The Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, has announced the acquisition of "a comprehensive collection of Atari materials about Atari’s home computer and console divisions from the early 1970s through the 2000s".
The collection belonged to the late Curt Vendel — "a historian, engineer, and founder of the Atari Museum" — who passed away unexpectedly back in 2020, aged 53.
It is said to include "hundreds of pieces of computer media on a variety of formats, along with original schematics and engineering drawings for released and unreleased consumer products."
This includes materials related to the Atari 2600's Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) chip; the redesigned Atari 2800 (a Japanese version of the 2600); and the unreleased Jaguar II.
In addition to this, the announcement also references other highlights such as "logbooks previously owned by Atari engineer Ron Milner (one of the creators of the 2600 prototype) and programmer Owen Rubin.", in addition to "various historical licensing documents with outside companies such as SEGA"; "product design documentation", "source code and ROM release folios for Atari Jaguar and Atari 2600 games", and "merchandising and trade show materials".
Prior to his passing, Vendel was particularly active in the Atari community. Not only was he responsible for founding the Atari Museum in 1997, but he also befriended many former Atari programmers, served as the designer of the first two Atari Flashback plug-and-play consoles in the early 2000s, and co-authored an 800-page book called Atari Inc.: Business Is Fun with fellow writer and programmer Marty Goldberg in 2012. Because of this, he has had the unique opportunity to acquire some truly fascinating materials, which will continue to be preserved for future generations.
The Curt Vendel collection, as it has been called, will join other Atari-related archival collections at the Strong, supporting "scholarly research into the early video game and home computing industries, product design and marketing, and fan-led preservation movements."
Many of the materials will also be used in future exhibitions.