Survey: First Atari, first game, best Game ever

[robcatron]

Ok, Ok, but who here used to be a total Atari Geek like me from about 1981 through 1986 or so -- waiting with huge expectation for each month's Analog (the best), and Antic (distant second) to arrive.

 

You know what that meant -- an all night party of typing in those Analog machine language programs with those pages upon pages of DATA strings! My brother in law and I used to take terms at the helm of the 'ol 800, typing away

 

Some classic Analog games:

 

Fill 'er Up

Bacterion

Race In Space

 

the list goes on and on ;o)

[SS]

1. 800XL (new in '83 or '84 - thanks dad!)

 

2. Pac-Man

 

3. it's a dead even tie between Pac-Man and Ballblazer.

[bjk7382]

The first computer that I ever had was an Atari 400 that my dad had as long as I can remember. (probly earlier than 85) The only thing I remember doing on it as a kid was play games like asteroids and pacman.

 

No idea what the first game was

 

Fav. Game would be either Defender or Joust on 400/800. I also like Thrust a lot for the 2600 as most of you know.

[doncleth]

First computer: Atari 600XL in 1985 (Thanks to my brother Nory). My ultimate wish was for a 64K upgrade.

 

First game: Galaxian

 

Best game: Star Raiders/River Raid

[geosteve]

-first Atari computer: 800XL in 1985 with a 410 program recorder

 

-first game: I remember a type in game with played like "Surround" that I saved to cassette as possibly my very first, also the full version "Blue Max" on cassette, and I think my first cart was Asteroids.

 

-best game: Tie between "Gauntlet" and "The Eidolon"

[Atari Smeghead]

Ya know, you gotta love the 400. It was an oddball, but it had character.

  -Bry

 

Oh, yeah! I loved that odd little machine. My friend, the one with the 800, used to tease me by saying I had a computer that you could smear peanut butter on and not ruin it...um, not that I ever tried...

 

I programmed with the BASIC cart, saving multiple games on one cassette. Any of you remember doing that? Having to write down the exact number the counter was at, so you could actually FIND the program again.

 

I actually kinda liked typing on it. I was surprisingly fast.

 

I had it long enough that I upgraded it to 32k, then to 48k, and eventually I installed the "real" keyboard on it.

...and to show how odd I am, I actually have a 400 membrane keyboard as a wall ornament.

 

Ok, Ok, but who here used to be a total Atari Geek like me from about 1981 through 1986 or so -- waiting with huge expectation for each month's Analog (the best), and Antic (distant second) to arrive.  

 

You know what that meant -- an all night party of typing in those Analog machine language programs with those pages upon pages of DATA strings! My brother in law and I used to take terms at the helm of the 'ol 800, typing away  

 

 

Oh yeah!! I may still have some of those Analog and Antic mags in my closet!

I didn't mind spending HOURS typing what I knew as random characters into my machine. What I hated was when it didn't run!

 

My favourites were:

Livewire, Buried Bucks and a neat demo... it had trees and a waterfall...my buddy and I figured out what some of the code meant, and goofed around. We made the waterfall flow backwards, put trees in the air... y'know, things to amuse a teenager.

[Bryan]

Remember finding out the following month that there was a typo in the listing?

 

-Bry

[Atari Smeghead]

Remember finding out the following month that there was a typo in the listing?    

   -Bry

 

Uh-huh! Luckily, that only happened to me once.

Some of those type-ins had some sort of a small checksum program you could run, that would tell ya where your errors were. That was nice.

 

Ever start typing in one, then realize that it's a LOT longer than ya thought?

"Damn, I thought it ended on page 25, but it's continued on pages 90-99! Yikes! Better be a great freakin' game, that's all I can say..."

 

The good ol' days!

[+Sauron]

1. What was your first Atari (or any other computer) and when did you get it?

 

Atari 2600 in Christmas of 1981, then a 130XE Christmas of 1985.

 

2. What was your first game?

 

2600 - Pitfall!

130XE - First commercial game was either Defender or Galaxian.

 

3. And the best game you ever played on the Atari?

 

2600 - Pitfall

130XE - Alternate Reality

[geosteve]

if you're counting Atari consoles in this post, then I can update my list:

 

first Atari--- I got a VCS in 1980 that I sold (with about 20 games) for the 5200 on pratically the same month it was released.

 

first VCS game--- only a guess here, maybe 'air-sea battle' or 'human cannonball' were the firsts, outside 'combat' of course.

 

first 5200 game--- definitely Defender, outside the included Super Breakout game

 

first computer--- oh yeah, I had a Sinclair 1000 too, around 1984, yuk!

