Scott Stilphen

Not with the Atari lamps.  The rod goes right through where the chip itself would normally be, so the boards are removed first, and the dust covers put back in place.  The M Network lamp carts still have their boards since they're only COB pcbs and are very small, so the rod doesn't go through them.

It's possible, but we don't know.  I noticed the "M" in both signatures is written a bit differently, and the sig in the S.I. artwork doesn't have a first name.  Typically artists always sign their works the same way with every piece they do.  Lapetino certainly didn't dig any deeper on it, since he simply lists the artist as "Norman".  Apparently this Norman wasn't an in-house artist, as none of the other artists had anything to say about him or his artwork.  And if this was an outside contract job, why?  Why not turn to your own in-house artists?  Maybe Huyssen can offer more info about him.  Let us know if you have any success contacting him.
 
Likewise, what's the story with Ralph McQuarrie - the most famous artist outside of Atari mentioned in the book - doing the artwork for VCS Vanguard?  The book only mentions he's worked on many films.  His name isn't even included in the index.
 
@ Lost Dragon
Yep, the book is called "ART" of Atari, not "History of".  A book shouldn't try to be something it was never intended to be to begin with.  I mean, you don't set out to write a cooking book, and spend 1 or more chapters on the history of stoves and cooking utensils.  What you end up with is some glossed-over section that ultimately doesn't need to be included.  There's plenty of books already on the history of game consoles and vaporware hardware, so why bother covering the same ground, especially when that's not the focus of your book?
 
Well, it seems Lapetino is certainly going to "milk" the topic for a bit longer, as he already has 2 more books out on it.  There's Art of Atari: Capsule Edition and Art of Atari: Poster Collection.  Not sure why the Asteroids artwork continues to be shown at a different angle than how it was originally used, but I'll stick with my original poster I guess.

Pac-Man one now available.

Pac-Man one now available.

Pac-Man one now available.

Currently have an Asteroids.  Price is $100 shipped.  PM me if interested, thanks.

List updated

The same-shaped saucer, with a glass dome on top with a city/buildings underneath, a hole in the bottom with 3 rays coming down, with mountains all around?   You don't think they look the same?  Really?  No, the S.I. graphic doesn't say "Boston" on it, and there's 3 saucers instead of one, and it's night instead of day, so it's not an exact duplicate. lol   But there's no way in hell 2 different artists came up with the same design like that.  I suppose you're going to tell me Outlaw's artwork is original too...
 
It's like any artistic field - the artists of today are influenced by those who came before them, whether it's intentional or not.  But that S.I. artwork certainly is something the artist for Boston's albums could have had a very good case for, and probably should have received some money from Atari for, esp. considering how many copies of VCS S.I. they sold.
 
 
 
That's just it.  If this was some quick-publishing thing somebody cranked out for $9.99, I'd say, you got what you paid for.  But I paid a lot more than that (and I bought both versions).  This was something I was looking forward to ever since the author announced it 3 years ago (http://atariage.com/forums/topic/220583-), and according to him, he had already been working on it for several years before then.  So considering the quality of some of the photos included, It's hard to believe better copies could not have been found anywhere within the last 5 years.  At least have someone Photoshop some of the creases out.  Besides Atariage, I don't know if he asked for help anywhere else, but not everyone is on that site.
 
Questionable photos aside, some of the factual errors are just maddening, like claiming SwordQuest FireWorld winner Michael Rideout is the one who melted his prize down (!?), or that the 5200 controllers are "spin-sensitive" (??).  I get that Tim Lapetino isn't a 'history' guy; clearly his focus was on artwork.  But to have someone like Goldberg fact-check your book?   He can't even fact-check his own book.   I wonder if Tim ever read that awful book Goldberg put out.  Why not have someone like noted author Leonard Herman (http://www.rolentapress.com/) do your fact-checking?

The same-shaped saucer, with a glass dome on top with a city/buildings underneath, a hole in the bottom with 3 rays coming down, with mountains all around?   You don't think they look the same?  Really?  No, the S.I. graphic doesn't say "Boston" on it, and there's 3 saucers instead of one, and it's night instead of day, so it's not an exact duplicate. lol   But there's no way in hell 2 different artists came up with the same design like that.  I suppose you're going to tell me Outlaw's artwork is original too...
 
