded for pal. Also, since a pal 5200 system never existed, it's not possible to say that 5200 games were or weren't region specific -- none of it exists....

I personally think just the opposite. Had Coleco stuck to their original plan and released the Super Game Module instead of the Adam, they would have not just survived the crash -- but thrived. I know my siblings and I were drooling over the Super Game Module ads and articles, and were giddy with excitement. When they announced that the SGM was cancelled and that they were releasing the Adam instead, we were really confused. Why, we asked? Why! Anyhow, it is indeed fun to speculate....

Yep, figured it was a long shot. There's really nothing to a joyboard -- it's just a joystick in a different package. If it were me, I'd (1) cut a circular piece of plywood, (2) attach a rubber bumper in the center on the back, and (3) attach a Datasoft Le Stick (which detects tilt) in the center on front -- and you've got yourself a stew. Bonus: it will support way, way more weight than the old Atari joyboard by Amiga can....

One more note. In the index it says it was made by Charles Johnson. Wonder if he's still around and has a copy of the plans? Might be hard to track him down with such a common name like that though....