Regret selling/giving away your childhood Atari?

[Zeus]

I think the reason a lot of us collect is to make up for the fact that we gave or sold our systems and regret it now. The only system that I still have now that dates back to the 80's is my ADAM computer and a bunch of games. Since then I have reaquired a 2600, about 70 games, and a handful of colecovision stuff. The Atari I had, I actually acquired in a garage sale around 1988, long after its popularity faded. I was really a coleco kid more than anything.

[Redcurrie]

Selling it, hell, I gave mine to Goodwill.......yes, I do truly regret it. I had my 2600 all through college and when I graduated and was going through my "I can't wait to be an adult" stage, I dropped it, all the games, manuals, case, etc. off at Goodwill. What was I thinking I now ask myself......at least as an adult, you have better access to the money to buy stuff. Also, my house can look like a video game store exploded all over it and the cat doesn't say a thing......

[Vic George 2K3]

My mother already sold the 2600 to my next-door neighbor in 1984 in order to get the ColecoVision with the Expansion Module #1. Along with the 2600 went my copy of Donkey Kong for that system. Fortunately, most of my existing games for the system remained, and I was able to get another copy of 2600 Donkey Kong (yes, I still like that game!).

 

The system I ended up having to let go of was the Atari 7800 in 1991, which was both a bummer and a blessing -- a blessing in more ways than one, since it became a donation to the mental health program I was in, the Forum House of Westfield, MA, for their tag sale. It also cleared out my 2600 collection, which made way for the NES I ended up buying that summer along with a $20 copy of the Legend Of Zelda.

[Vic George 2K3]

My mother already sold the 2600 to my next-door neighbor in 1984 in order to get the ColecoVision with the Expansion Module #1. Along with the 2600 went my copy of Donkey Kong for that system. Fortunately, most of my existing games for the system remained, and I was able to get another copy of 2600 Donkey Kong (yes, I still like that game!).

 

The system I ended up having to let go of was the Atari 7800 in 1991, which was both a bummer and a blessing -- a blessing in more ways than one, since it became a donation to the mental health program I was in, the Forum House of Westfield, MA, for their tag sale. It also cleared out my 2600 collection, which made way for the NES I ended up buying that summer along with a $20 copy of the Legend Of Zelda.

[KaineMaxwell]

Surprisengly after all these years I still have mine and all my games. If it works is another story but me keeping all my old systems gave me something to build upon when I took the collecting plunge.

[AtariGator]

I can remember back when my mom got us Pac-Man and the whole family gathered around the floor model t.v. set to watch us kids play, or when I would pull an all-nighter playing Asteroids non-stop, or when I played Pitfall II for the first time and my jaw dropped at how advanced the game was. And to think that I sold all those games that I had kept in excellent condition. I'm a fool....I'm a fool....I'm a fool

[TwiliteZoner]

Back in the mid to late 80's when I discovered the local BBS scene, I lost all interest in the 2600 - 7800. I sold off or traded all my 2600 stuff for 8-Bit and ST stuff. Of couse now I curse myself when I think about it but at the time it seemed like the logical thing to do

[Shannon]

Back in the mid to late 80's when I discovered the local BBS scene, I lost all interest in the 2600 - 7800. I sold off or traded all my 2600 stuff for 8-Bit and ST stuff. Of couse now I curse myself when I think about it but at the time it seemed like the logical thing to do

 

You sound almost like me... once I got into BBS's I spent more time chatting in the msg boards then gaming.

[+johnnywc]

Ah yes - my original 2600 (heavy sixer from 77) and about 90 games. I remember it was 1985 and my new interest was the Atari 800xl - the 2600 was forgotten. My buddy wanted to "borrow" it for his niece - and I gladly let him take it all (just bring it back!!!).

 

Well, 18 years later it still hasn't come back. I even tracked down the guy in the phone book and he doesn't recall me ever lending it to him (translation: sold it for 5 bucks at a yard sale).

 

Still hurts to this day...

 

PS On a positive note, I do still have my Atari 800xl and all of those games...

