Childhood 2600 memories..

[yuppicide]

Ahh memories:

 

1 - I remember back when Space War game first game out. Down at the Jersey shore one of the arcades had a "crane game" you could win Space War. It was pretty impossible to win, though. The game was encased in a clear plastic dome and you had to grab the dome off top of the game.

 

The kid downstairs from us in the house we rented every year won it!

 

2 - I remember my Dad had one 2600 game I wasn't allowed to play. It was in a leather case. As I grew up I realize it was Custer's Revenge.

 

3 - I played Laser Blast for like 4-6 hours straight one day and my Dad walked down to the store for cigarettes (I was like 8 or 9 years old). I was a good kid and playing Atari so he didn't mind I stayed there. So, the kid from upstairs came down and I taunted him with my Atari, and when I went to lock the door on him I put the chain up and he pushed open the door and got his head stuck in the door and started freaking out. Was the only time my Dad ever spanked me LOL!

 

4 - I probably said this one before, but my Uncle worked for Atari or some company and he got a lot of games. I wish I could go raid his house, but I haven't talked to them in like 12 years! He had the most games I've ever seen back in the 80's. He must have had 40-50 games easily.

 

What's some of your memories like?!

[Room 34]

I vividly remember the day we got my Atari 2600. It was a Friday in May 1982. I think I've recounted the whole story in excessive detail in a previous thread, so suffice to say we got these games: Combat (of course), Pac-Man, Asteroids, Breakout, Bowling, and Home Run. I was only 8 but my parents let me stay up until well after midnight playing them all!

 

I also distinctly remember one morning that summer going out with my dad to do some errands, and we bought Video Olympics. I was amazed because it came with a really old catalog that listed a couple of games I'd never heard of before (because they'd been discontinued, a concept I didn't understand at the time): Surround and Slot Machine. (The game had obviously been waiting for us to buy it for two years!)

 

I remember in 1987, when I still had the Atari, but was not so into it anymore, as I'd just gotten a Tandy 1000 EX computer, and I gave about half of my collection to a friend who was moving away. By high school a couple of years later I had already become somewhat of a "vintage gamer" (as my friends all had NESes, but I was rediscovering the Atari 2600). I lamented giving those games away! And then when my NES buddies gave up their 2600 carts for their parents' garage sales, I snagged 'em! I still have a copy of Maze Craze with my high school best friend's name written on the label with a ball-point pen.

 

I remember my first (and sadly, almost last) exciting 2600 thrift find, at the VA Thrift Store in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1994. I got 4 titles I'd never owned before, including Millipede and Warlords.

 

I remember buying my 7800 NOS from Telegames in 1997, and when I opened the package, watching the sides of the box fall apart; the glue had dried with age.

 

I remember getting seriously obsessed with the vintage scene in 2002, when I started visiting this site. I finally got Pitfall II and in the process of trying to beat it, found the map Ben "Pitfall Harry" Valdes created. I also found his insane, ingenious contest embedded within it, and thought about it day and night for a month!

 

(Hard to believe enough time has passed that I'm actually feeling nostalgic about something related to this website itself!)

[Mindfield]

Hey, this site's been around long enough that it can evoke a sort of nostalgia. I remember being part of Ye Olde Atari 2600 Nexus for some time before it metamorphosed into AtariAge v1.0. I remember the Tempest 2600 proto was discovered shortly before the Nexus disappeared, and Yak declared that it was "Pants!" (Referring to the first level's resemblance to briefs, not the UK derogatory slang)

 

But to the issue of one's childhood, I remember quite a bit.

 

- My first Atari was a Coleco. Gemini, that is. Bought in 1982 from Consumer's Distributing. I dunno if they had those in the US, but they were a chain store in Canada that differed from your average department store in that their stores had absolutely nothing on display. Instead, their store fronts had hexagonal kiosks with catalogs, stubby pencils and tear sheets; you'd look through the catalog, get the item number for the item you wanted, write it on a sheet, then take it to the counter, where they'd send a stock boy to fetch it and bring it out so you could pay for it. We brought the Gemini home, hooked it up, and I then proceeded to irritate my dad with the sounds of Donkey Kong for weeks. Over the next year I only managed to expand my collection by Mouse Trap and Spike's Peak/Ghost Manor.

