average atari 2600 collector age ?

[mos6507]

Trust me, the thirties are where it's at. You're still young enough to get crazy but you're experienced enough to make it home unscathed.

I think my age is perfect. I was born in 1970.

 

But the bad part of being GenX was that the baby boomers got all the attention because they were the largest demographic. We were the invisible generation in a lot of ways. Nobody knew what we stood for. Remember that the 70s were the ME decade, and by ME that meant it was all about the disillusionment of the post-hippie babyboomers.

 

What the baby boomers were going through was all-important. We skulked around in the shadows, undefined.

 

For the most part, our diet of pop culture was largely recycled from the '60s. '60s sitcoms, Star Trek, animated versions of '60s shows (Gilligan's Island) sitcoms about other eras (Happy Days). '60s bands becoming stadium acts in the '70s (Stones, Who, Zeppelin).

 

Most of the kids growing up who got into music got into '60s bands because those were the ones that seemed to have some real substance, not the Carpenters or Air Supply. But we had to look backwards for inspiration because of the overall blandness of the 70s.

 

We really had very little innate culture in the 70s. The bell bottoms and such were really warmed over '60s.

 

Then we had disco which people hated even at the time.

 

It was really only technology that defined the 70s and only by around 77 onward. Technology at the movies (Star Wars, Superman, etc...) and technology at home with consumer electronics and computers. And technology in music with the whole Synth pop thing going on in the early 80s.

[fsuinnc]

41 in November (I actaully remeber when the original Odyssey came out).

[NE146]

I dunno but growing up in the early 70's to me was all about being able to walk up and down the street as a 3 year old without my parents ever knowing, no fear of cars, no fear of others, and without any underwear with my bird hanging out for all to see

 

Oh and playing by the side of the street and seeing a car maybe once every couple of hours...

 

The islands were a much more idyllic place then

[maximebeauvais]

physicaly--38 in october

mentaly--14

 

 

physicaly---31

mentaly----14

 

that's what my wife always said when I'm farting

[l3ushwig]

i may be the youngest here.... or ever.... 15

[l3ushwig]

well in a few months i will be 15

[Draikar]

24 or 25 this December ( I stopped counting after 21 )

[WildBillTX]

42 (43 in late november)

 

And it was a very different world in the late 70's when the 2600 first came out.

 

Back then you were cool if you owned a Mattel Electronic Foootball and a digital watch. Most of my freinds had 8-track players in their cars and if you wanted to hear rock music it was all on AM radio. FM was dominated by "Beautiful Music" MOR stations were I lived.

 

If you wanted to find out if your favorite team won you had to stay up and watch the 10 o'clock news or read it in tommorow mornings newspaper.

 

I liked most of 70's classic rock and wore out albums and tapes by Styx, Kansas, KISS, REO, Genesis, Rush, Skynard, and Van Halen. There was a lot of great bands in the 80's but most of those hair bands and new wave groups music hasnt aged as well.

 

I thought the 2600 was an exotic and expensive piece of electronics.

[WildBillTX]

The car to own was Pontiac Trans-Am or a Camero. The Mustang had been devolved to the "Mustang II" - which was basically mostly Pinto parts with a larger body. You could get a 5.0 (302) but it was only 140 horsepower.

 

The late 70's was a terrible time for performance cars with engines full of smog junk and low horsepower.

[SS]

the bad part of being GenX was that the baby boomers got all the attention because they were the largest demographic.  We were the invisible generation in a lot of ways.

 

We got punk rock and we got Atari. My life would have been radically different without either of the two.

[kemsted]

I'm 15, been playing since 6 or 7, been collecting for 2 years.

[ninjarabbit]

27 here, i'm amazed that we live in a world where the PS2 is considered underpowered and the Dreamcast is a fossil.

[hal2k1]

completed 30 in may

 

 

Where do you live? i am from brazil

[AtariYoungin]

in 17, more of a gamer than collector though

[holygrailvideogames.com]

35

[moogplayer]

another to the long list of 36 year olds

[SteveW]

35. I was at that age when the 2600 came out, that it consumed all my free time. It was the center of my universe for quite a few years, until my parents bought me a TI Home Computer for Christmas 1983. From then on, I tried to make games that I wanted to play, instead of waiting for others to create them. Nowadays, I look back at the VCS's games with nostalgia, but I don't play them all that much. They didn't contain a lot of depth, which is why I got into computers, so I could play games that had an actual ending to them, an acheivable goal, and not just play to rack up a high score.

[Spud]

37 in Febuary, born at the right time for the video game revolution.

[Brad2600]

Will be 23 in 2 weeks.

[+Andrew Davie]

#%0101000 @ 9/11

[Stella+KDE]

36

[conda]

35

[NovaXpress]

I think we'd be safe to come up with an estimate of just over 30 as the median age. That's what we all expected.

[maibock]

38 and can still throw eggs like the youngins' can

[highinfidelity]

Exactly. As a matter of fact, I'm 30 as well. Yep, sure I'm, ain't no doubt! It's AT LEAST two years that I say that I'm 30, so I recall it perfectly.