This episode features States & Capitals, and European Countries & Capitals.  Both originally released in 1980 by Atari.

Podcast: Download

Box and Supplement Scans

These are scans of my boxes.

States & Capitals

Front of the box:

 

Back of the box:

 

Side of the box:

 

Advertisement from Atari Connection March 1981:

 

Atari catalog description (from AtariMania):

European Countries & Capitals

These are scans of my box.

Front of the box:

 

Back of the box:

 

Side of the box:

 

This is a scan from AtariMania of the UK release:

States & Capitals in Action

Boot to BASIC, then use CLOAD to load, and RUN to execute:

 

Loading splash screen (I don’t know why Atari never fixed this broken logo):

 

Instructions

If you load from side A of the cassette you are asked if you want to see the instructions.  You can load the game directly from side B of the cassette:

 

If you chose to see the instructions, there are nine screens:

 

After the instructions, or if you chose not to see them, the game loads:

 

Game Play

Beginning game play, with Hawaii highlighted as the first state:

 

Partway through the game.  Completed states have dotted outlines while the state currently being asked has a solid outline:

 

Final score after my first run of the program, yeah I know, pathetic:

 

European Countries & Capitals in Action

Boot to BASIC, then use CLOAD to load, and RUN to execute:

 

Loading splash screen (yep the same broken logo):

 

Instructions

If you load from side A of the cassette you are asked if you want to see the instructions.  You can load the game directly from side B of the cassette:

 

If you chose to see the instructions, there are nine screens.  This is the same as States & Capitals, but with minor terminology differences.  Also note that RETURN is not a different color like it is in States & Capitals:

 

After the instructions, or if you chose not to see them, the game loads:

 

Game Play

The game begins with a single country outlined:

 

At game completion.  Press START to play again:

Instructions

Scanned States & Capitals Manual download:

https://inverseatascii.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/ataristatescapitalsmanual.pdf

Scanned European Countries & Capitals download:

https://inverseatascii.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/atarieuropeancountriescapitalsmanual.pdf

 

Show Links:

• Inverse ATASCII YouTube States & Capitals YouTube demonstration: https://youtu.be/YyX8Q2A0PzU
• Inverse ATASCII YouTube European Countries & Capitals YouTube demonstration: https://youtu.be/rOTBAfnBezY
• Internet Archive States & Capitals manual: https://archive.org/details/AtariStatesCapitolsManual1980
• Internet Archive European Countries & Capitals manual: https://archive.org/details/AtariEuropeanCountriesCapitalsManual1980
• Atari Mania States & Capitals (includes Atari commercials at bottom): http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-states-and-capitals_5046.html
• Atari Mania European Countries & Capitals: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-european-countries-and-capitals_1888.html
• Wikipedia entry for M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I
• Frances White 1917 Broadway Review M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx3hlvcexhw

 

 

Intro music is an excerpt from a chip tune by Wizwars named 8 Bit Raceway.  It is used under Creative Common license Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.