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Unreleased Atari 2600 Game Found At Flea Market
VonGuard writes "I was at the flea market in Oakland yesterday when a pile of EPROMs caught my eye. When I got them home I found that they were prototypes for Colecovision games. A few were unpublished or saw limited runs, like Video Hustler (billiards). Others were fully released, like WarGames. But the crown jewel is what look to be a number of chips with various revisions of Cabbage Patch Kids Adventures in the Park for Atari 2600. This game was never released and has never been seen. It was a port of the version for Colecovision, and this lot of chips also included the Coleco version. So now I have to find someone who can dump EPROMs gently onto a PC so we can play this never-before seen game, which is almost certainly awful."
Bad 8bit games that reek of nostalgia!
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
If you told us where you live, it might be easier to find someone near you who could help...
That is really cool, but this isn't the first story like this I've heard. My question is, how do these unreleased products make their way out into the world? Wouldn't any cartridges used by a major company have been wiped before being sold or trashed? Regardless, I shall continue to look forward to the next such find. Kudos.
Insert self-referential sig here.
Good find. My first job in HS was at Atari playtesting video games for the Tengen system. (I knew someone who worked there as a 'game councelor' on their help line, a fellow Amiga fanatic, ironically)
It's not surprising that the roms turned up there - it's close to Milpitas. Usually I say there's nothing more to be had at flea markets - all the vendors these days are selling various combinations of the same grey market goods from Asia...but every now and then I guess there's still a gem.
The unveiling and first attempt at this game requires:
/. history. There could easily be as many as 5, even 6 guests! Rock on!
- A projector.
- A camera to record footage for posterity.
- A celebrity guest, Either CmdrTaco, CowboyNeal, or one of the Diggnation guys.
- Huuuuuge quantities of alcohol.
This has the potential to be one of the most successful parties in
The great thing about the age of carts is just what the article touches on...here's a game that never made it to the store shelves but clearly a copy or two was made on actual hardware that somehow made it to this flea market.
But what happens to games today when they're cancelled? I read about games being put on "indefinite hiatus", or just being cancelled with the company essentially throwing their hands up in the air and saying "ain't gonna happen." What becomes of all that code? Since it just sits on the developer's machines, does it just get wiped when they start on a new project?
Maybe someday someone will find a hd in a flea market labeled "Shenmue 3 SVN Repo", but it doesn't seem likely, sadly.
So while we revel in the curios of the past, we ourselves have none to give to future generations.
Too Much Nerdiness!!!
Great score! Once you've dumped them please post a 2600 emu so folks can try it out!
This could spark a revival that rivals Ms Pacman...
Twofo Live! can eat my goatse'd penis.
I love stories like this. I used to go to Goodwill stores and browse their selection of old computers they would take in(they don't sell old computers anymore I think). I came across an old Macintosh and it wasn't that it was a Macintosh that caught my eye. It was a "black" model Macintosh, I had never seen a black Macintosh before. I paid $10 for this thing, brought it home, worked perfectly fine. I later find out this is a Macintosh TV, a computer that only saw a life span of around 6-12 months, featured one of the first TV tuner cards, it was the first Apple product to come in black and only 10,000 were ever produced.
I have to chuckle. A Cabbage Patch Kids game? There was probably a reason those ROMs never made it to mass production. I remember E.T. for Atari. If THAT game made it to press run, how bad does the CPK game have to be?!?
Now a Garbage Pail Kids game... THAT I'd play. Even now.
You're not paranoid if they really ARE out to get you...
The game has been seen before, but not by the general public. The developers, their bosses, and most likely the previous owner have all laid eyes on this glorious piece of history.
+1 semantic nazi
1. Get access to some eproms, preferably the old, worn-out kind. ...
2. Put a cryptic label on them, something like "P0N 13S OMG", or "SR0 CKS TH1", plus some brandname like "Coleco" or "Atari"
3. Go to the nearest auction site
4.
5. Profit !
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
How do we actually know that's what's on the EPROMs? They could be mislabeled, or the data on the chips could be unreadable. EPROMs do have a tendency to degrade over time, especially if they're not well taken care of.
Besides, even if they do contain some version of the game, and even if it's readable, there's no guarantee that it's actually a playable game. It could be an unplayable version, or even a test or demo of some sort.
Sorry to rain on the parade. If this turns out to be the real McCoy, I'll be as excited as anyone. But I'd put up even money that this ends up being a disappointment. I hope I'm wrong, though.