[raindog]

I never associated videogames with being childish, because when I was a kid writing videogames were what I was going to do for a living, dammit! (Of course then the crash happened, but by then I was on to the C64 anyway.) So I had no imagined maturity issues to lead me to donate anything to Goodwill (in fact, I did all my Amiga hacking from a $3 easy chair I bought at the Salvation Army.) I still played and wrote games on the C64, but I was so focused on getting new games via pirate BBSes that I ended up writing my own BBS software, and from there Real Programming. Not that writing bank software and web stuff is as hardcore as writing games, but games seemed more fanciful at the time.

 

I also never felt attached to any one particular piece of technology. My Odyssey2 went to some of my cousins who had no console at the time I had that plus a Colecovision and my brother had a Vectrex. (The CV is still in the basement, but the games have been misplaced; the Vectrex, with light pen and goggles and a bag of games, is still in the attic somewhere but none of it is boxed so I doubt it'd be worth much now except the good time I have when I fire it up to play Minestorm now and then.) I eventually bought a C128D when I got my first job, but I had my Amiga by then and going back to the C64 stuff kinda sucked. Eventually I sold the lot to someone so I could get more money to buy a new MIDI keyboard, and while I regret losing some of the stuff I wrote myself (I didn't sort my disks out very well), it was just trading a piece of equipment I wasn't using for one that I needed. Even after I left home, my parents left the NES hooked up and it's been sitting there mostly turned off for the last 16 years (contacts slowly corroding, and someone taught the kids to blow into it to fix them.... sigh....) and my brother's Genesis right next to it, not hooked up at the moment.

 

In case it's not obvious, I never had an Atari. Every friend except two and every extended family member except the abovementioned had an Atari, so it was just something that was ubiquitous rather than sentimental. I've still never bought one. My housemates got one for $10 on closeout in '91 or so, but they never got any games for it. And my business partner's fiancee gave me her childhood 2600 so I could try out my own hacks and games, but if she wanted it back she could have it and I could have another one in a week.

 

I'm a big boy now. I can handle buying a console. I guess it would be different if my parents got rid of my brother's Vectrex cache, which I don't think I could replace, but so far it's safe. It's not a sentimentality thing, it's an ease of replacement thing.

[Lost Monkey]

I sold my first 6 switch to my step-mother back in 84' or so, so she could give it to her newly immigrated nephews from Hungary. I had bought everything myself and the offer was $150 (about $500 less than I had paid)... the thing is, I wasn't given a choice in the matter, and I never saw the money...

 

1 year later, we went to visit her brother and they gave me the Atari back, seeing as I wanted to play with the damn thing and they didn't care about it all...

 

The next summer, my step-mother sold my Atari at a yard sale while I was working.. (my first summer job - on an ice cream bike!) for $15. What really sucked this time was that I had bought about 20 more games over the past 6 months... again with my own money... at least she gave me the $15 this time...

 

When I went to university in Halifax in 89' I picked up a 2600, and a Colecovision and I had about 150-200 games when I broke up with my girlfriend in 91' and moved to Toronto... when I went back to get my stuff 8 months later, only a few things were missing.. the Atari, the Colecovision, all the games and my "This is Spinal Tap" album.

 

The only time I have chosen to "liquidate" a collection was in 2001 when I sold almost all of my Jaguar collection. I kept the few games I really enjoyed playing, and a complete Jag/CD setup and sold around 50 of my Jag carts. I haven't regretted it, as I still have the games I enjoyed on the Jaguar.

[khryssun]

Unfortunatly, I sold my first VCS 2600 (Woodgrain Model) with a bunch of games to buy a Colecovision. BTW I never had the same fun to play colecovision games than VCS 2600 ones.

My first VCS was a gift of my beloved mother and I still regret to have done this mistake.

Fortunatly, I hadn't sold all my games and when I was 20 or 22 (I don't remeber exactly) I bought a Darth Vader' Model :-)

Few years ago, when I discoverd the web, my main goal was with the help of Atari fans contacts and ebay to rebuild my original game collection.

I even bought a woodgrain model and a 7800 2 years ago.

 

Today It's still missing the following items to complete my collection :

- Swordquest Earthworld Pal Version (I got a NTSC one).

- Breakout Box, European Manual and Pal Picture Cart (I got a Text cart).

[Shannon]

No offense to anyone but I never saw how playing games is any differen't then sitting in front of a TV with a remote control and a beer and "watching the game". At least a console system is interactive.

 

So forget this "gaming is for kids" junk. It's not...