Atarimania Forum

Many years ago I used to work for Telecomsoft (Firebird, Rainbird, Silverbird) in the UK and (amongst other things) I now run a website all about the company and the games we published.

I know that Firebird didn't publish too many titles for the Atari 8-bit machines, but I am attempting to compile what I hope will be a comprehensive list of releases (covering all formats), and I need a bit of help to get there!

What I'm after are the barcode numbers from the back of the tape or disk boxes and the European codes in particular. They will mostly begin with 5012439 or possibly 17095 or 17096. These numbers contain the internal Telecomsoft production numbers, and they are useful because if I compile a list then any missing numbers should indicate a release that I have missed!

The titles I'm missing barcodes for are as follows:

Tape:

Druid
Jewels of Darkness (Level 9 Computing Adventure)
Knight Orc (Level 9 Computing Adventure)
Silicon Dreams (Level 9 Computing Adventure)

Disk:
The Pawn (Magnetic Scrolls Adventure)
The Guild of Thieves (Magnetic Scrolls adventure)
Corruption (Magnetic Scrolls adventure)*
Fish! (Magnetic Scrolls adventure)*

*I'm not sure if there were Atari 8-bit versions of these last two Magentic Scrolls games.

Many thanks (fingers crossed!)

Hi Richard,

here are the numbers from the software I found on my shelf

The Pawn (Magnetic Scrolls Adventure, Diskversion) - 8877746378
The Guild of Thieves (Magnetic Scrolls adventure, Diskversion) - 8877746418

Corruption and Fish! were definitively not released for Atari 8-Bit.

Thanks for those.

The 88777 indicates that these were US releases (presumably imported). They're still useful to me, but the list I'm compiling at the moment is for the UK/European releases.

It surprises me that we didn't do 8-bit Atari versions of those last two Magnetic Scrolls games. I remember bug-testing the Apple 2 versions, and I would have thought the Atari would have sold better than the Apple 2 back then (in Europe at least).

Rainbird rich wrote: The 88777 indicates that these were US releases (presumably imported). They're still useful to me, but the list I'm compiling at the moment is for the UK/European releases.

Oops!

Here we go again:

Guild of Thieves (EU version, Disk) - 012439006350

Can't locate The Pawn (EU version) at the moment.

Hi,

Thanks for dropping by!

Druid (tape) = 5-012439-002413
The Pawn = missing (I'm not kidding, it seems the number was on a sticker but it's not on the box anymore!)

Edit... That's weird, the box for The Pawn I have is also from the US and it has a UK price tag! We'll need to change the publisher to Firebird (USA)!

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

Thanks!

Just a quick question - is the barcode from a boxed copy that you own? I ask because it appears that the C64 tape version has exactly the same barcode as the Atari tape version. I've got one or two other examples of this, and it's difficult to know if our production department genuinely made a mistake at the time by using a code twice. Of course, it could be that the C64 barcode I've got is wrong, so it's a bit hard to know either way!

Atari Frog wrote:Hi,

Thanks for dropping by!

Druid (tape) = 5-012439-002413
The Pawn = missing (I'm not kidding, it seems the number was on a sticker but it's not on the box anymore!)

Edit... That's weird, the box for The Pawn I have is also from the US and it has a UK price tag! We'll need to change the publisher to Firebird (USA)!

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

Rainbird rich wrote:Just a quick question - is the barcode from a boxed copy that you own? I ask because it appears that the C64 tape version has exactly the same barcode as the Atari tape version. I've got one or two other examples of this, and it's difficult to know if our production department genuinely made a mistake at the time by using a code twice. Of course, it could be that the C64 barcode I've got is wrong, so it's a bit hard to know either way!

Yes, it's a boxed copy of mine. You may want to know that the inside part has instructions for all machines (C64, Spectrum, CPC, Atari) so that may be the explanation... I seem to recall the Atari version being released long after the others as well so maybe there were two different production runs / two barcodes (just a wild guess).

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

Druid cassette -

The inlay card on mine has the same barcode as Atari Frog's, but the case has a sticker with 5 012439 001331 as the barcode.

Hope that helps.