For 2600 betas or indeed any other system's betas/unreleased ROMs to turn up. Check out www.atariProtos.com for news/reviews of many.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
"The Guru" at the MAME dumping project would probably be very interested in your find! Dumping those kinds of ROMS would be trivial to him.
http://www.mameworld.net/gurudumps/DumpingProject/
Connection closed by foreign host.
Somebody was paid to spend time and work hard on that game, no matter how horrible it is. This is your time lonesome programmer... your moment of fame has finally arrived after so many long years of obscurity. Will the effort of years past pay off now, or will you simply fade away from whence you cam to that cold, bleak corner of gaming history.
"Taboo, like anything else, goes in and out of style."
these guys are Helpful and I know more than a few in your area that could come to your house and dump them for free.
Rob Fulop of Imagic inc comes to mind as he is still actively working with the community and can help tremendously as he and many others worked at Atari in it's golden days.
the link is: www.Atariage.com
join the fourms and ask away I know someone will help you out and talk to moderator Tempest he is the resident expert on Prototypes he has extensive collection and knows how to tell a fake from the real deal.
hope this helps.
I am a big fan of 8bit era games even though the closest I got to them was on the PC since I haven't had a game console until the Sega Dreamcast. I have tried to satisfy my curiosity through emulators on the PC and my modified XBox but it is a completely different feeling to play the games in their original 8 bit glory. Now that I moved to Japan, these games are much easier to find and are dirt cheap. There are stores in Akiba selling games for less than a few dollars each as well as emulators of Famicom (hardware) so you can pick up a used game and play it at home.
i look forward to downloading this rom and then never playing it.
You can get a Willem programmer from eBay for about 15 quid. You'll need a USB port for power and a parallel port for data (remember parallel ports?), and the software is Windows-only but runs Very Nicely Indeed under Wine.
Bear in mind that some EPROMs may have somewhat non-standard pinouts, and will need an adaptor. You can probably figure out how to make one from two IC sockets.
But to echo what Guido said, EPROMs typically aren't rated for "eternal" data retention and depending on storage conditions there could be anything from bit errors to blank chips. If both copies of the Park roms were the same you've at least got something to work with.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
Sorry to rain on the parade. If this turns out to be the real [Cabbage Patch Kids Adventures in the Park for Atari 2600], I'll be as excited as anyone.
Just a thought...
Ebay is your friend. ($152.50 as of now)
Buy that fucker! Don't have enough money? I'll nag CmdrTaco; I live in the same area as him.
And you should actually take glittalogik's idea seriously - the Slashdot Launch Party. :)
Contact http://www.atariprotos.com/
Some things are better left alone!! The "pappach" as my niece once called them died for a reason. Do not bring the parent of "Chucky" back to life. Nothing good could come of this.
You can read them with a standard EPROM programmer ..... something like a Dataman S3 ..... they're probably up to S5 or S6 by now, but the S3 is the one I remember. The S3 also had some built-in RAM with its own power supply, so you could load it up with data and use it in a circuit in place of a real EPROM. Nice hacker tool, back in the days.
..... it'd hafta be async refresh anyway, lovely, there goes your MW radio, unless you pulled some weirdy stunt with a phase-locked loop and gotta watch what you're asking that poxy little PSU for) need the RAM mapping to two distinct address blocks; one for write and one for read, because the R/W line isn't brought out on the 2600's cartridge port.
Note that if you try to use a standard 2732 or 2716 EPROM in an Atari 2600 cart, the chip enable (on pin 20 -- driven by A12) needs to be inverted. (The OTP parts used by Atari had this inversion logic built in.) Just use a BC547 and a couple of 4k7 resistors (one in series with the base and one as a pull-up from collector to +5V). If it seems a bit temperamental, drop the collector load down to 3k3 or 2k2.
You can use bigger chips eg. 27512 to hold several ROM images -- just attach 4k7 pull-up resistors to each of the high-order address lines, with switches to pull them to 0V.
Carts with ROMs > 4K need some extra logic to switch the high-order address lines, dependent on values being written to some address somewhere. Carts with integral RAMs (yes, they existed; all of them TTBOMK were static RAM which at least makes it simpler, no need for refresh logic
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
bundled with Duke Nukem Forever. (When they are ready!)
atariage.com is the place you need to go. There are plenty of people all over the country who will go out of their way to your place to dump the chips. There are also prototype version collectors who will be interested in dumping all the rest of your chips as well, in case there's an undiscovered version in your pile of chips.