 

- The year following that my dad bought me a used Colecovision from friends of ours for my next birthday in 1983. It came with Expansion #2 (steering wheel) and Turbo, plus Ladybug and Donkey Kong Jr, and possibly one or two others. I ended up trading someone one of those games later that year for Destructor, because it worked with the wheel. I had no idea how to play (no manual) so I ended up making my own game: Barracade myself into an area with loads of crystals to prevent the monsters from getting at me. Of course, the monsters ate crystals, so they inevitably did.

 

I didn't find out how the game was really supposed to be played until 2001.

 

- In the spring of 1984, we moved. Packed everything in boxes, and then when we ran out of boxes, green garbage bags. I refused to let my game systems be packed up until the last, so they got bagged. They also got mistaken for actual garbage, something I didn't find out 'til we arrived at our new home. Major bummer. I was relegated to spending my weekend allowance (which my dad bumped to $10/week) doing what I usually did: Going to a nearby mall and being a mallrat.

 

- In the late summer/early fall of 1984, my birthday again, our new neighbours -- friends of friends, actually -- who must have known of my predicament, gave me an incredible gift: A hand-me-down, honest-to-goodness six-switch 2600 with somewhere on the order of 30+ games, more than making up for the loss I suffered earlier that year. There were some games that thoroughly bored me at the time (Bridge, for example) but by and large I loved 'em all.

 

- During my weekend allowance-blowing trips I always passed a Toys "R" us on my way to the mall. (I bussed it, of course) I always told myself I'd have to go in there one day, just in case there was anything more enjoyable to spend my allowance on than whatever crap I bought at the mall every weekend. (Usually nothing significant -- probably junk food 'n stuff) Shortly after I'd burned through and became bored of the games I got for my birthday, I decided to do just that. This particular TRU was designed rather insidiously: The long hallway leading from the front doors turned immediately left into an alcove stacked floor to rafters with junk food of every shape and colour. Lord, but parents must have had to resort to voodoo magic to get their kids past that section without throwing a fit. Then isle one was the stuff every nerdy kid's dreams were made of: Game systems, robots, and tech gadgets of every sort sat behind illuminated, glass-fronted display cases. From the 2600 to the 5200 (and later NES), from the Atari XL to Commodore 64 (and even Plus-4 and C=16), even the Tomy line of robots, which culiminated in the ultimate programmable slave -- Omnibot. I wanted one of those so bad. After I'd left my noseprints on every inch of glass, I moved on to isle two -- the stuff you played on the stuff dreams were made of: The software isle. Lord, but there were a lot of games. Commodore, IBM, Apple and Atari -- computer and console, cassette, disk and cartridge. Mmmm. But my eyes stuck to the 2600 section.

 

It spanned about one third of the isle (which itself was quite long, divided up into 4 intersecting isles -- two of which were at the extreme ends, so there were 3 sections to each isle, and one of those was all Atari) so there were a lot of titles for both 2600 and 5200. Mostly 2600. But even more shocking was that there were a lot -- probably 50 or more -- that I could fit into my $10/week allowance! (This was mid-to-late crash 1984, so stuff was cheap, but I didn't know that at the time) I now had a new weekly routine: I was going to come back and buy everything I could afford until all that remained were the expensive ones that I had to wait for Christmas or my Birthday to get.

 

But that day I had to get down to business; I had to pick a game. And it had to be a good one -- it had to last me a whole week. That was a monumental decision for me. So I pored over each and every box -- looked at the art, read the box copy, checked the screenshots (where there were any), and tried to imagine what the game would be like to play once I got it home. I spent literally an hour and a half or more whittling the choices down until I had arrived at just one. I don't remember which one, frankly, but knowing my proclivities it was probably E.T. or Raiders.

