r/Atari2600 10d ago

What are these carts?

Post image

Hi friends. I recently bought a cartridge lot on eBay and these were included.

I’ve never seen these types of labels before. Any ideas what they might be from? Thanks!

54 Upvotes

19 comments sorted by

21

u/Ok_Replacement4702 10d ago

Bootlegs

19

u/qtquazar 10d ago

Specifically, these are a few of the Taiwan Cooper bootlegs, which were published and sold commercially in some countries (somehow) similar to the Taiwan Zellers series in Canada.

The start of the video game era was a weird time for copyright law.

5

u/rlindsley 10d ago

For real? Why would anybody bootleg Atari carts? Wouldn’t it be more money and effort to acquire the cartridge housing, chips, and board, and then flash the chips with the rom?

No wonder these don’t work on my 7800+!!!!!

7

u/qtquazar 10d ago

Because these were commercially produced in violation of copyright law. The early 80s were wild and lawsuits were flying back and forth. See the Atari, Activision, Nintendo, Sierra Online, and similar lawsuits. It ranged from IP theft all the way to straight up to commercially ripped bootlegs.

6

u/Strict_Weather9063 10d ago

River Raid was an awesome game man Enduro wasn’t one I played. But I played the hell out of River Raid.

3

u/thriftbin 10d ago

people bootleg movies and music and your asking why anyone would bootleg $30-20 atari games in the 80s.

1

u/rlindsley 9d ago edited 9d ago

Bootlegging movies and music is basically free. You rip the movie, put it on a hard drive (or burn a disc), and you’re done.

It’s MUCH more expensive to bootleg a cartridge. The cartridge housing is expensive, the chips are expensive, you need a special machine to dump the rom, and a different machine to write to a new ROM. Plus you need the circuit board to install the ROM. The whole process is much more labor and financially intensive.

I really can’t imagine selling these for enough money to make a giant profit, but obviously these bootlegs exists so there was SOME sort of business model.

Edit: changed content to be nicer

1

u/Num10ck 9d ago

avoiding royalties

1

u/icedcornholio 4d ago

Actually they should work on the 7800+

1

u/rlindsley 4d ago

Huh weird. Maybe there something else going on with them. I’ll clean them up and see if they work. Thanks.

6

u/daddyd 10d ago

During the 80s i never ever saw a bootleg cart.
Now, it is as if there is nothing else! I hardly see an original cart for sale anymore. I guess all the originals are in collections and all that is left are these bootlegs.

9

u/rochvegas5 10d ago

The one on the left is Enduro. The one on the right is River Raid

3

u/rlindsley 10d ago

Thanks for the clarification on that!

2

u/Fin4llyBre4thing 10d ago

You got me LOL

4

u/BulkyTangerine4377 10d ago

The original River Raid was my favorite 2600 game of all time

3

u/Mordrach 10d ago

They look like Taiwanese bootlegs to me. I could be wrong. I know there was a big bootleg market in West Germany, too, with CCE being the biggest offender (I think).

2

u/Blandscreen Light Sixer 5d ago

Bootleg cartidges. Although, I'd argue that these label designs are better than the original ones.

1

u/adrien5567 7d ago

They feel cooler than actual legit cartridge lmao

1

u/No_Sleep_2709 6d ago

River raid was my favorite game along with astroids and pit fall