When did you first get a 2600?

[Bountybob]

I got my Atari VCS Christmas 1980.I'm positive it was a heavy sixer it shipped with Combat and I think it had Captain Atari

or Atari Club Catalog.I lived in a small town outside Dublin in Ireland most people hadn't even heard of Atari.I already had

because I had an Atari Touch Me game a couple of years earlier.It was cool to be one of the lucky few to own one(Initially I

only knew one or other kid who had a VCS and he had the same games I had) but the downside was that meant no game swaps.So I

was stuck playing Space Invaders and Combat for a while.Luckily these were Two very good games that had a lot of playability.

In 1980 in Ireland new Atari 2600 games where pricey The Activision games where almost half the price.Anyway over the next year

or two I ended up getting Laser Blast, Tennis, Defender, Battlezone, Skin Diver, Checkers and Phoenix.After a while the

price dropped and more kids had Atari's so I got a loan of Pacman, Superman, ET, Missile Command, Asteroids, Moon Patrol, Vanguard,

Empire Strikes Back, Berzerk, Haunted House, Yars Revenge, Pole Position, Jungle Hunt, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Star Raiders,

Demon Attack, and Vanguard plus a couple of others that I can't remember.Then around 1984 I managed to pick up some boxed second

games cheap Polaris, Gangster Alley, China Syndrome, Cross Force and Eggomania the first ever game to make use of my original VCS

Paddles.By this stage a lot of kids were getting home computers, I got a Sinclair ZX Spectrum at the recommendation of my friend

Leo who already had one.I wish I had known better I would have got an Atari 800 or a Commodore 64 instead.I ended giving away my

Atari VCS around 1985.I wish I had kept it.It was well played though and I'm glad I had it.

Edited September 15, 2011 by Bountybob

[rocky412]

My parents gave me an Atari 2600 for Christmas back in 1978. Been hooked ever since.

[4Ks]

I got my first one in early 2008, but it was broken. I didn't get a working one until later that year. It worked for about 2 years, getting slowly more and more problematic until it croaked. I wish there was some way to play 2600 games on actual hardware without having to worry about reliability. 7800 is probably the best bet (being the newest), but I'm really hesitant to buy another old Atari system considering my 6 broken 2600s and the 5200 with totally busted controllers.

[kamakazi]

My first Atari was a 5200 4-port on Christmas of 1982. I didn't get a 2600 until I was 13. NES was the craze then and fellow classmate was wanting to sell off his 2600 Woody with 30 games. He sold it to me for $10 bucks. It didn't play long and I wish I would have held on to it as I could have probably fixed it now. Today, my wife and I enjoy our 2600jr even if we only have 3 games for it. But those games are complete in the box

[Scrabbler15]

Got mine with wedding gift money in 1982.

 

Still playing Atari.

 

Still got the woman.

 

A marriage made in heaven...

[A_Locomotive]

I got mine this year in June from the.golden.ax in a trade, 5 pokemon games for a Sears Video Arcade 4 switch with a bunch of games.

[Atari Punk 78]

I think I got my first Atari back in 1982 or 3, used from my aunt. I didn't even know I had it till 1987.

[RodLightning]

I got a 4-switch woody for Christmas in 1981, along with Asteroids cartridge. It was a very fun holiday. I remember that some time later, Intellivision commercials were running that made Atari Asteroids look very bad when compared to their pack-in game for Intellivision systems. I can't remember the name of that game and I liked Asteroids enough not to care. Combat & Asteroids were the only games I had for the first few months.

 

I had really wanted the six switch model because I thought it looked better and I had been playing the display model in J.C. Penny's for months. It was what we now call a light sixer. I finally got a broken sixer last year via ebay and repaired it. Today I have both 4 & 6 sw versions so hooray for me.

[PsychoKittyNet]

My parents had one already when I was young, so I used that one for a few years, did not play again until high school when my mom picked one up at a garage sale, really made me love the system all over again.

[Kreeboy]

The Atari first entered our household in 84...when stores were trying to get rid of them. That was about the same time we picked up the Colecovision...but that's another story.

I remember I would save my allowance money and go down the street to a TV repair shop...the guy there sold loose Atari carts for $2.50 to $5.00 each. It was the equivalent of the corner convince store for me..I never ran out of new things to play even though the stores didn't really carry them that much anymore.

 

We played the Atari mainly until we got an NES for Christmas in 88. But I still loved the 2600. ^_^

Pitfall II, Carnival and Yar's Revenge to this day still some of my favorite games.

[galbyman]

I was six when I recieved mine for Christmas (I am 37 now). The funny thing was that even though it was plugged up to the TV and on with COMBAT in it I didn't notice it. I was way to interested in the bicycle and remote control R2D2 that I had recieved to look at our television. When my father finally told me to look at the TV I totaly freaked out. It was a 4 switch with COMBAT, Space Invaders, and Asteroids and was my toy ever. My mother and father and I used to play for hours and while my mother would work with me on games like Asteroides, my father would always play against me but somehow alway lose badly (thanks dad). He died a couple of years later but those Atari memories with him are some of the greatest and most powerful that I have.

[Skylark68]

I don't remember the exact year that my family bought one, but it was within a few days of Pac Man being released for the system. My Dad packed up the '79 Le Mans station wagon and the family headed off to Gemco. We ended up with a 4 switch woody, Combat, and Pac Man. I remember trying really hard to get my Dad to get Warlords but he said we were only buying 1 game to go with it and he wanted Pac Man. I think he played it maybe 2 or 3 times the entire time that I was growing up. I bet he would have liked Warlords better. Oh well. Eventually I picked up a pretty decent game collection, aided especially by the crash (when you could get most of the games for under $5.). When the NES came out I tried real hard to get one, but my Dad didn't want to buy any other video game systems (mainly due to the crash). We ended up with a Apple II GS a couple of years later (he got burned on that worse than the Atari - ha). So, I ended up being "stuck" with my old Atari for video games. It was a good time to still be an Atari fan because stores like Kay Bee and Toys R Us still carried a lot of titles, and plenty of kids that got a NES got rid of their Ataris at garage sales that we frequented. Eventually through garage sales and friends I accumulated a Sears light sixer, an Atari heavy sixer, a Jr., and at least 2 or 3 other 4 switchers. In the past 2 years or so I sold all of the systems except for my original 4 switcher (which still works great). I love Atari mainly due to the simplicity of the games and the fact that the replayability is basically limitless. The only game that I never liked for the system was Swordquest Fireworld. I could always find at least one reedeeming quality for all the rest of the games that I owned.

[Nateo]

I got mine the summer of 2001, after my 8th grade year. I had wanted one for a while since I found out about, having been interested in video game history for some time before that. I had asked for it for Christmas for several years, but my parents said they couldn't find one (this was before internet shopping really hit the mainstream). I finally decided to just save up my own money from mowing lawns and whatnot, and bought a refurbished four-switch, which I still use to this day. I think I still remember the first six games I had for it... Berzerk, Donkey Kong Jr, Asteroids, Joust.... ehh, not quite

[Bountybob]

When I got my Atari VCS in Christmas 1980 we couldn't get the TV Tuned to play it we even brought it to my next door neighbours house and couldn't get it to work there either.We thought there might be something wrong with the console.We called up the TV man and he came around with his son turns out we were trying to tune it in on UHF instead of VHF or vice versa.His son got it working and tried out Space Invaders he had a couple of games of it and said to me that's pretty cool.I had to wait a whole week for these guys to get it working because it was during the holidays.

The funny thing is something similar happened two years later when I got Defender for Christmas.The Pal Defender came with a heavy European multiple language instruction book .Can you believe when I opened it up Christmas morning no game cartridge inside it.The guy at the store forgot to pack it after demonstrating it us.I was gutted but we rang up the shop a few days later and they checked the stock and had an extra game so I got it a week later better late than never.

Edited September 20, 2011 by Bountybob

[SONDER2600]

i think it was 95 it was a heavy sixer and it was my older brothers

[Atari Hacker]

I only recently bought one a few months a go. I went to a flea market and expecting xbox 360 games (first time going to a flea market)

So, after I got there, outside where a few xbox 360 games that sucked. I went inside and found a video game store! It had 2 Atari 2600 in cardboard boxes, both with broken Television adapters! I was upset, until I found a on a shelf a 2600 Jr. in the box for 50 bucks! I brought 50 bucks to get an xbox 360 game, but no, I bought an Atari 2600 Jr. in the box! The guy let me pick 4 games, and I got an extra joystick (The box had none ) And the games I got where Defender, Ms.Pacman, Asteroids and Space Invaders!

 

Happy ending

[Torr]

Good choices in carts my man..

but then I don't know what they had for you to to pick from either...

[ferghead]

I got my VCS for Christmas of 1980. I keep it because it has always been fun and I'm not getting rid of it.

Same here, although I don't have my original anymore. I have made up for that many times over.

[Grig]

Summer of 1980. I was almost 10. We got a 4 switch at Montgomery Ward's. My mom took me and we paid $225 for the unit (the one with Combat). I think I paid for half of it from birthday and Christmas money. Still got the box and everything 30 years later and it still works great (even the paddles!). I didn't build up a large collection of games until much,much later but I had slot racers, Dodge Em, ESB, Frogger, ET, ROTLA as my main gaming database. I still play it today. Great, simplistic fun.

[RockinRollMcDonalds]

I found my Woodgrain 6 switch at a Flea market around 2007 with only paddles, some instructions for games that weren't there, and a storage case for $20 but had to pay another vendor $2 per game so I could have something to play with when I got home (I believe the games I got were Berserk, Enduro, Space invaders, and Breakout) Since this was my first time with a 2600, I didn't know you had to push the reset switch to start the game so I spent the first night hopelessly pressing the controller buttons trying to play a game.

[Tr3vor]

I think it was the fall of 2009. got the system, 2 controllers, all the hookups, and around 17 games for 30$. I think if someone was to try to sell something like that, It would end up at 50$. stupid ebay.

[Megaman Legends]

I got my 4-switch woody at a place down my street. Later on I got skiing defender and space invaders my eyes never left the screen..............except when it came to skiing

[VectorGamer]

1980

$160 at Service Merchandise

Came with Combat and we bought Space Invaders that night also

[bomberpunk]

1984 at the age of three.

[Keatah]

I had gotten one of the first heavy sixers, s/n in the 3000's, in 1977-1978. Winter of '77 I believe. We quickly accumulated the original 8 cartridges almost overnite. And then periodically added a game a week - keeping up with all the major catalogs like from Activision and Imagic and 20th Century Fox and Parker Brothers, and others I'm sure.

 

Later this got converted into a pull-toy for my sister to ride around on. We stuck the casters from the old chairs the neighbors threw out - right into the screw holes. And we'd pull her around on it with the rf cord. When it broke off soon enough, it became a skateboard of a sorts, and we used the rf cord to tie her up. Those were the best of times indeed!

 

Soon after that, I had learned all about electronics and gotten an Apple II+. Not knowing what was all in the box and not.. I needed an rf modulator. So the 2600 was again cannibalized further and within the evening I had the II+ jamming on the family tv set.

 

I also used the switches for my science fair project on Solar Energy - remember, this was the 70's and men of science had their heads filled with alternate energy and visions of space colonies. And I also used the ribbon cable from the cartridge slot for a repair on my Apple Cat modem from Novation. (the best 1200 baud bitch in town!)

 

The metal shielding saw duty as a mold for plastique.

The motherboard became a source for various resistors and capacitors for other projects.

And finally the RF cable found its way, as part of an extension wire, into my Voyager-2 project.

 

When I was disappointed with the sound on the II+ (I appreciate it much more now), my parents went out and got another 2600 because I threatened to not go to school anymore, truant officer be damned!

 

I still have the original grey-color TIA chip with the prototype markings on it.

Edited November 20, 2011 by Keatah