[Schmutzpuppe]

My first Atari was an 2600 back in 1981 (I think) but I really doesn't remeber my first game

 

The real fun began 1984(?) with the 600XL and a tape deck, I remeber having just one commercial game: Batty Builders which was fun but a little boring over the time.

That's the reason why I start writing my own (basic) games finding out that writing games can be more fun than playing

 

Hard to name the best game, there are to much really good titels.

Just to mention a few: Archon (I+II), Ballblazer, Bruce Lee, M.U.L.E., Agent U.S.A., Alley Cat, IK, Pitfall 2.....

[Jeff Lodoen]

My first exposure to Atari was playing Air-Sea Battle at my aunt's husband's half-sister's home in fall '79. I was 6. Didn't realize it even had carts. I don't remember begging for it, but I had a 2600 by Christmas. Console from Penny's, plus PONG SPORTS and TARGET FUN (better prices at Sears, my parents were bright!)

 

Years later, we would rent an Atari 400 from the video rental. Only carts were Chess, Star Raiders, Missile Command, Asteroids, and Space Invaders (on tape with a 410)... that was it? Well, fun for '82. A BASIC would have been nice, eh?

 

By '83 I was ready for my own Atari computer. Parents wanted Apple. Even my cousin with an 800xl thought Apple was better (he used his own money). So I had $1300 mono system in '83. Ick. I didn't know how right I had been... although there never was an Atariworks, but were talking games!

 

First game I bought was a crappy Centipedish game called Exterminator... too bad to pirate! (seriously I never came across a cracked version) My favorite may be Dino Eggs.

 

In '87 I bought my cousin's Atari system. First game I bought (in '87 mind you) was Wizard of Wor. They had a pile of Roklan carts at the software rental (remember those?)

 

My favorite Atari8 game? Dunno. Could I pick the entire Synapse catalog?

[andylama]

Ok, Ok, but who here used to be a total Atari Geek like me from about 1981 through 1986 or so -- waiting with huge expectation for each month's Analog (the best), and Antic (distant second) to arrive.

 

Yes Rob, I was there too.

 

Ghod, I remember wasting hundreds of hours programming useless graphics demos and BASIC games that ran syrup-slow, but *just* fun enough to keep playing.

 

In hindsight, those days seem positively euphoric! In those simpler times, we were more easily amused, and our attention spans exponentially longer...

 

I miss that...but not more than I'm looking forward to playing Half-Life2.

[robcatron]

Ok, Ok, but who here used to be a total Atari Geek like me from about 1981 through 1986 or so -- waiting with huge expectation for each month's Analog (the best), and Antic (distant second) to arrive.

 

Yes Rob, I was there too.

 

Ghod, I remember wasting hundreds of hours programming useless graphics demos and BASIC games that ran syrup-slow, but *just* fun enough to keep playing.

 

In hindsight, those days seem positively euphoric! In those simpler times, we were more easily amused, and our attention spans exponentially longer...

 

I miss that...but not more than I'm looking forward to playing Half-Life2.

 

Yes, there was a definate charm to those "good 'ol days". I loved going to the computer stores to see what new software they had, and eyeing the disk versions, and disk only software (especially the Broderbund and Sirius titles) that I couldn't play for probably 1.5 years after I got my 800 (when I received my Rana 1000!)

 

Uh, for me, I'm getting ready to jump back into "Call of Duty!"

[+davidcalgary29]

 

In hindsight, those days seem positively euphoric!  In those simpler times, we were more easily amused, and our attention spans exponentially longer...

 

 

...or perhaps it was the fact that the victory was that much sweeter when we finally debugged those type-in games from "Compute!" and the Atari-specific mags after ENDLESS hours at the keyboard. I swear, I almost wept with joy after -- finally -- getting all of those special characters typed in correctly for "Escape From Epsilon"...and played the game for days after that. :wink:

[robcatron]

 

In hindsight, those days seem positively euphoric!  In those simpler times, we were more easily amused, and our attention spans exponentially longer...

 

 

...or perhaps it was the fact that the victory was that much sweeter when we finally debugged those type-in games from "Compute!" and the Atari-specific mags after ENDLESS hours at the keyboard. I swear, I almost wept with joy after -- finally -- getting all of those special characters typed in correctly for "Escape From Epsilon"...and played the game for days after that. :wink:

 

Epsilon was a great type in game. The character almost moved too fast, but I would say, overall, in the top 5 or so type in games

[+davidcalgary29]

 

In hindsight, those days seem positively euphoric!  In those simpler times, we were more easily amused, and our attention spans exponentially longer...