It's like any artistic field - the artists of today are influenced by those who came before them, whether it's intentional or not.  But that S.I. artwork certainly is something the artist for Boston's albums could have had a very good case for, and probably should have received some money from Atari for, esp. considering how many copies of VCS S.I. they sold.
 
 
 
That's just it.  If this was some quick-publishing thing somebody cranked out for $9.99, I'd say, you got what you paid for.  But I paid a lot more than that (and I bought both versions).  This was something I was looking forward to ever since the author announced it 3 years ago (http://atariage.com/forums/topic/220583-), and according to him, he had already been working on it for several years before then.  So considering the quality of some of the photos included, It's hard to believe better copies could not have been found anywhere within the last 5 years.  At least have someone Photoshop some of the creases out.  Besides Atariage, I don't know if he asked for help anywhere else, but not everyone is on that site.
 
Questionable photos aside, some of the factual errors are just maddening, like claiming SwordQuest FireWorld winner Michael Rideout is the one who melted his prize down (!?), or that the 5200 controllers are "spin-sensitive" (??).  I get that Tim Lapetino isn't a 'history' guy; clearly his focus was on artwork.  But to have someone like Goldberg fact-check your book?   He can't even fact-check his own book.   I wonder if Tim ever read that awful book Goldberg put out.  Why not have someone like noted author Leonard Herman (http://www.rolentapress.com/) do your fact-checking?

A beautiful-looking book, albeit a misnamed one.  From the moment you flip open the front cover, you immediately realize the focus is on Atari’s VCS/2600 games, which is a shame since Atari was a coin-op company for 5 years before the VCS was released, and coin-op games are only briefly covered.  The author probably should have stuck to the topic of game artwork, instead of veering into other areas (like prototype hardware), and attempts at being a historical reference book only succeed in making some of the factual errors within even more glaring.  Starting at pg. 57, there’s plenty of photos of VCS game boxes, although some of the boxes photographed are noticeably creased or damaged – starting with the first box, Air-Sea Battle.  Hundreds of thousands of copies were made and sold of the games in question. Time should have been spent finding better copies to photograph, considering the overall look (and price) of either edition.  Also, the games appear in random order, not alphabetically, so finding a specific game requires use of the index.  The first and last 3 pages are all screenshots of VCS games – except one.  Of the 108 screenshots, one is the 7800 version of Galaga.  Two are of games originally released by Coleco (Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior), and one is a bad screenshot of BASIC Programming (which was used again on page 98).  
 
Notable errors (considering Marty Goldberg is credited for his "fact-checking", I suppose this is yet another book he has corrupted):
 
Pg. 18, 49 The 7800 was initially released by Atari Inc. in 1984, not Jack Tramiel’s Atari Corp., who re-released it in 1986.
 
Pg. 61  Cliff Spohn talks about Atari wanting to cut the artwork off from the outer edges.  Only the original, gate-fold Combat boxes included the full artwork as shown.  The 2nd trimmed should have been included for comparison.
 
Pg. 64  Atari’s coin-op Starship 1 was released in 1976, not 1977; the VCS version (Star Ship) was released in 1977.
 
Pg. 66   There were 3 coin-op “snake” games released in 1976 - Barricade (Ramtek), Bigfoot Bonkers (Meadows) and Blockade (UPL, Gremlin).
 
Pg. 76  “I thought of Monte Carlo, outdoors, images of the car…”  Should be “images of the cards”.
 
Pg. 86  Night Driver was the first VCS driving video game to offer a 1st-person perspective, but the arcade game was inspired by Nürburgring 1 (Dr.-Ing. Reiner Foerst GmbH 1976).
 
Pg. 87  No mention of Outlaw’s artwork being a copy of that found on the poster for the movie, The Outlaw Josey Wales.
 
Pg. 113  The interior manual artwork appears in the 1988 re-release of Pele’s Soccer.
 
Pg. 115  As with Outlaw, there’s no mention of the artwork for VCS Space Invaders being a close copy of the artwork for Boston’s early albums, particularly their 2nd album, “Don’t Look Back”, except for in the book's afterword.  The artist for the Boston artwork was Gary Norman, but the artist for S.I. is simply Norman.  There's no other information the book about him or whether or not he's the same artist, or why an in-house artist wasn't used.
 