And bare EPROMs are the easiest to dump. If you have a standard programmer, assuming these are standard EPROMs, which they should be, you can do it yourself. Just don't read the important chip first until you know you've got the procedure right.
In the meantime, keep the chip windows covered and keep the chips away from light. The older they are, the more likely they will be vulnerable to "bit rot", which is the chip erasing itself even with weak light, usually after 15-25 years. Once the process begins, it can take weeks or months for the whole chip to be blank.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
...and can vouch for the "dumpster diving" approach. For a while, physical mockups (without the electronics) were just tossed in the dumpster; I saw neighborhood kids brandishing their "prizes". Later on, one of the guys took to hanging them in a tree outside our 2nd-floor office window; that didn't go over well when our VP found out...
On the bright side, I bet CowboyNeal would probably play it (and enjoy it),. . . ;-)
1. Find some old EPROMS
2. Write the names of old video games on stickers and attach.
3. Go to flea market.
4. Profit!!
If this were any other item (visual art, books, songs, etc), no one would care that some shitty unreleased piece of work was found by some unknown author. Why is it any different because it's a video game?
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
That's nothing. I found an EPROM last week with Duke Nukem Forever on it.
that didn't go over well when our VP found out...
I imagine the kids didn't care for hanging in the tree either.
creation science book
I want to see the DNF side-scroller game that was to come other after duke3d and be in 2d some at 3drealms has it on a disk in a passworded zip file.
You forgot "Mouse Trap" and perhaps some of the "Donkey Kong" (DK, DK Jr, etc) games. It's still fun to whip out the old system (or an emulator, but that's not quite as neat) and relax with some of the old classics.
Atari 2600 - it's for the children!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8LbtuabMuY
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
That place always has the best stuff.
I used to work for Flying Buffalo (the makers of the Nuclear War card game and Tunnels & Trolls RPG) and they had an agreement with Coleco for Coleco to produce a T&T game for their system. Coleco gave FBI a Colecovision, it was an amusing little game. What was funny was that perhaps our favorite game to play was the Smurf game as it had an amusing little bug at the end.
Now I live in New Mexico, originally near Alamogordo, which is famed for being the dumping ground for Atari's ET game cartridge. Apparently they trucked thousands of the unsold cartridges, dumped them, ran over them with a bulldozer, then covered them with concrete. I wish I could find out where that was, that'd be a cool place to explore and maybe find one.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Cabbage Patch Kids Adventures in Traffic.
Chris
So Buddha walks into a pizza parlor and says: "Hey, make me one with everything."
I have a list of undumped pinball games that need to saved and put in to pinmame.
,Michael Jordan, Wild Horse Saloon, Kabuki, Richie Rich, Tommy Prototype layout, king kong , Viper mini ,Viper Prototype layout
,Player's Choice ,Ghost Gallery
/2 pinmame has /1, cue ball wizard rom ver /4 pinmame has 0
,Dark Shadow ,Skill Flight ,Cobra ,White Shark ,The Hunter ,Bloody Roller
,Faeton ,Halley Comet ,Olympus ,Petaco 2
,Wack-A-Doodle-Doo ,Irons & Woods ,Roach Racers / Derby Daze
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-- PINBALL GAMES -xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-- Sega / DE / Stern -xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
Arnon Milchan, Total Recall, Flip Out '91, Joel Silver, The Pinball
Aaron Spelling -Still missing one display rom dump
[url]http://pinmame.cvs.sourceforge.net/pinmame/pinmame/src/wpc/degames.c?revision=1.42&view=markup[/url]
Deathball 2000 - Is this just a joke? In WWF it says this game is coming soon
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx- Alvin G -xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
AG FOOTBALL -same roms as AG Soccer-Ball?