 

I went through that same ritual every week from that point for about the next 8-10 months or so until my collection had expanded to something like 70 or so carts.

 

Good times. :-)

[kyle]

I remember i wanted a NES so bad but my mom and dad didn't have the money to get me one. So for my birthday in 1989 they got me an atari 2600 JR and a couple games. I was happy with it as i didn't have any video game system at the time. Then another good memory was for christmas the same year they got me about 20 atari 2600 games from some store that was clearing out all their 2600 games. I stayed up all night on dec 25 playing them. Then i gave my atari 2600 away in 1991 and got a NES. But around 1995 i picked up a 7800 from a friend of mine for $15.00 played it for a about a year and then it went up in my mom's attic. Flash forward to 2002 i find atariage.com i go up to my mom's attic find my 7800 and start collecting. Now 300 games later i still have that 7800 and i'm making new memorys everytime i find an atari game.

[BydoEmpire]

I remember going to Sears or something with my Dad looking at the VCS & Intellivision clones. We decided on Intellivsion because it seemed more powerful, and that was the family present. A few years later, I traded some Apple 2 software for a friend's 2600, which I still have to this day. I was never one to stick with just one console maker. I always liked being able to play any game on any system.

 

During the crash, the local Kay Bee had a big table filled w/ 2600 games. I picked up a few in the $2 - $4 range, but there were so many more I wanted to get if my allowance had... allowed it. If only I could have explained to my parents that it was an INVESTMENT.

[jeepnut24]

Well all I know is that one friend had a 2600 and my best friend had an intellevision. I got to enjoy both at their houses only.

 

My parents wouldn't allow us to get the 2600 or the NES later on.

 

Though we did convince them to allow us to get the genesis.

 

We got the latest PC's instead.

 

Ended up as a programmer. Now I have the atari collection that I always wanted and some day will start a NES collection too.

[Gregory DG]

I just remember playing Pitfall II, Space Invaders, & Warlords until I passed out!

[Chris-in-NJ]

My first 2600 was second-hand, coming from my older brother's friend one Christmas. I don't recall how many games it had, though the first one I tried was Breakout. The paddles were shaky, so we used some Radio Shack TV tuner cleaner on them and they worked perfectly (my dad was something of an amateur audiophile in those days, I remember we had the Radio Shack stereo TV adapter as soon as it was available, so we had stereo TV, mostly all NBC shows, before anyone else I knew).

 

Breakout stayed in my cartridge slot for quite some time, I recall playing it for hours on end.

 

The first new game I bought was Plaque Attack at a game store that was within walking distance from my house. Both my best friends had had 2600s for about a year longer than I had, though neither of them had Breakout. They did have lots of Activision games, so I figured Plaque Attack would be good as neither of them had it.

 

Back in 1982 or 1983, the Child World at Garden State Plaza in Paramus, NJ was my favorite place to go whenever my parents went to the mall there (all the stores were out in the open, so to go from one store to another you had to walk OUTSIDE!). They had a large alcove of 2600 stuff which I could never afford. The Sam Goody store had a big game display, with typically a C64, 800, 2600 and Vectrex set up for anyone to use. One time someone had programmed the C64 to display "I HATE ATARI" in large letters while a funereal dirge played.

 

There are other memories, but this posting has grown long enough!

[jeepnut24]

I forgot to mention that my brother and I used to lust after all the new Atari titles at Kiddie City... I can still remember the clearing out of all the old Atari games to make way for the newer consoles. At that age, I didn't think to stock up, nor did I have the $$$.

[Ben_Larson]

My first 2600 memory probably involves going over to my neighbor's house to play some ot their games. I distinctly remember Circus Atari and Basketball, but past that I can't really remember anything. I was pretty young at the time, maybe only 7 or so...

 

Later I got a 7800 and would trade 2600 games with all my friends in the neighborhood, since a lot of them had 2600s. I had my Atari hooked up in my room (which was in the basement) to a 13" Philco black and white TV that I had managed to procure at a garage sale for like $5. Man I thought that was the greatest thing in the world to be able to play video games on my own TV in my own room down in the basement at about age 10...