Pg. 123  The Asteroids artwork is turned 90 degrees to the right, compared to how it appeared on the packaging.
 
Pg. 130  Only half of the interior 5200 Missile Command artwork appears in the manual, and only in 1 color (red).
 
Pg. 133  Both the coin-op and VCS versions of Warlords were developed concurrently.  The coin-op version was released first and featured multiple balls.  Programmer Jim Huether was the model Steve Hendricks used for his artwork, but the book makes no mention of this.
 
Pg. 135  States the photo on the preceding page was for a 4-player Football ad, but the photo shows a baseball pitcher.  Atari never released a 4-player Baseball coin-op.
 
Pg 136  States the VCS wasn’t able to reproduce the arcade game’s speech, which is incorrect.  Not only was the VCS capable of digitized speech, as shown with Quadrun and Open Sesame, Mike Mika released a version of Berzerk in 2002 that included voice samples during the game.
 
Also, the interior artwork shown is cropped, compared to how it appears in the manual.
 
Pg. 152  There’s no mention of this but besides Elliot’s expression, another change was made with the artwork – the “diamonds” around the center of the spaceship were made smaller.  The large diamonds appeared on a promo box and the initial run of cartridges.
 

Pg. 164 States, “Atari paid handsomely for the exclusive rights to bring Pac-Man to the 2600.”  According to Al Alcorn, Atari signed a deal with Namco in 1978 for $1 million that gave Atari the rights to all of Namco's arcade games.  Pac-Man (AKA Puck Man) didn't exist in 1978, and considering the success the game would eventually have, Atari paid far less than it was truly worth, and Atari also got Galaxian as part of the same deal.
 

Pg. 170  States, “the technical aspects of the 2600 made creating a mirror image of the arcade counterpart nearly impossible”, which is incorrect.  Several hacks and homebrews have been created in the last 15+ years to prove a better version could have absolutely been done with only 4K.
 
Pg. 182  The RealSports cover art is reversed on the packaging.  Also, only the 2nd interior artwork appears in the VCS and 5200 manuals, and both are in color.
 
Pg. 202 Ralph McQuarrie - the most famous artist outside of Atari mentioned in the book - did the artwork for VCS Vanguard and yet there's no story as to how this came about.  His name isn't even included in the index.
 
Pg. 206  The photo caption states the artwork shown appeared in the Yars’ Revenge manual, but it didn’t.
 
Pg. 211 The description for Big Bird’s Egg Catch says you have to catch eggs from one of two chutes, but different variations offer anywhere from 2 to 5 chutes, and a screenshot for the game on the first page shows 4 chutes.
 
Pg. 221  The top photo caption states the color guide and marker comp was for the 400/800 version, but the illustrated screenshot is clearly for the VCS version.
 
Pg. 222-223  The artwork shown is for the 400/800 versions, but the screenshots shown are for the VCS versions, which weren’t done by Atari but rather Coleco.
 
Pg. 234  Incorrectly states players in Mario Bros. hurl fireballs.
 
Pg. 238  The first interior artwork shown did not appear in either the VCS or 5200 manuals.
 
Pg. 244  The Pole Position artwork shown is actually for Pole Position II.
 
Pg. 246  The artwork shown on page 247 also appeared on the July/Aug 1983 V2N2 cover of Atari Age magazine.
 
Pg. 262  Incorrectly states the winner of the SwordQuest FireWorld contest, Michael Rideout, melted down the Chalice prize to pay for college.  The winner of the SwordQuest EarthWorld contest, Steven Bell, is the one who melted down his Talisman prize to pay for college.
 
Pg 264  Claims the SwordQuest WaterWorld contest was held and the Crown prize awarded, but as of yet, there’s no evidence that any of this happened.
 
Pg. 266  Claims the final 2 SwordQuest prizes were returned to the Franklin Mint and ultimately destroyed, but again, there’s no evidence that any of this happened.
 
Pg. 258  No high-resolution packaging artwork for SwordQuest EarthWorld; instead, a picture of a box with creases.  Also, Atari Age magazine is written as one word “AtariAge”.
 
