ask thread What was the crash of 1983 like?

[Dr Manhattan]

I don't recall it whatsoever, meaning it had no impact on my young life. I'm fond of saying it wasn't really a crash but rather a drastic market adjustment.

 

I still played tons of video games and so did all my friends. I continued to buy games with whatever little money I had at the time. None of my friends talked about the crash nor did any of us know anything about it. In the world of my childhood it was business as usual. I kept rocking my Atari 2600 for many years, even after I had purchased newer and more powerful game systems.

[The Usotsuki]

Market correction, sounds about right.

[Keatah]

I noticed on some level of consciousness many of the things happening as described here:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/236134-what-was-the-crash-of-1983-like/page-3?do=findComment&comment=3199915

 

The "crash" of 1983-1984 was like a period of mis-guided change for me (and home video games). To me it seemed like there was an ever-increasing amount of poorly written and non-creative fodder games. Games done by companies I never heard of. Filler material.

 

It also was about the time I began looking for solace in the upcoming 16-bit PC market. I unknowingly and unwittingly kinda-sorta got away from cartridge systems. My parents encouraged me to get rid of my "baby games console systems" and grow up and be a man and forget about computers and games! I was under enormous pressure to get rid of all the boxes, hundreds of them. That didn't sit well with me.

 

Soon I wanted to get into a MAC. But still not yet having enough money of my own I got into the Amiga, which was a disaster for me. Maybe they were right.

 

Eventually, later, the PC became my focus and classic game emulation was invented. Since then I haven't really spent money on consoles.

 

Back then I(we) didn't see it as a crash, that's a business term. I saw it as natural evolution. With stability coming when the PC caught hold.

 

I tried creating my own renaissance by getting a NES and SEGA SMS. Again, money was the problem and I discovered over the course of a summer that there was no way in hell I'd accumulate any sizable collection anytime soon. And there was this nagging thorn of not having the games from when I was a kid - namely the Intellivision, VCS, Atari 400/800, Vectrex, Astrocade, and Colecovision. To re-collect all that stuff was a hopeless cause.

 

During the crash years and my transition through the 16-bit era to the PC I ALMOST !ALMOST! got rid of all my Apple II stuff. But that didn't happen. There were times it sat for years, unused, but packed away somewhat nicely.

 

That was a direct result of all the confusion created (in my head) by trying to collect anything and everything. And by pressure from parents to get rid of "so much electronic junk". And the 16bit-to-PC transition almost did the Apple collection in.

 

In some strange way the ridiculousness of the Amiga taught me how valuable a tried-and-true computer system could be. I went back to the Apple //e for a short time till I gathered funds for my 80486.

 

Some years later I went to the gym, turned into an asshole, became a hit with women and, now, today, still accumulate bits and pieces of Apple II material from time to time.

 

[doctorclu]

Been enjoying reading these memories of around 1983. I have two memories 1) Toy R Us and 2) The Atari Service Center Dumpster.

 

Toys R Us in Dallas, TX:

I remember the first row of games was the 2600 with Intellivision on the other side. You walked down that isle and towards the back were the Atari computer and Commodore Computer games. I remember drooling over Return to Castle Wolfenstein and pondered if I could take a pot shot at Hitler. Yeh I was massively into the Atari computer by then and the BBS scene.

 

But I did pick up some interesting things for the Atari VCS since they were there and affordable. At the time I was doing good to have about $20 on me, roughly 12 at the time. I rode my bike about 3 to 4 miles away to hit Toys R Us and the arcade at the mall.

 

That said, the really cool thing I was able to pick up was:

1) The Starpath Supercharger for like, I want to say $10? And I got Dragonstomper and one or two other games for like $5, maybe less, a piece.

 

2) Remote controlled VCS joysticks. That was fun to play with.

 

Really didn't buy many other games. I was really into the Atari computer at that point so the rest I was saving for computer peripherals. I did remember seeing the Atari 7800 and wondering what the heck that was. And then the 7800 vanished and I wondered if I dreamed it.