 

 

...or perhaps it was the fact that the victory was that much sweeter when we finally debugged those type-in games from "Compute!" and the Atari-specific mags after ENDLESS hours at the keyboard. I swear, I almost wept with joy after -- finally -- getting all of those special characters typed in correctly for "Escape From Epsilon"...and played the game for days after that. :wink:

 

Epsilon was a great type in game. The character almost moved too fast, but I would say, overall, in the top 5 or so type in games

 

I'd agree, but my favourite overall type-in games were Rocks, Popcorn, and Firebug. I just loved those Analog games!

[Atari Smeghead]

...and played the game for days after that.  :wink:

 

Uh-huh, especially in the cassette days! Since you could spend upwards of a half hour loading a cassette game and if the game didn't work... SIGH... rewind the cassette and try again.

 

But if it worked, man, ya didn't EVER want to turn that computer off!

 

For me, I was happy to have the TV/COMPUTER switch box. Start the load, EEEEEEEE..... EEEEEEEEEE... EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.... switch it to TV and watch one of the four channels we had, maybe go to the kitchen to make a sandwich (walking uphill, both ways) and check on the progress periodically.

 

I know I loaded 32k cassette games, but am not sure of 48k games. Anyone remember any?

[ATARIeric]

in 1980 my mother bought me an atari2600 for chanukah, or was it christmas ??? well anyway, i loved playing combat in invisible mode with my best friend richie. the laughing and the crying from laughing so hard, god i missed the days of the belly laughs when i was 12 *sighs* and river raid was my personal favorite.... time to call rich and see if he wants to come over and play!!! 1300 miles away to play combat LOL

[Wrathchild]

I know I loaded 32k cassette games, but am not sure of 48k games.  Anyone remember any?

 

All to fondly...

 

Ghostbusters, Hacker, Leaderboard, Hardball, Mercenary, Grand Prix Sim, Red Max. (some of those being 64k!)

[deathtrappomegranate]

I also spent many hours typing in hex data strings for machine code programs - but mostly for the Sinclair Spectrum.

 

Back then, the magazines just used to reproduce printouts from the old ZX printer. This was a horrible thermal printer, and it was sometimes impossible to distinguish the characters: 8,6,0 (with a slash) and B all looked very similar.

 

Hours and hours of debugging.

 

Those were the days!

[starraider]

Back then, the magazines just used to reproduce printouts from the old ZX printer. This was a horrible thermal printer, and it was sometimes impossible to distinguish the characters: 8,6,0 (with a slash) and B all looked very similar.

 

haha, I have that printer at home, including the silver paper.....

the printouts are in fact horrible, but it's the smallest printer i have ever seen in my life....

bought that thing togehter with a zx-81 and a 16k-modul some time ago at ebay

[smf_4ever]

Ohhh wow.. lets hit the way back machine...

 

1st puter was the Atari 800 in.. I think.. 82??

 

1st games... I dont remember.. My dad was in the pentegon piraters club.. so there was always boxes and boxes of games (from the beginning).. but.. I do remember the first "program" i wrote (copies from antic or analog)... a basic program called "Bats"

 

Favorite game... hmmmmm... that is a tough one.. since I had my hook up with pop and the pentegon people.. I at one time had copies of every games I have ever seen as disk images online.. (those old disk boxes.. the long fat ones... 16 of those filled.. most disks were double sided with as many as could fit.).

 

and of course.. that good old ATR8000 plugging along with the system.. he he..

 

I just thank the powers of technology for the APE program and cable..

[Atari Smeghead]

I know I loaded 32k cassette games, but am not sure of 48k games.  Anyone remember any?

 

All to fondly...

 

Ghostbusters, Hacker, Leaderboard, Hardball, Mercenary, Grand Prix Sim, Red Max. (some of those being 64k!)

 

64k cassette games?! Seriously?? I would have never even imagined, especially since by the time 64k Ataris hit the scene, the disk drive was the main beasty for loading.

Can you remember how long a 64k cassette game took to load? Did ya have time to make a pot roast, maybe mow the lawn?

[Atari Smeghead]

first computer--- oh yeah, I had a Sinclair 1000 too, around 1984, yuk!

 

Some others have mentioned having this computer. I bought a Timex Sinclair 1000 off eBay a year or two ago, computer only, just to have. My original idea was to hang it from the wall by driving one of those huge railroad spikes thru it, impaling it against the wall. But once I got it and saw how tiny and adorable it was, I just couldn't do that to it. So, it sits on a shelf as a decoration.

 

As mentioned earlier, my first computer was the 400 with the (mostly) regular sized membrane keyboard. It wasn't SO bad to type on. But can anyone here tell me how much fun they had typing on a TS1000? It's so dinky, I can't imagine that the accuracy or the word count was very high, typing on that thing.

 

"The King of Off-Topic "