A little Atari activity

[+slx]

My son is participating in a "History of Video Games" presentation during the Open Day/Anniversary Celebration of his school. What better excuse to show off some Atari gear?

 

Finally opened up my 65XE which has nice video but a dead keyboard and put in a new Best Electronics Mylar which had been in storage for a couple of years as well as Best XE Touch silicon keycups. Very easy, just all those tiny screws are tedious. Wow! Feels almost like the famous IBM keyboard now, just no clicking.

 

Preparing a multicart with some games I remembered that I had ordered a programmer for 8MBit Atarimax cartridges. Couldn't remember receiving it but after some rummaging found it on my desk. Sure beats writing an ATR to an SD card and then using SIO2SD to flash. Only I had not ordered a USB cable to go with it as every self-respecting household with a decade-long history of computing has plenty of those, haven't they? I found a ton of USB A-B cables indeed but not a single USB A-A cable , so back to SIO2SD....

 

 

 

[Mclaneinc]

I hope you and your son have a great time, long live Atari...

[+slx]

Have to admit that we only set up the VCS (playing mainly Pong and mentioned in the presentation as the first cartridge-based console to reach a wide audience and starting the video game boom) and a Vectrex (to showcase Space War as the first programmed video game). We were lucky to set up in a classroom with a huge 1990s CRT that gave a great picture off the VCS's RF output. Unfortunately we did not have enough space to set up another machine and so the VCS won out over the 65XE due to its period looks.

 

In his presentation my son told the story of Computer Space being too hard and brainy to succeed commercially and it was interesting to notice that this was mirrored in our setup. Quite some people gave Space Wars a try but gave up saying "it's too complicated" and turned to Pong instead.

 

 

Still got a working 65XE out of this! Now need to clean up those other machines with their various hiccups and persuade another kid to volunteer for a "History of Atari" presentation

[spinnaker15136]

Have to admit that we only set up the VCS (playing mainly Pong and mentioned in the presentation as the first cartridge-based console to reach a wide audience and starting the video game boom) and a Vectrex (to showcase Space War as the first programmed video game). We were lucky to set up in a classroom with a huge 1990s CRT that gave a great picture off the VCS's RF output. Unfortunately we did not have enough space to set up another machine and so the VCS won out over the 65XE due to its period looks.

 

In his presentation my son told the story of Computer Space being too hard and brainy to succeed commercially and it was interesting to notice that this was mirrored in our setup. Quite some people gave Space Wars a try but gave up saying "it's too complicated" and turned to Pong instead.

 

P4260003.JPG

 

Still got a working 65XE out of this! Now need to clean up those other machines with their various hiccups and persuade another kid to volunteer for a "History of Atari" presentation

 

 

I can remember like was yesterday, the first time I played pong. It was at the bowling ally just up the road. It was the table version. I was absolutely amazed. We played till all our quarters ran out. Kids flocked to that place from all over town after the word was out. Back then every game was mechanical. The only thing close was an electro-mechanical game called Sea Raider.

 

I think kids are really missing out today. They were born into the tech world. I think I was very fortunate to be born in the right time in history to see it really evolve.

 

 

 

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Edited April 27, 2019 by spinnaker15136

[scitari]

Here are a number of short projects your son might enjoy.

[TGB1718]

My first experience was also a 'Table' Pong, followed closely by a build it yourself kit from Watford Electronics which just gave you

the PCB and components, I had to box, power and make joysticks (analogue), it had pong and a Shooting game.

 

Next was an Atari 2600, the rest is history...

 

at least my kids has a decent upbringing