 

I saw the synthesizer adaptor for the Intellivision and thought first off, people still played Intellivision. But once over that I was just amazed at how adaptable the Intellivision was. I knew of the Voice module and I believe I knew of the computer module. So the keyboard made me pine for my friend's Intellivision that we used to play.

 

I think the rest of my money also went to Star Wars toys. The Droids and Return of the Jedi figures in 1983-1984 were getting cheaper and cheaper. Got a B-Wing, A-Wing, Y-Wing... mostly got ships.

 

I should note that I got to relive my Toy R Us experience with my favorite location when TRON LEGACY came out with their action figure line. A year or so after that in 2012 the Toys R Us moved about 6 miles. I still go to the new location and eventually bought my Intellivision Flashback there.

 

The Atari Service Center Dumpster:

 

My Dad and I would go to the Service Center in Arlington, TX at night and dig through the dumpster. Found some interesting things like cartridges, consoles, service manual, sales manuals, parts of computer components, etc. We would take the cartridges, assemble working copies, and sell them for pretty good money and turn around and use that money to buy computer peripherals. And generally we would buy a lot of the computer peripherals and games at the First Saturday Sidewalk sale (still going on to this day just different location), and the Dal-ACE User group meetings.

 

I guess a side effect of the "crash" was that one night we showed up, the dumpster was full of games that were smashed. We pulled as many cartridges out as we could from the boxes till the car was full of cartridges in the back seat and floorboard, along with the back trunk. We probably got through about half of that dumpster. And then after that night, the service center was closed and no more trash could be found.

 

But as strange as it may seem I was really NOT into the Atari VCS by 1983-1984 except for the occational game. That was old hat by then. I had sold my own Atari VCS to get the Atari 400. Well, I originally was going to get a ColecoVision but the Atari computer seemed like a better choice at the last minute. Ooohhh... but I do remember one last side effect...

 

The Atari Computer VS Atari 5200:

 

I do remember downloading Space Dungeon from a BBS and in the opening remarks it saying "Ported from the 5200 thanks to the mismanagement of Atari" or something to that effect. There was a feeling then that the Atari 5200 got the cool games (Space Dungeon, Gremlins, etc) while the Atari computer was left to fend for itself.

 

If that was the case, it wasn't for long, and people found ways to port the 5200 games on over. In a sense I often wondered why the 5200 was created at all. I just remember thinking "Well, whatever, Atari makes a game for the 5200 and we eventually port it over... thanks 5200!!" Kinda the way I feel about the ST for the Atari Jaguar with all the ports happening lately. Not a huge fan of the ST now days but it certainly has lent a lot of games for the Jaguar. And that is how I felt about the 5200 then, and a little bit now.

 

(Though I absolutely adore the quality game selection for 5200 high score club. Once you chuck the standard 5200 controller and get a better controller the 5200 rocks!)

 

My first impression of the 5200 controller: I actually never played a 5200 back in 1983-1984. We did find a 5200 controller in the Atari dumpster. Have to admit, before I actually tried using it, that controller looked AMAZING. I would move the stick around, and touch the rubberized keypad. Looked really sleak and light years from the standard VCS stick with one button.

 

So those are my crash era memories. I would go back in a heart beat.

[Keatah]

It was sometime around the crash epoch. Me and my buddy were learning cameras and developing our own b/w film. As a result, when we weren't snorting the stop-bath and fixer, we were out taking pictures of arcades and videogame stores and all our collections. Must have shot 50 rolls of everything and anything videogame related in the area.

[Nebulon]

It was sometime around the crash epoch. Me and my buddy were learning cameras and developing our own b/w film. As a result, when we weren't snorting the stop-bath and fixer, we were out taking pictures of arcades and videogame stores and all our collections. Must have shot 50 rolls of everything and anything videogame related in the area.

You have photos of old arcades?