 

Ben

[yuppicide]

Nice stories. I also remember the first time we got our Atari. I don't remember when exactly. I was probably about 4 years old. I do remember being in the vehicle, going to a store and that's it. LOL! I remember when we got Space Invaders.

 

I also remember when Lionel Kiddie City was going out of business. They had a bin of Atari games. Looking back I should have bought them all even if they were duplicates.

[Vic George 2K3]

Christmas 1981. It was mine and my brother's (combined) Christmas gift. My sister Vicky or Melinda sprang for the Space Invaders cartridge just a day or so later. We played the heck out of it all day. Our collection got a slow build over the course of 1982, with games like Bowling, Laser Blast, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Defender, Star Raiders, and Surround being the only games we got during that year, as far as memory serves.

 

One of the counselors from another cottage at St. Vincent's Home brought over his Atari 2600 to the cottage I was staying in, and me and some other students had a game night with games like Missile Command, Video Pinball, and Street Racer, all in glorious black-and-white, like how I played my games at home. Most of the time over there, I was going through VGW -- videogame withdrawal -- and the only way I can deal with it was to fantasize about the kind of game system I would want to come up with and the games I would make and release for that system. I did get a Tron handheld game unit for Christmas of 1982, but it got stolen just a week or so when I was coming back from a home visit, so I was plenty POed for the first several months of 1983. Plus the constant teasing I got from some of my fellow student residents didn't help matters any. But thank God that the Tron handheld game was selling for less than half its original cost at Kay-Bee Toys in the summer of 1983, so part of my gaming fix got cured for a good while.

 

Then me and my brother wanted to get a ColecoVision, and so my mother sold the Atari 2600 to a next-door neighbor, along with the Donkey Kong cartridge and the two Amiga Powerstick controllers, in order to get a CV with an Atari 2600 game adapter in early 1984. That pretty much ended the story of my family having an Atari 2600, though I would end up getting a Coleco Gemini from a Zayre's store in Fall River in 1985 when I was living in a group home that was part of St. Vincent's.

[Shawn]

MY parents got a 2600 around Christmas '78 and I was about say negative 3 years old...lol..anyhow my first 2600 memories are from when I was about 3 years old and getting the games Popeye and Smurf:RIGC. My parents had worn out both the joysticks by about '85 and we got a use set to replace them and Christmas '86 I got my NES and didn't play ATARI for about 10 years as I was roped into the NES world. Go back into ATARI in about 1996 for fun and started to collect for ATARI seriously about 2 years ago after I realized I couldn't just go to a yard sale any given sunday and get an ATARI and 10 games for 5 bucks anymore so I had to keep my ATARI now and not just chuck it when I got board with it.

Funniest thing is Smurf:RIGC is still to this day (20 years later) my overall hands down favorite game. And thats my ATARI story

[kencrisis]

The day after Xmas, 1978, my rich and popular neighbor (and a real bastard) invited me over to check out his 2600. It was the first one I'd seen in "real life," and I remember how I thought it looked so big, fancy and hi-tech. My neighbor wouldn't let me touch it -- I had to just sit there and watch him switch joysticks as he played rounds of Combat against himself! To be honest, although I was a little annoyed and really wanted to play, I was pretty dang happy to just be watching it -- it looked so cool.

 

My parents would never buy us a 2600, but sometime in the early '80s, a family friend gave us their VCS and around 20 games when they upgraded to something else. My big brother (also a real bastard at the time) claimed ownership and wouldn't let me play it. Once again, I would mostly have to be content with watching and reading the manuals. (To this day, I have a strong affection for the manuals; I read them over and over.) My brother would often take the power supply with him when he wasn't playing it so that I couldn't "mess up the Atari." When I did get to play, I was terrible because I could never put any time into learning the games. But I still had fun.