Dual-Pool, Max Badazz, Slam 'N Jam, A-MAZE-ING Baseball
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx- BALLY / WILLIAMS / Midway -xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
high speed prototype? with 4 X 7 Digit (16 Seg. Alphanumeric) + 2 X 2 Digit 7 Seg
[url]http://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=1176&picno=4504&zoom=1[/url] this was talked about on the old [url]www.pinmame.com[/url] forums
Pinball Circus -free play only and pay to play
Cirqus Voltaire prototype roms with old ringmaster voice
Ticket Tac Toe gum ball -it is just a rom hack
Flash Gordon 6803 / 68701 hardware? with blue displays - still missing 1 rom
Still Crazy -only 2 made
MAZATRON, Ramp Warrior, Ice Castle
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx- Gottlieb / Premier -xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
Rescue 911 rom ver
Amazon Hunt III -Conversion Kit , Brooks & Dunn , Ace High system 80b prototype
Other Gottlieb / Premier games that have later rom versions that are not in pinmame
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx- Atari -xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
4x4 and Neutron Star
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx- GamePlan-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
LochNessMonster
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-Capcom-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
Gas Attack - Breakshot mod
Red Line Fever -whitewood / prototype only likey less work done then was done on king pin
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-(NUOVA) BELL GAMES-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
Top Pin (WMS Pin*Bot conversion) - same roms as pin*bot?
World Defender, U-Boat 65
They also made clones of other Bally games with different names..
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-Juegos Populares games.-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
Aqualand
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-MR GAME-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
Mac Attack
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx- Redemption-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx- Sega / DE / Stern-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-
Wacky Gator de pinball hardware?
sega sports -coin pusher , austin powers, cut the cheese -coin roller
Udderly Tickets [url]http://www.arcadeflyers.com/?page=flyer&db=arcadedb&i
So use the joystick ports to read the prom.
That's how I got the firmware from the 810 disk drive.
Cabbage Patch Kids Adventures in the Park? For shizzle?
There's a large and fairly obsessive subculture associated with videogame prototypes. The ultimate goal for most people involved is to find prototypes 'in the wild' like this, but a lot of ultra rare video game stuff is found through dodgy deals and allegedly, bribery and outright theft.
http://www.atariprotos.com/ is a repository of Atari stuff and http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/ is a message board discussing the subject.
The big area for debate around prototyes is wheather or not they should be realeased. Regardless of the fact that this game never saw commercial release, it's still likely to be someone's intellectual property, and they may not be keen on seeing it spread around freely.
A lot of prototypes are worth serious money, this one as an Atari game will be too. A lot of collectors refuse to relase prototypes they've discovered incase it lowers the value of them.
...with court papers by the copyright owner of those unreleased games.
You should've kept your mouth shut instead of blabbing it all over Slashdot.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, the copyright owner of that code will be after you in very short order.
I run a website about unreleased Atari games called AtariProtos.com (http://www.atariprotos.com/). We've known about the existance of Cabbage Patch Kids: Adventures in the Park for years now, but it was thought that programmer Ed English had the only copy. While I'm pleasantly surprised that it appears that it has finally turned up, I'm still a little skeptical that this is indeed the 2600 version and not the Colecovision version since it was found with many other Colecovision prototypes. We'll have to wait and see, but if it turns out to be the real deal, another long lost prototype will have be found!
On a side note, one of the other EPROMs he found is labeled "Sword". This may be the lost Coelcovision game The Sword and the Sorcerer that was thought to be complete but not released.
Oh and a little bit of trivia, Cabbage Patch Kids is actually a port of an MSX game called Athletic Land. It was simply hacked into CPK to fit the license.
Tempest
I think I'd have to say the best game was either Pitfall or Yars Revenge.
When I think Atari 2600, I immediately get angry thinking about those damn plastic joystick pieces that would eventually break. (the ring around the base, that would push the movement buttons) I actually took apart the joysticks, and would play them like a nintendo-style controller. It was really hard, because the buttons were so far apart, but I have to wonder if that is how that type of controller evolved.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
From TFA:
OK, now I was getting a boner. Cabbage Patch Kids Adventures in the Park for Atari 2600.
Is it just me or did this creep out anyone else?
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
Parent wrote:
Fail. What you wrote says the opposite of what you meant. Your misuse of commas and improper choice of "then" vs "than" cause this quote to say it was harder to stop leaked carts than it is to stop leaks to the internet. I think you meant to write:
"Today it's a lot easier to leak some files on the internet than it was to leak a cart[ridge] back then, and it's also a lot harder to stop."
I am still trying to get out of the cave in my Adventure and Zork games.
Oh wait, let the bird attack the dragon!
for crying out loud
This is an ROM chip, for a defunct platform (long gone), for a 'game' designed for very young children, that was determined to be so mediocre that it was never commercially released. So why is this a headline story on a site that claims to be a news forum on the leading edge of technological developments?