Pg. 260, 262.  Atari Age magazine is written as one word “AtariAge”.
 
Pg. 276  Jr. Pac-Man featured a side-scrolling maze in the arcade version, but the VCS version features a vertically-scrolling maze.
 
Pg. 279  The first photo caption states this was interior manual art for the 2600 and 5200 versions, but it only appeared in the 5200 manual.
 
Pg. 280  Incorrectly states the artwork shown was for the VCS manual.  It didn't appear in the manual, but was featured in an ad for the game, on the back cover of Atari Age magazine (V2,N5).
 
Pg. 291  Incorrectly states KLAX was released 12 years after the VCS system was released; it was 14 years.
 
Pg. 298  The VCS model 2600A was a 4-switch version, not 6-switch as incorrectly stated.  Also, the Space Age joystick is a copy of Milton Bradley's proposed HD2000 joystick, and not based on the prototype trigger controllers shown.
 
Pg. 303.  The 5200 controllers were not “spin-sensitive”.
 
Pg. 317  Axlon is misspelled as “Axalon”.
 
Pg. 321  “Tank II was to be the numerical sequel to Atari’s Tank arcade game.”  Atari (under Kee Games) released a Tank II arcade game in 1974, the same year as the original.  The “II” moniker for the home console was likely to indicate it was for 2 players.
 
Pg. 328  Atari Age magazine is written as one word “AtariAge”.
 
Pg. 329  Key Games didn’t just clone Atari games, they released many exclusive games, like Drag Race, Sprint One, Sprint 2, Super Bug, Tank, and Ultra Tank.

A beautiful-looking book, albeit a misnamed one.  From the moment you flip open the front cover, you immediately realize the focus is on Atari’s VCS/2600 games, which is a shame since Atari was a coin-op company for 5 years before the VCS was released, and coin-op games are only briefly covered.  The author probably should have stuck to the topic of game artwork, instead of veering into other areas (like prototype hardware), and attempts at being a historical reference book only succeed in making some of the factual errors within even more glaring.  Starting at pg. 57, there’s plenty of photos of VCS game boxes, although some of the boxes photographed are noticeably creased or damaged – starting with the first box, Air-Sea Battle.  Hundreds of thousands of copies were made and sold of the games in question. Time should have been spent finding better copies to photograph, considering the overall look (and price) of either edition.  Also, the games appear in random order, not alphabetically, so finding a specific game requires use of the index.  The first and last 3 pages are all screenshots of VCS games – except one.  Of the 108 screenshots, one is the 7800 version of Galaga.  Two are of games originally released by Coleco (Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior), and one is a bad screenshot of BASIC Programming (which was used again on page 98).  
 
Notable errors (considering Marty Goldberg is credited for his "fact-checking", I suppose this is yet another book he has corrupted):
 
Pg. 18, 49 The 7800 was initially released by Atari Inc. in 1984, not Jack Tramiel’s Atari Corp., who re-released it in 1986.
 
Pg. 61  Cliff Spohn talks about Atari wanting to cut the artwork off from the outer edges.  Only the original, gate-fold Combat boxes included the full artwork as shown.  The 2nd trimmed should have been included for comparison.
 
Pg. 64  Atari’s coin-op Starship 1 was released in 1976, not 1977; the VCS version (Star Ship) was released in 1977.
 
Pg. 66   There were 3 coin-op “snake” games released in 1976 - Barricade (Ramtek), Bigfoot Bonkers (Meadows) and Blockade (UPL, Gremlin).
 
Pg. 76  “I thought of Monte Carlo, outdoors, images of the car…”  Should be “images of the cards”.
 
Pg. 86  Night Driver was the first VCS driving video game to offer a 1st-person perspective, but the arcade game was inspired by Nürburgring 1 (Dr.-Ing. Reiner Foerst GmbH 1976).
 
Pg. 87  No mention of Outlaw’s artwork being a copy of that found on the poster for the movie, The Outlaw Josey Wales.
 
Pg. 113  The interior manual artwork appears in the 1988 re-release of Pele’s Soccer.
 