 

I have strong memories of summer vacation days in the early '80s: wake up at 10am to watch a Love Boat rerun and eat Lucky Charms. Play Atari (or watch it being played) from 11am to noon. Watch 2 episodes of Twighlight Zone from noon to 1pm. Go out and play until late afternoon and come back for more Atari, a few cartoons and more sugary food. Good times.

[Atari-Jess]

My earliest 2600 memory is visiting my Aunt Pat's house and asking her...

friend what "Nintendo game" she was playing.

 

She told me it was an Atari game. I know now it was defender and I believe

it was a 2600jr.

 

Never did get a chance to play it though...

 

I wonder if Aunt Pat still has it.

[Zonie]

I got my VCS for christmas 1978. I was 11 at the time. I wanted "Target Fun" but since it was the Sears version of Air-sea Battle, my mom couldn't find it at Longs Drugstore (where she bought it), natch. I didn't know Sears titles were different. She picked up Superman instead. I liked it just as well. Was happy just getting an Atari. My two best firends both had them already, and one's dad was a doctor, so they had every cart available, back then! lucky bastard!

 

I bought Space invaders the week it came out. Same Place: Longs Drugs. It's a Walgreens now, just a couple miles away from here. No atari's there anymore. I was in there with my 10 year old son a few weeks ago. Told him that my Atari was purchased there. He didn't believe it.

 

Was the first one to get Pac man when it came out. What a dissapointment that one was. Got it at sears. I was with my mom or dad, and it hadn't come out yet, but there it was. Sears Pac Man. I begged to get it and got it. Had to pick up dogshit or mow the lawn more for it for a while, but that's the way it went.

 

I used to stay over at my friends house or vice versa and we'd play the things all night. Sometimes we even camped in the back yard in a tent and had the atari out there with a little BW TV and eat burned popcorn cooked on the campstove. Cocacola kept us awake for it. Asteroids in a tent on a 5 inch BW screen...you can't beat that!

 

When I got my Vic-20, the atari went into the closet.

 

I started picking up batches of carts at flea markets and yard sales before eBay came on the scene, but as you all know, those days are over.

 

Sadly, I kept all the boxes and manuals all these years, but about 5 years ago, finally and painfully chucked the boxes (kept the manuals) in the paper recycle bin never to be seen again. sigh.

 

Oh well, my wife (second one) would be complaining about them anyway.

 

I sympathise with Kencrisis. My step son does that "watch me play shit" with his PS2 and previously his Dreamcast (mine now) If I were his friends, I'd be like: I'm outta here, asshole!

 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Mindfield]

Funny... it seems like a lot of people bought games from Long's Drugs. I have a number of boxes that still have Long's price tags on them. (And a few with Walgreen's tags on them, too)

[Lord Helmet]

We didn't have Wallgreens bakc then...only Eckards, which was just bought out by CVS. I used to get most of my games from TG&Y. I also remeber getting games at my local supermarket. They had the big kiosk with the joysticks and VCS bolted to it. My mom always made me go to the store with her in the summetime. I would just sit there and play games until she was finished...

[AtariGator]

At Christmas in '81 or '82 my parents presented us with a gigantic wrapped paper towel box. We had no idea what was in this huge box. We opened it up, and the inside was filled with shredded newspapers. We sifted through the shredded paper to the bottom of the box where a brand new Atari 2600 "Woody" was awaiting. I remember playing Asteroids till 5am. Little by little I built up a collection of 60-65 games. I bought a lot of games myself by not eating lunch at school, and using my lunch money to buy Atari cartridges. However, the crowning jewel was when my mother bought me Pitfall II at Montgomery Wards. I remember being in sheer awe when first playing this game. When I was 19 yrs old I sold my 2600, 65 games, 4 working joysticks, and a set of paddles for a mere $70. I guess I needed some beer money at the time because I obviously didn't care about my 2600 anymore. Pains me till this day that I sold it.

[yuppicide]

The only negative thing I can say is my Dad has always liked racing games. I remember sitting through countless hours of family get togethers with them playing Night Driver and Enduro. Then countless hours of Rad Racer on the NES. I hate all of them games.