Computer gaming history is littered with tales of fabled lost hardware and software. Some of them are very famous such as the E.T. cartridges buried in a desert landfill or the few prototype SNES/CD-ROM hybrid that Nintendo was developing with Sony before the introduction of the PlayStation, but others have faded somewhat into obscurity. Among these is Tarzan for the Atari 2600, a game which was never released due to the 1983 console crash, and which the [Video Game History Foundation] have a report on its rediscovery and preservation.

The game was to be published by Coleco for their ColecoVision console as well as the 2600. The ColecoVision version was released and was apparently even fairly well reviewed, but the Atari port was canceled and its very existence eventually faded into obscurity.

Then a manual surfaced in 2011, and in 2022, a pair of prototype cartridges were sold off by a former Coleco employee. The write-up goes into great detail on the video game production and provides a fascinating snapshot of the turbulence in the industry at the time. But what really caught our eye were the two cartridges themselves. We have an obvious prototype board and a more professional looking example, both with a ROM and set of TTL chips used for bank switching. Interestingly the chips are different on each board, as well as the variety of manufacturers and date codes pointing to a hand-assembled board.

While the game seems quaint to modern eyes, it’s definitely pushing the boundaries of the console as much as any modern AAA game pushes that console under your TV today. If you’re thirsty for more tales of 1980s consumer computing, look no further than our colleague [Bil Herd]’s account of his days at Commodore.