Pg. 115  As with Outlaw, there’s no mention of the artwork for VCS Space Invaders being a close copy of the artwork for Boston’s early albums, particularly their 2nd album, “Don’t Look Back”, except for in the book's afterword.  The artist for the Boston artwork was Gary Norman, but the artist for S.I. is simply Norman.  There's no other information the book about him or whether or not he's the same artist, or why an in-house artist wasn't used.
 
Pg. 123  The Asteroids artwork is turned 90 degrees to the right, compared to how it appeared on the packaging.
 
Pg. 130  Only half of the interior 5200 Missile Command artwork appears in the manual, and only in 1 color (red).
 
Pg. 133  Both the coin-op and VCS versions of Warlords were developed concurrently.  The coin-op version was released first and featured multiple balls.  Programmer Jim Huether was the model Steve Hendricks used for his artwork, but the book makes no mention of this.
 
Pg. 135  States the photo on the preceding page was for a 4-player Football ad, but the photo shows a baseball pitcher.  Atari never released a 4-player Baseball coin-op.
 
Pg 136  States the VCS wasn’t able to reproduce the arcade game’s speech, which is incorrect.  Not only was the VCS capable of digitized speech, as shown with Quadrun and Open Sesame, Mike Mika released a version of Berzerk in 2002 that included voice samples during the game.
 
Also, the interior artwork shown is cropped, compared to how it appears in the manual.
 
Pg. 152  There’s no mention of this but besides Elliot’s expression, another change was made with the artwork – the “diamonds” around the center of the spaceship were made smaller.  The large diamonds appeared on a promo box and the initial run of cartridges.
 

Pg. 164 States, “Atari paid handsomely for the exclusive rights to bring Pac-Man to the 2600.”  According to Al Alcorn, Atari signed a deal with Namco in 1978 for $1 million that gave Atari the rights to all of Namco's arcade games.  Pac-Man (AKA Puck Man) didn't exist in 1978, and considering the success the game would eventually have, Atari paid far less than it was truly worth, and Atari also got Galaxian as part of the same deal.
 

Pg. 170  States, “the technical aspects of the 2600 made creating a mirror image of the arcade counterpart nearly impossible”, which is incorrect.  Several hacks and homebrews have been created in the last 15+ years to prove a better version could have absolutely been done with only 4K.
 
Pg. 182  The RealSports cover art is reversed on the packaging.  Also, only the 2nd interior artwork appears in the VCS and 5200 manuals, and both are in color.
 
Pg. 202 Ralph McQuarrie - the most famous artist outside of Atari mentioned in the book - did the artwork for VCS Vanguard and yet there's no story as to how this came about.  His name isn't even included in the index.
 
Pg. 206  The photo caption states the artwork shown appeared in the Yars’ Revenge manual, but it didn’t.
 
Pg. 211 The description for Big Bird’s Egg Catch says you have to catch eggs from one of two chutes, but different variations offer anywhere from 2 to 5 chutes, and a screenshot for the game on the first page shows 4 chutes.
 
Pg. 221  The top photo caption states the color guide and marker comp was for the 400/800 version, but the illustrated screenshot is clearly for the VCS version.
 
Pg. 222-223  The artwork shown is for the 400/800 versions, but the screenshots shown are for the VCS versions, which weren’t done by Atari but rather Coleco.
 
Pg. 234  Incorrectly states players in Mario Bros. hurl fireballs.
 
Pg. 238  The first interior artwork shown did not appear in either the VCS or 5200 manuals.
 
Pg. 244  The Pole Position artwork shown is actually for Pole Position II.
 
Pg. 246  The artwork shown on page 247 also appeared on the July/Aug 1983 V2N2 cover of Atari Age magazine.
 
Pg. 262  Incorrectly states the winner of the SwordQuest FireWorld contest, Michael Rideout, melted down the Chalice prize to pay for college.  The winner of the SwordQuest EarthWorld contest, Steven Bell, is the one who melted down his Talisman prize to pay for college.
 
Pg 264  Claims the SwordQuest WaterWorld contest was held and the Crown prize awarded, but as of yet, there’s no evidence that any of this happened.
 
Pg. 266  Claims the final 2 SwordQuest prizes were returned to the Franklin Mint and ultimately destroyed, but again, there’s no evidence that any of this happened.
 
