UNKNOWN CARTRIDGES !! HELP ME!!

Don't open them! At least not yet. If they are for a Colourstars clone then each cartridge should contain a built-in processor, but there is so little information about the hardware, never mind the cartridges, that I don't think anything useful would come from it. And of course there's the possibility of damaging the cartridges.

If you really don't want them I'd certainly be interested. We usually only take donated items that we pay the shipping for, but send me a PM and we may be able to arrange something.

I think we now have a good idea of the TC 4000 story, more details will be posted later today.

Before that I just want to thank Kenny G. for informing us about the TC 4000 and Olivier for pointing me in the right direction and helping with research.

More info soon...

Before the TC 4000 explanation, here's some brief information about the Ingersoll XK-4000. According to the few places that have info about it, it was sold in the U.K. and launched in 1978. There isn't really any more info other than it belongs to the PC-50x family.

I recently noticed a post on Atariage's forums saying the TC 4000 is an XK-4000 clone, I've also used the word "clone" in previous posts in this thread. My use of the word "clone" was a bit misleading. None of the machines in the PC-50x family are really clones as this implies that they are all copies an original cartridge pong system. A better way to describe them is being related to each other and part of the same hardware family.

As the cartridges for the XK-4000 and TC 4000 are exactly the same I believe they are in fact the same system. The most likely explanation for the TC 4000 is that the XK-4000 was marketed overseas by another company, a common practice in the early days of computing. Even companies like Sega did this, their SG-1000 console was sold by Grandstand outside Japan. It's likely that the TC 4000 was launched in 1978 or 1979 by a company called TEAA, possibly under licence from Ingersoll, although I'm not 100% sure of this as I still haven't been able to trace the manufacturer.

As the cartridge's instructions are written in both German and English it seems likely that the TC 4000 was sold in Germany. It's also possible that it was sold in the surrounding countries such as Austria, Belgium and Switzerland. Regardless of where it was sold, it's likely that it was either unpopular and didn't sell well or was only available in limited quantities, which would explain why it's practically unheard of.

There really isn't anything else to say due to the complete lack of information about the system, unless either the manufacturer can be traced (unlikely at the moment as I can't even confirm the name) or I can find an actual TC 4000 console (also unlikely at the moment).

So there you have it. The TC 4000 is simply an obscure, renamed, German version of the Ingersoll XK-4000 and part of the PC-50x family.

They will definately be added at some point. To get an idea of how rare they are simply do a search for the TC 4000 on Google. The only results that are relevant to the console we're looking for is this thread on our fourm and the thread on the Atariage forum.

There's no indication anywhere else that this system even exists. No information, no pictures and no records of systems or cartridges being bought or sold anywhere in the world.

The TC 4000 really should be in a museum, and if we ever open a real museum these cartridges would definately be in there. The problem is that until we trace the manufacturer the TC 4000 probably won't get an entry in our online hardware museum. But as the cartridges are the same as the XK-4000's we can use them for that when we add it.

I'll probably write an article soon for the magazine section of the site about the TC 4000, complete with pictures of everything you sent me. There won't be any new information though, the article will only be there to raise awareness of the system and record it's existance.