The Strong Museum Acquires Massive Atari Collection

It’s been about seven months since we last heard something from the Strong Museum and that was when they announced the first six titles to enter their World Video Game Hall of Fame, and now they are back with even better news for the game fanatics who love the origin of it all. The Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York has announced the acquisition of over 2,000 documents, drawings, photographs, mockups, proofs, and other materials that chronicle the design and creation of Atari game packaging and user manuals in the ’70s and ’80’s. from a pair of California collectors.

The new collection comes from a pair of California collectors, but whether it was sold or donated wasn’t really revealed. That doesn’t really matter anyway as everyone will be able to enjoy this collection now. It will be made available for professionals to study and review as well as be part of future displays.

The Cort and Barbara Allen Atari Packaging Design Collection (1976–1984), as it is called, includes packaging and manual design materials for the Atari 2600 home console (1982 version). There’s also unreleased Kee Games ( a company created by Joe Keenan, a friend of Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell) version of the Atari 2600, the Touch Me (1977) handheld electronic game, as well as Atari 2600 and Atari 5200 personal computers. Included are also competitor’s consoles games, such as Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, Pac-Man, Pole Position, Donkey Kong Jr., Jungle Hunt, Robotron 2084, Surround, Asteroids, and Real Sports Football. Besides the NTSC versions, the collection also includes PAL region and French language materials and artist Cliff Spohn’s original package cover artwork for the 1977 Atari Video Computer System launch title Surround.