Fifteen Starpath cassettes were discovered in Dallas, Texas last week, along with three Supercharger units. The Supercharger was in add-on module that expanded the RAM of the 2600 from 128 bytes to 6,272 bytes. This module, which connected to a cassette player to load games from tape, added high-resolution graphics and larger games for eager players.
Many of the tapes in this discovery have already been dumped. One of them is Excalibur version 36, another is a very early work-in-progress of Labyrinth whose third maze can be completed. Of the others, there is an earlier version of Excalibur with no number. There are also versions of Communist Mutants from Space and Suicide Mission that, so far, appear mostly complete.
The earliest versions of Excalibur and the Labyrinth tapes in this set both have second loads to them, however, it is unknown at this time if those loads are previews or if they contain additional levels from their respective games. All of the games dumped thus far have been NTSC.
Several AtariAge forum members are digging into these prototypes to see whats new (actually, its “whats old” in this case), so stay tuned! You can read about the original discovery of these games here and can download all the binaries and keep up on the latest updates in our Prototypes Forum.
