Trashed E.T. Atari 2600 cartridge from New Mexico landfill lands in Smithsonian

The title that almost single-handedly ended console gaming before it truly began will soon take its place next to several hallowed video game relics in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.

According to a Smithsonian blog post, a battered copy of the Atari 2600 game E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial will join Atari founder Nolan Bushnell’s Pong arcade cabinet and recently deceased Ralph Baer’s prototype for the first console in the museum’s video game history collection. The cartridge was one of thousands of Atari 2600 games unearthed earlier this year from a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico.