For children of a certain age (mid 30's - mid 40's now), this was the must have toy. I played Pitfall on this thing until the controller wore out!
Yahoo! News: Happy 35th, Atari 2600!
October 14 marks the 35th birthday of the legendary game console, which landed with a bang in 1977. It wasn't the first home video game system -- that honor belongs to the Magnavox Odyssey -- but it quickly became the most widely adopted and set the standard for many, many years.
1978 Atari 2600 commercial with Pete Rose and Don Knotts!
1981 Atari 2600 commercial
1983 Atari 2600 commercial
And just to make the younger techies gag, this is what we played with:
While today's systems launch with bleeding-edge computing power, the Atari 2600 has just 128 bytes of RAM. That's bytes, not kilobytes. Comparatively, an iPhone 5 sports 1 GB RAM.
I still have the 1986 version with about 30 games, controllers and keypad sitting in a box in the basement. I keep thinking about hooking it up for the kids, but I’m not even sure how to hook it to a modern TV.
I still have the Intellivision system my grandfather bought in 1979...still works!
Modern video games are more technically impressive, but I think the classics have more character. They did more with less.
These things are probably worth some $$$$
Especially if they are still in the original boxes.
From the article. Search your closets:
26. Some of its games are worth a fortune. The rarest game for the Atari 2600 is Air Raid. Only 13 copies are known to exist today, and they're worth as much as $31,000 each.
27. It took part in the soda wars. Coca-Cola commissioned a 2600 game from Atari called "Pepsi Invaders" that was given exclusively to its Atlanta employees. The Space Invaders clone let players shot the letters "P E P S I" rather than aliens. It's worth a good $2,000 these days.
Good system, but not worth a lot as you'd think. A friend had a 2600 and a (3100?) both with their original boxes and a mountain of games.
Sold everything for only $40. The clone systems probably hurt the market a bit. You can go do a dollar store and pick up a Atari with original looking controller with 100 original games for dirt cheap.
Sensor: that was a problem when I went to test out my friends system. Looked like it required a special converter that ended in those two screw downs for the old ANT in tv's use to have.
The part is $3 at radio shack. We hooked ours 3 months ago.
That brings back the memories. I'd play Yar's Revenge til I couldn't see straight. Also had the game versions of E.T., Superman, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Three of the worst games created by the hand of man.
Not gonna lie I still have my SUPER NES hooked up in our basement....it's fun to play when you have a group of people over!
My wife's family still has their original NES system hooked up to an upstairs TV. Works perfectly...and Duck Hunt was and is a damn fun game.
The original Super Mario game is still the best in my opinion (waaayyy before Super Mario II/III/IV/Kart/Paint/Dr. Mario/Party/Tennis/Golf/etc.).
I played a few Atari games a while back...and honestly, it's just a little too primitive for me in 2012. NES strikes just the right balance of "old school" and "still fun".
INC, it was the 5200 and we had both, plus the 400 and 800 computers when they came out. They loaded games with tape drives, lol, even text adventures. ooo, Adventure, loved that game. My brother was an Air Force computer wiz and he hooked us up, we started with Pong. We went thru the 2600 joystick controllers so bad, I taught myself how to respring the bubble switches in the base, then they came out with Gem controllers and they were so cheap it wasn't worth fixing them anymore. We had a ton of 2600 games, including Air Raid (!). Gave it all to a friend in Chicago 5 years ago after it had sat in the basement uncovered for 20 years. I have no idea what he ended up doing with it. mem'ries....
it's kind of weird that i'm the same age as a video game machine
haha!! Try being old enough to remember a time without them, upso! we weren't really outside kids, we read the World Book encyclopedia for fun, lol.