ET Dump, Alamogordo, NM
In 1983, an Atari warehouse in El Paso, TX, sent several truckloads of industrial waste north to the landfill in Alamogordo, NM. While industrial waste disposal is usually not a very interesting topic, the waste in this case is not typical. You see, Atari had severely overestimated demand for the ET Cartridge for the Atari 2600. The rumor is that Atari decided to deal with its oversupply by simply burying all of those extra cartridges in the Alamogordo landfill, crushing them with bulldozers and covering them with cement. Reportedly, other items were also dumped, including returned Pac-Man cartridges, broken Atari computers, and perhaps even prototypes of unreleased hardware.
The years go by and the landfill closes down. The landfill is now on the outskirts of town, there's an expressway running through it, and it is in the process of becoming a city park. While I passed through, I had to stop at the site of the mass grave and pay my respects.
Somewhere out there, 10-20 truckloads of Atari rejects lie beneath the desert sand...
Can you say Mythbusters/Time Team crossover episode?
ET Dump, Alamogordo, NM
In 1983, an Atari warehouse in El Paso, TX, sent several truckloads of industrial waste north to the landfill in Alamogordo, NM. While industrial waste disposal is usually not a very interesting topic, the waste in this case is not typical. You see, Atari had severely overestimated demand for the ET Cartridge for the Atari 2600. The rumor is that Atari decided to deal with its oversupply by simply burying all of those extra cartridges in the Alamogordo landfill, crushing them with bulldozers and covering them with cement. Reportedly, other items were also dumped, including returned Pac-Man cartridges, broken Atari computers, and perhaps even prototypes of unreleased hardware.
The years go by and the landfill closes down. The landfill is now on the outskirts of town, there's an expressway running through it, and it is in the process of becoming a city park. While I passed through, I had to stop at the site of the mass grave and pay my respects.
Somewhere out there, 10-20 truckloads of Atari rejects lie beneath the desert sand...
Can you say Mythbusters/Time Team crossover episode?