Pg. 258  No high-resolution packaging artwork for SwordQuest EarthWorld; instead, a picture of a box with creases.  Also, Atari Age magazine is written as one word “AtariAge”.
 
Pg. 260, 262.  Atari Age magazine is written as one word “AtariAge”.
 
Pg. 276  Jr. Pac-Man featured a side-scrolling maze in the arcade version, but the VCS version features a vertically-scrolling maze.
 
Pg. 279  The first photo caption states this was interior manual art for the 2600 and 5200 versions, but it only appeared in the 5200 manual.
 
Pg. 280  Incorrectly states the artwork shown was for the VCS manual.  It didn't appear in the manual, but was featured in an ad for the game, on the back cover of Atari Age magazine (V2,N5).
 
Pg. 291  Incorrectly states KLAX was released 12 years after the VCS system was released; it was 14 years.
 
Pg. 298  The VCS model 2600A was a 4-switch version, not 6-switch as incorrectly stated.  Also, the Space Age joystick is a copy of Milton Bradley's proposed HD2000 joystick, and not based on the prototype trigger controllers shown.
 
Pg. 303.  The 5200 controllers were not “spin-sensitive”.
 
Pg. 317  Axlon is misspelled as “Axalon”.
 
Pg. 321  “Tank II was to be the numerical sequel to Atari’s Tank arcade game.”  Atari (under Kee Games) released a Tank II arcade game in 1974, the same year as the original.  The “II” moniker for the home console was likely to indicate it was for 2 players.
 
Pg. 328  Atari Age magazine is written as one word “AtariAge”.
 
Pg. 329  Key Games didn’t just clone Atari games, they released many exclusive games, like Drag Race, Sprint One, Sprint 2, Super Bug, Tank, and Ultra Tank.

I wasn't about to spend 1 cent on that book, especially since most of it is online for free at Google Books:
 
https://books.google.com/books?id=3FwGMtRafrAC&pg=PA001&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false
 
 
 
 
Of all the books I've ever read, I have never come across one so appallingly bad as that one, that contains nearly every conceivable grammatical error possible.  It's as though it began as 2 separate books that ended up having a head-on collision with each other, and that's the result.  The punctuation and spelling errors alone should have been enough for any publisher to refuse it (their posts on Atariage are pretty much the same.  I'm quite certain Goldberg still doesn't know Berzerk contains a 'z' instead of an 's'...), but when the tense starts changing all over the place, and you have photos with the incorrect captions (or quite often, no captions)...  it's just a mess from cover to cover, and an insult to anyone with a basic grade school education to try and read it, let alone those with higher education, but then to charge people some $80 for a copy?  And at the end of the day, that's what it comes off as - a money grab.  Leonard Herman told me he sent a copy to Ralph Baer, and he put it down after a few pages.  Shame he attached his name to it.
 
The editor, Loni Reeder, used to write articles for RePlay magazine.  She was never an editor, and judging from the condition of the book, she still isn't.   She happens to be a friend of Vendel (and I'm guessing her name was attached for no other reason than she used to be associated with an industry mag).  They go back as far as 1999, when Vendel was involved in a scandal involving that year's CGE show:
 
https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/rec.games.video.classic/3Hlg1l8T16U
(major thread on CGE/Nolan scandal.  Loni is posting under "LONBO")
  https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/rec.games.video.classic/6m6KDatifpo (vendel’s famous backing-out letter, posted under the fake account “mylar”)
 
What happened was, Vendel wanted to be part of the CGE show, and the people organizing the show had prior (bad) dealings with him, so they weren't about to team up with him.  Vendel decided to try and sabotage the show, using a fake email address that appeared as though he was part of it.  He succeeding in convincing Nolan Bushnell (who was planning on attending the first CGE show) via Loni Anderson (who was the contact person between them) to back out.  When the organizers found out what he had done, they publicly outed him on the newsgroups, and a huge flamewar broke out over it.  Vendel responded by erasing not only his posts, but some from others as well, which resulted in even more backlash against him.  He broke a cardinal rule of the newsgroup in an effort to "calm things down" (ie. save face), but that's typical Vendel.
 
