Arcade / Arcade - Collect'em! · 1982
M*A*S*H
Published by 20th Century Fox / Fox Video Games · Developed by A. Eddy Goldfarb and Associates
atarimania.com — atari-400-800-xl-xe-games-m-a-s-h-41558
Information
- Genre
- Arcade - Collect'em!
- Language
- Machine Language
- Controls
- Joystick
- Players
- 1
- Programmer(s)
- Cohen, Frank
- Graphic Artist(s)
- Cohen, Frank
- Sound
- [n/a]
- Cover Artist(s)
- [n/a]
- Year
- 1982
- Publisher
- 20th Century Fox / Fox Video Games
- Developer
- A. Eddy Goldfarb and Associates
- Country
- USA
- License
- Prototype
- Medium
- Disk
- Rarity
- 0
- Serial
- -
Votes / Statistics
Rating: N/A · Votes: 0 · Downloads: 470 · Hits: 3,879
Additional Comments
Previously unknown version of the game, read the trivia part below for more details.
A completely different M*A*S*H by another coder was eventually chosen for release.
Title is unfinished, please reboot disk to have another go.
Many thanks to John Hardie for dumping this program!
Screenshots (4)
Cover Art (1)
Trivia (1)
Here is a small conversation with Frank Cohen from May 18th, 2023.
Frank Cohen: About the M*A*S*H game... I had been hired by A. Eddy Goldfarb to lead a new video game development company. He's the guy that invented the chattering teeth toy novelty. He had an opportunity with the new Fox Video Games to create the M*A*S*H cartridge.
They liked the prototype game I developed for them. They had me take it to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and show it to buyers from Toys "R" Us. I remember actually spraining my back carrying by hand the prototype machines through the Consumer Electronics Show pavilions to get to the Toys "R" Us meeting.
Toys "R" Us selected the game that Fox actually released. It was a surprise to me that there was competition. And it really didn't make a difference because the ET cartridge was about to kill the whole industry. I prototyped the game on an Atari 800 and if they had accepted it, I would have written it for the 2600 as a cartridge.
John Hardie: So you didn't write the Atari 800 version that was released in limited distribution by Fox / Romox? For years it was thought you were the programmer of that version.
Frank Cohen: Nope, they released the game developed by someone else and what bugs me is that it uses some of what I developed in the prototype.
John Hardie: You're also listed with Doug Neubauer on the 2600 version. So you never worked on the 2600 game?
Frank Cohen: Also not my version. My prototype never made it to a 2600 version. At the time, there was a lot of question about whether the 2600 would continue to exist.
John Hardie: Are you OK with me sharing your prototype version with the community?
Frank Cohen: Yes, go for it!
Comments (1)
Megadeth — 3 Nov 2025
It's a bit of a pity this game wasn't properly finished and polished, as it could have been a nice game, one of those increasingly hectic ones. I haven't yet figured out all what to do's here, but the potential can be felt there, definitely. Thumbs up to Frank Cohen for taking this approach to the game - and for sharing the prototype.