
New Mexico's 'Atari Dump' to Be Excavated - BigSky
http://westerndigs.blogspot.com/2013/05/new-mexicos-atari-dump-midden-of-video.html
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m501
I wonder if part of one of these shipments made it to Juarez, the city in
Mexico right across from El Paso, TX and not too far from New Mexico. One day
a truck full of flattened, new Atari game boxes appeared my street.

All the kids around the neighborhood started taking boxes from the truck and
someone figured out you could toss the flat boxes like freesbies. We had tons
of fun throwing these boxes around and it didn't occur to me how strange it
was to find these empty, new boxes until many years later. I couldn't figure
out how this truck-full of boxes was on our street. At the time Juarez was a
major manufacturer of electronics and other stuff for the US so, in
retrospect, it's possible the boxes actually originated from there.

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jjs
So the box was more fun without the game cartridge...

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garysweaver
Only if the game cartridge was in a game console and you were playing it.

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sp332
Next they need to go after the 1986 Apple Lisa landfill!
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_lisa#The_end_of_the_Lisa>

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deadfall
Yes, yes, and yes.

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raldi
Just use the voting arrow.

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rapind
Just use the down arrow...

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raldi
The situations are not analogous. My replying to him provides more information
than a mere downvote would: it explains _why_ I didn't like his comment.

His comment did not do that.

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rapind
Good point. Still a little too meta imo, but I retract my snap judgement.

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agent86
Back around 2006 a man by the name of Adam Bailey did a pretty in-depth look
into the Atari landfill. The site appears to be gone now, but the Wayback
Machine looks like it has a full copy.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20070307122420/http://atari.digit...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070307122420/http://atari.digital-
madman.com/)

An excavation should be interesting. There are years of post-Atari dump trash
and other material to get through.

In talking to the author back then he said that Atari poured cement on their
material in the landfill in 1983, but the landfill was still in use until the
until the 90's when the EPA marked the site for hazardous material and shut it
down. The landfill was setup before rubber bladders were mandatory and it was
leaking into the water table. The protocol for capping a landfill at the time
was a thick layer of natural clay with methane vent pipes. After that, at
least a foot of dirt is placed on top.

After capping it went on to be used for recreational purposes (ATVs, 4x4s,
etc.).

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cpeterso
Slightly off-topic, but I am extremely impressed that the New York Times has
online archives of their 1983 stories. (I almost wrote "1983 website", but
then I caught myself. <:)

[http://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/28/business/atari-parts-
are-d...](http://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/28/business/atari-parts-are-
dumped.html)

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Zimahl
Oh man, the Atari 5200. I'd almost forgotten. We didn't have a 2600 but my
folks got duped into the 5200 being 'the next big thing'. I guess I should be
grateful, without that failure my folks wouldn't of had a reason to buy the
Commodore 64 later on which not only had games but also could be used for a
lot more.

Also, when talking about E.T. and the landfill you are obliged to link to the
music video made by an indie band about the fiasco[1].

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rt_3_bQVJU>

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agent86
It's been YEARS since I've seen that video last. God bless YouTube :-).

A guy named Adam Bailey, who did a pretty good look at the Atari Landfill site
in the mid-2000s, approached the band about the video. While the video is
cool, it is actually fake. It was filmed in Texas using games with E.T. labels
printed for them.

This makes sense, as Atari dumped the games in 1983 but the landfill was in
use until the 90's. Any digging should have a fair amount of debris. There is
7 years of trash to get through, not to mention the poured concrete.

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CodeCube
I got a copy of E.T. as the chip without a cartridge from my uncle way back in
the day. That was one of the most frustrating games I've ever played ... I
swear, falling into those pits still haunts me to this day.

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sp332
Someone went through the ROM dump and fixed the worst bits! :)
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5470446>

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CodeCube
Wow, that's amazing!

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shalander
Someone needs to inform the Angry Video Game Nerd about this!

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FollowSteph3
I hope someone posts about it when the documentary is available.'it could be a
while...

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mindcrime
I hope it's more exciting than Al Capone's vault.[1]

[1]:[http://bestofthe80s.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/geraldo-and-
al-...](http://bestofthe80s.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/geraldo-and-al-capones-
vault/)

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rocky1138
While I'm a huge Atari fan and I really want to see what's under the dirt, a
small part of me will be sad that this legend will come to an end when I do.

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officemonkey
I wonder if the cartridges will work better if you blow the dirt out of them
before plugging them in?

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freshyill
Unless my math is wrong, I'm pretty sure 1983 was 30 years ago, not 40.

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aw3c2
2013-1983 = 30, you are right.

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dkhenry
Having been born in 1983 I can confirm it is in fact 30 years ago.

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d0gsbody
Off-topic, but Alamogordo is a beautiful area. Very close to the White Sands
National Monument. If anyone is ever in that area, I'd recommend visiting.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sands_National_Monument>

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acqq
And I know Alamogordo as the site of the

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)>

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abruzzi
Actually the test was closer Socorro and the small town of San Antonio, NM
(birthplace of the Hilton dynasty.) It was on what is now White Sands Missile
Range which is very close to Alamogordo, but there is a mountain range between
the test site and Alamogordo. The blast was visible from San Antonio though.

I would add that Alamogordo was the fictitious location of the giant ants in
the film "Them!"

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ciclista
They open it once a year but you can see the site as you drive by. Very close
to the outskirts Socorro, although WSMR is so large it covers both sides of
the range if I'm not mistaken.

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leke
I remember reading about someone looking into this years ago. Just googled the
story: [https://atariage.com/forums/topic/66637-ataris-landfill-
adve...](https://atariage.com/forums/topic/66637-ataris-landfill-adventures-i-
now-have-the-proof-its-true/)

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bruceb
With the exception of maybe asteroids and pong, pre 8bit NES games pretty much
sucked. The control were to unresponsive. I think NES really was the dawn of
video games with at least some depth to them.

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krapp
Donkey Kong and Space Invaders had pre-NES cartridge incarnations as well, I
remember them being enjoyable though I honestly don't remember what system I
played them on. I know it wasn't Colecovision, either one of the Ataris or
Intellivision.

Though I'll agree about the controllers -- though personally I preferred the
infamous disk on the Intellivision to even the Atari 2600 joystick so I'm
probably biased towards that paradigm anyway. I also enjoyed Treasure of
Tarmin far, far more than I had any right to.

[edit] though not as much as Misty Mountain.

(Stupid snakes.)

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bruceb
I actually was thinking of Space Invaders. True DK was enjoyable but it was
still a game with basically one screen with a few different variations.

One can find at least a dozen games one would like to play on almost every
generation but when it gets to pre NES there are but a few.

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pyre
I remember Burger Time being fun. As well as Advanced Dungeons and Dragons,
and a game called Utopia, but I was a kid at the time. I may have to try and
play them now to re-evaluate.

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ahsteele
As a NM resident I might be overly sensitive, but the phrase "across the
border in New Mexico," could imply to the misinformed that New Mexico is not
part of the US.

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snarfy
It worked for Geraldo.

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ttrreeww
That is going to be one toxic excavation, I hope they wear the proper
protective clothing.

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reeses
I scrolled down to see if someone mentioned what I was thinking. Unearthing
electronics made 30+ years ago is _not_ a good idea unless kids in the area
have an unusually high rate of birth defects.

I can't imagine the insurance cost for this documentary, if their underwriter
even knows what they're doing.

"E.T. Comes Home, Or How We Created A Superfund Site"

