Film crew to dig up Atari landfill site, maybe score 3.5 million copies of

[FiB3R]

Alamogordo, NM city council to allow excavation to settle gaming's top urban legend.

A documentary crew has received approval to dig up the New Mexico desert site where Atari supposedly buried millions of unsold pieces of Atari 2600 software and hardware. The crew hopes to finally confirm or refute one of gaming's most enduring urban legends once and for all.

The city council in Alamogordo, New Mexico granted approval this week for Ottawa-based multimedia and marketing firm Fuel Industries to excavate the site some time in the next six months for a documentary it's filming, local news site KRQE reports. This year also marks what will be the 30 year anniversary of the assumed September 1983 burial, which came during the height of the great video game crash. That sudden market reversal supposedly left Atari with millions of unsold and unsalable cartridges and systems, which were dumped in an Alamogordo landfill and later covered in concrete.

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[chrisj1968]

whoa, I'm getting old since this happened in my teen years. :omg:

Great video game crash? I probably wasn't aware of that, at the time. We had atari and collecovision systems..

[Krome]

I remember that was the time I started to learn about computers. I was at the beginning of the new beginning, kinda of.

[TAZMINATOR]

I still have Atari computer in my closet. Good ole days...

[Brian M. Veteran]

I have an Atari 2600 "woody" which still gets used every other week or so.

I can't imagine still being able to use either of the current consoles in 36 years time!

[Max Norris]

As somebody who suffered through that horrible E.T. cartridge as a kid... please, leave them buried in the desert. No good will come from this, and some things are best left forgotten.

[Pupik]

What's the point? Cheaper to mass produce new units in China :huh:

[redvamp128]

ahh the 80's

[AnotherITguy]

Allright boys and girls, time to put those shovels to use!