|
History
The history of the Duplicator SP280 starts with the release of the Atari VCS. The system became very popular in the United States very quickly. During a trade show, Stephan Finta, an American living in Germany and CEO of Unicom Consumer Electronics GmbH stoke a deal with Atari to distribute the Atari VCS in West Germany and West Berlin under the name Unimex VCS-800.
Around the same time, Klaus Ollmann, deputy managing director of WEA Musik GmbH in Hamburg, got his hand on an Atari VCS. Mr. Ollmann fell in love with the product and convince the management to market the Atari repertoire in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. While the CEO of EA Musik GmbH wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea (as this had nothing to do with music), he still gave the green light. Klaus went on to become CEO and in early 1980, the first device was being sold.
In 1981, Unicom Consumer Electronics GmbH lost the right to distribute the Atari VCS but kept distributing games for a while. By 1983, the company had changes name for Unimex Technologies GmbH. and was looking for other Atari-related products to distribute. As such, they started to distribute the Starpath Supercharger under the name Supercharger SR3000 and the Video Game Brain under the name Video Game Brain SP3000. By the end of 1983, Stephan Finta, also managed to strike a deal with an East Asian company to import a cassette copier. Dubbed the Duplicator SP280, the device allowed to copy an Atari VCS game to a 4k, 8k or even 16K EPROM blank cartridge.
Release
Released at the end of 1983 at a cost of 198DM, the system allowed to copy any game you wanted from a friend. The blank cartridges price was varying depending on the size of the EPROM. A 3 pack of 4K cartridges was 99DM, one 8K cartridge was 59DM and 16K cartridges which were planned for July 1984 were set to be sold at 89DM. The cartridges could be rewritten as many times as needed. The Duplicator SP280 was also distributed in France by Promotion France Export for a price of 798F with the 4K cartridges being sold for 98F.
Demise
It wasn’t long before the Duplicator SP280 was brought to the ear of the CEO of Atari GmbH, Klaus Ollmann, which decided to sue Unimex over the product. Atari GmbH would ultimately won and Unimex had to stop selling the Duplicator SP280.