Smithsonian To Show Excavated E.T. Cartridge

Image courtesy of Polygon.

Months ago a team of excavators wondered out into an Arizona landfill in the hopes of finding the fabled Atari stockpile of thrown away games. After having been found, those cartridges are being sold across the internet and landing in the hands of many collectors, and it looks like the Smithsonian is the next to snag one.

According to a post by museum technician Drew Robarge, the Smithsonian Institution holds everything integral to the history of video games, including exhibits on the late Father of Video Games Ralph Baer's Brown Box to a Pong arcade cabinet. 

Robarge goes on to explain how he found out about the excavation and the steps he took to obtain one of these cartridges. "It was to my surprise that one day I read that a company put in a proposal to dig up the landfill they believed containing the cartridges," writes Robarge. "Afraid that they might dig it up and just bury it all back in, I contacted Fuel Entertainment, the company behind the initiative, who offered to give us a cartridge if they found one." 

All of this was required to display the cartridge. According to Robarge, it is due to the correct permissions being required in order to display the cartridge. "True to their word, we received a cartridge and other objects relating to the excavation." The museum now holds a key piece of video game history that displays a time in which video games almost died out entirely. 

For more news on the video game industry today, keep your eyes on The Jesters Court.