Even the much-touted photos need to be fixed.  Photos from the 80s and earlier commonly suffer from incorrect color saturation (usually too much red).  The photos on page 786 are a perfect example of this:
 
https://books.google.com/books?id=3FwGMtRafrAC&pg=PA786&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false
 
How much time would it have taken someone to color-correct them?  Well, it took me less than 5 minutes with Photoshop to drastically improve them.  I'm not sure what they did in the claimed 7 years of putting this book together, but I can tell you what they didn't do...
 
Lost Dragon, it sounds like you've done some comprehensive research in the Panther's history, as far as which games existed for it.  If everyone you've talked with said there were no "cross-over" games between the Panther and Jaguar, then you're probably right.  If they want to claim the opposite, they need to reveal their source(s), especially since as you mentioned, they're charging people to buy their book.

There's also this article:  http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/articles/lotr/lotr.html
And this complete video of the game I did:  

Actually, this is everything you need to know about it....
 
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dN1l_iw3N4lJ69Wq2cqoLGKAxbo-gHLMohrhlSHwYNI/edit?usp=sharing

I created that map for the first issue of Jeff Adkins's newsletter, Classic Systems and Games Monthly, way back in October 1991, using my crappy Okimate 10 printer and Atari Artist (attached). 
 
Here's more notes about the game:
http://www.ataricompendium.com/game_library/easter_eggs/vcs/26fathom.html
 
I interviewed Rob Fulop years ago, and he mentioned Fathom wasn't a particular favorite of his:
 
http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/rob_fulop/interview_rob_fulop.html

I created that map for the first issue of Jeff Adkins's newsletter, Classic Systems and Games Monthly, way back in October 1991, using my crappy Okimate 10 printer and Atari Artist (attached). 
 
Here's more notes about the game:
http://www.ataricompendium.com/game_library/easter_eggs/vcs/26fathom.html
 
I interviewed Rob Fulop years ago, and he mentioned Fathom wasn't a particular favorite of his:
 
http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/rob_fulop/interview_rob_fulop.html

Atari's Night Driver was actually a knockoff of Dr-Ing. Reiner Foerst's Nurburgring 1, as was Ted Michon's Night Racer.  Here's more info about them:
 
http://jalopnik.com/5906386/meet-the-doctor-engineer-who-basically-invented-the-modern-racing-game
 
http://weltenschule.de/vgames/Nuerburg/Nuerburgring.html
 
http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=night-racer-sit-down-model&page=detail&id=1393

Atari's Night Driver was actually a knockoff of Dr-Ing. Reiner Foerst's Nurburgring 1, as was Ted Michon's Night Racer.  Here's more info about them:
 
http://jalopnik.com/5906386/meet-the-doctor-engineer-who-basically-invented-the-modern-racing-game
 
http://weltenschule.de/vgames/Nuerburg/Nuerburgring.html
 
http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=night-racer-sit-down-model&page=detail&id=1393

That's not a book, that's a column from Joystik magazine.  AFAIK there was never a dedicated book about Dig Dug.

Here's a video of the C64 Cali Games one, which is pretty neat:

 
With Tau Ceti, if you type a curse in the game (like “f--k” or “c--t”), you’ll get a message saying, "Just because I'm a machine doesn't mean you can insult me.  You'll be SORRY in 10 Seconds...." and the bottom of the screen will have a scrolling message saying, “Same to YOU with Bells on”.  The screen will start shaking and go black in 10 seconds!

Very cool discovery!  There's a few more things in Apple II Gumball:
 
http://www.digitpress.com/eastereggs/applegumball.htm
 
Don't know if any of those are in the Atari 8-bit version.

There used to be hobby/model stores everywhere in my area years ago.  Now there's only 1, and half the store is a hardware store.  Kmart used to carry Testors since they had model kits in the toy section.  Perhaps they still do.  Walmart might as well.

There used to be hobby/model stores everywhere in my area years ago.  Now there's only 1, and half the store is a hardware store.  Kmart used to carry Testors since they had model kits in the toy section.  Perhaps they still do.  Walmart might as well.

There's no one exact orange b/c consoles were made in different plants in different countries.  I use 3 different oranges (Glidden Brilliance Collection) to match whatever console I'm working on.

Here's a few more VCS-based custom cabinets: