YOU may own a prototype!
If you've ever opened up an Atari made 2600 game, you probably saw
a masked rom with 24 pins soldered down to a green board. That is
without a doubt the most common way Atari made their games. Later
games were manufactured by gluing the chip directly to the board,
which was a common prototyping method used by a lot of manufacturers
to create games quickly.
I am lucky enough to own a bunch of prototypes, in fact I have Bugs
Bunny, Dukes of Hazzard, Donald Duck's Speedboat Race, Peek-a-boo,
The A-Team, Garfield, Monstercise, Stunt Cycle, and Tempest. I have
others but this list will do. Of these, all but Peek-a-boo, A-Team,
and Stunt Cycle are the glued down style.
The ones with eproms I got from Best Electronics and frankly I could
easily "fake" them. They came on a T-shaped board that has a pair
of sockets containing 2532 eproms. I know they are legit because
Brad is legit, but I could be suspect had I gotten them anywhere
else.
What I futher suggest is that for example my Dukes of Hazzard is
only a prototype because it was not released. Had Atari done a full
production run of the game they would likely all look just like the
one I own. I really think Atari had a run of the games made up and
decided not to release it. But if they HAD released it, then this
batch of boards would have gone right out the door.
There are some games mass produced with the glue down style instead
of the masked rom. Pac-man is one. I think Atari went with this
instead of the typical masked rom because they wanted to get a LOT
of them producted quickly. Same with ET. However there are plenty
of Pac-man and ET also produced with the masked rom, which probably
came later or from a different plant.
In any case, you may easily own one of these first runs and not know
it. I have for example just a few of the SwordQuest series that are
glued down and by far most all of them I open up are a masked rom.
Some folks think that's silly but I don't know many people who have
opened up as many of these as I have (as of 2018 I had built 26,000
games for people, most all using Atari style cases....). If you
don't care for my theory, well, when you have opened as many carts
as I have I just might take you seriously.
Here are some samples of what they say on them:
Text: Game: Where Made: Made by:
MA6064 Non-US PCB - Fire World #1 - Philippines - PCI
C3E008 8250 - Fire World #2 - Thailand - Hitachi
MSM2932-14K - Pac-Man - Taiwan - Oki
AP83-001 3649 - Joust - Singapore - PCI
AP83-00 3616 - RS Soccer - Singapore - PCI
C20004 - Defender - Singapore - Hitachi
Ap83-00 3648 - Jungle Hunt - Singapore - PCI
Depending on the maker, they look very different! The Hitachi
ones have a black square kind of glued down with some white
cement of some type. The PCI ones have a round, melted down
glob that presses through the board or they have a BIG black
rectangle, also melted throught the PCB. Finally the Oki ones
are tiny, ceramic looking squares that are blobbed down by some
black epoxy looking stuff. My Dukes of Hazzard has the Hitachi
style to it. Here is a picture of a slew of them on my 2600.
I also have opened up three cartridges that the plastic case is
the prototype - it is stamped right on it. So Atari did ship a
few things that were what we would consider prototypes right along
with the main runs of carts. But again there are those who think
this isn't possible, that Atari would never do that. Sigh.
I also have opened up three cartridges that the plastic case is
the prototype - it is stamped right on it. So Atari did ship a
few things that were what we would consider prototypes right along
with the main runs of carts. But again there are those who think
this isn't possible, that Atari would never do that. Sigh.