I was digging through my garage some time back, and ran across a pile of old floppy disks that used to go to my old TRS-80 4 and 4p that I had years and years ago. A few times I thought about buying one of those that show up on Ebay from time to time...
But then I came to my senses.
This is the year 2008. Processors now have no issues going from 2.6ghz on up. Why on God's green earth, would I want to revert to a machine that ran at a few Megahertz and with 128k of RAM. Yea; that was "k"!!
Oh well; Fun find but if it were me, I don't think I'd spend any time on it.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
It must have escaped!
No! Get yourself to www.worldofspectrum.org instead! The Sinclair Spectrum is _far_ superior to the Atari , Commodore, and Apple crap you people keep churning out! The Spectrum has brighter colours and a better processor then all that 6502 based crap!
Spectrum! Spectrum!! Spectrum!!!
... is being one of the poor saps who developed it!
Think of how this would be for the guy who developed this game knowing he'd never personally get credit for his work while at the same time being envious of the dead for being stuck with such a god-awful product. Only to then have the project canned, flushing all that time and effort they were forced into putting into a product they probably otherwise despised with a passion, right down the toilet. And for what? To become a 5-second joke blurb on some random website 25+ years later, credited entirely to a fluke incident?
God, now I've gone and depressed myself again...
8==8 Bones 8==8
The workers at one nearby thrift store must have thought a Commodore 64 was just a keyboard, and was therefore priced the same as PC keyboards. I suppose to a non-tech person, it does look like one.
Second best deal ever (aside from a $1 original Atari Pong from some old guy at a flea market.)
Any chance any of these EPROMs are for systems other than Atari 2600? Coleco did games for the Intellivision and their own Colecovision also.
Program Intellivision!
Maybe we'll soon see the ROM on http://www.theoldcomputer.com/ or http://www.atariage.com/
You can order up a cartridge from AtariAge for play on a real Atari. They have a number of other homebrews as well.
I think it means we need tagging for posts.
Which overlaps a lot with moderation, being the same thing but without a formal point system... Maybe with some distributed trust system a tag system could replace the moderation system.
We need a way for people to say "I Agree!" without modding the post up with 'Insightful' or something. And vice-versa. Many people moderate down anything they disagree with just because they have to disagree somehow but aren't prepared to write a message. If they could tag something quick they might be satisfied. (Or if not, in comes that distributed system of trust to reduce the value of their always exaggerated claims.)
One of the great joys of being this age is listening to people your age whine.
I don't blame you though. We got all the cool games, bought houses before the bubble, got jobs before the dot-com crash, had gas cheap enough to have a pastime called cruising (that's were you simply drive just for pleasure)...and we got all the good music.
Your games are pretty, but not nearly as playable. Houses are now in the quarter-million range commonly - good luck paying that off. New cars can easily run 30k. Gas will be $4 a gallon by the end of the summer, so you're going to be home a lot. As for music, the thumping crap you have to force yourself to like if you're going to be cool is more like electronic artillery rather than anything musical. I only hope that continual exposure to high decibel low frequency bass causes sterility by jangling your balls into non-functionality.
Kids today are screwed. And I actually feel pretty bad about it - except in your case.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
LOL kcalc has a bug, try to get the score you mention by using it. 2^45000000 is what I was using, maybe it hates me for not using 2^(45000*1024) ;)
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
I love stories like this.
:P
:) And you never know, it could be good (for kids) - sometimes games get canned for all the wrong reasons.
A friend of mine and I went to an ex-Atari developer's house in South San Jose to pick up a few old things he was selling. He just happened to have an old Tempest game . . . with a paper printout overlay. The serial number was 001. Yes, he let us play it. It was in near-perfect condition.
He also sold my friend another old (pinball?) game, unreleased, which previously had been thought to have only one model of. Wrong, there are definitely two. Wish I could remember what it was
Anyway, I hope he's able to recover the game. Even if it's a piece of crap, it's a piece of historical crap
Love, Squeedle
I've got some Ancient zip disks, maybe I can print off some artificially aged labels and sell the disks as a "never before seen Windows OS." Unfortunately, Windows releases every piece of garbage they develop. Vista, the new Windows ME???
The Atari 2600 was my very first console, and to be honest...I kind of liked E.T. OK, there, I said it. But I don't know if I could play Cabbage Patch Kids, I mean, I do draw the line somewhere... :)
UPDATE:
It was the Atari 2600 version after all! I've done a review of the various versions of the game on my page: http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/cpk/cpk.htm
Tempest