 

Wow! If you ever get a few spare moments, pleaaaaase post them.

[Keatah]

You have photos of old arcades?

 

Wow! If you ever get a few spare moments, pleaaaaase post them.

 

When I get around to getting a new scanner I will do that. Most would be from the suburbs of chicago.

 

I'm looking for a real CCD (not flat/mono) scanner. They used to make them at the turn of the century, but it was deemed too expensive and now all they sell are these cheap monolithic cmos ones - ones that don't scan more than 2mm above the glass. The CCD ones would be good enough to scan an expansion card, almost 2cm depth!

Edited March 20, 2015 by Keatah

[+5-11under]

 

The Atari Service Center Dumpster:

 

 

+1 for some dumpster diving action!

[Keatah]

I hope I still have them in scannable condition, I hope they didn't stick together during the years..! Shit...

Edited March 21, 2015 by Keatah

[+thegoldenband]

I definitely knew about the crash, especially once my Electronic Games subscription turned into Computer Entertainment and then stopped coming altogether a few issues later. From about 1984-1987, everything felt stagnant. Most of the kids I knew who played video games were still playing Atari or Intellivision, since few could afford computers.

 

(I had a CoCo but its limitations were obvious and painful. I knew a couple Mac users and that was intriguing, but obviously way out of my family's price range.)

 

We traded games but it was always the same old, same old. Then the NES came along with its bright colorful graphics, smooth 60Hz scrolling, and so on, and suddenly everyone was talking video games again.

 

Two episodes stick in my mind -- harbingers of shit hitting the fan, as it were. One was the game Sssnake, which was patently obvious garbage. The other was getting an Atari 5200 on Christmas Day and discovering that, on both joysticks, the fire buttons were so stiff as to be unplayable. Even when you're 7-8 years old, you know that a company capable of delivering a product like that simply doesn't deserve to exist anymore.

[doctorclu]

I was talking to my wife about this today and in a lot of ways I think the crash laid a fertile ground for Nintendo to thrive.

 

With the cheap games and systems suddenly all kinds of people who could not afford it before found out about video games.

Then as you say above, with that taste of the cheap games, Nintendo sweeps in, the old gamers and cheap gamers during the crash get the Nintendo. And those people hook in friends not into gaming yet.

 

Kinda cool in a way.

 

And as the Intellivisionairies have pointed out, you had those that maybe couldn't get a Nintendo but had an intellivision, so Intellivision had a rise in game sales again thanks to Nintendo's popularity and naturally Atari held in there till the early 90's as well in console gaming.

 

Strange how 1993 was like the turning off of the spicket for the systems of the 80's though. But by then the Atari VCS was approaching 15 years of age, and the Intellivision was not far behind.

[Atariboy2600]

Dont worry Atari is making a "Come Back" in 87.

 

 

[+save2600]

When I get around to getting a new scanner I will do that. Most would be from the suburbs of chicago.

 

I'd be extremely interested in seeing what all you guys took Keatah! You ever make your way to the northern burbs by chance? Highland Park, Vernon Hills, Mundelein, Libertyville, Grayslake and Waukegan to name a few.

[Keatah]

Vernon Hills and Grayslake for sure. The other's? Maybe.

[+save2600]

Vernon Hills and Grayslake for sure. The other's? Maybe.

Vernon Hills had an Aladdin's Castle in the mall and just remembered Kristoff's in Antioch/Round Lake. North Chicago/Beach Park/Waukegan also had a bunch of arcades and rec places including a Chuck E. Cheese. Might have been Showbiz first.

 

Ground Round, Showbiz Pizza and Bally's Tom Foolery around Dundee/Arlington Heights were some of our other haunts.

[+slx]

I never noticed anything as I had switched to an Atari 800 at Christmas 1982. I did not have a VCS but a G7000 (Odyssey 2) before but played the VCS my best friend had. I soon sold the G7000 and did not care about video games any more, so I didn't notice if and when they disappeared from stores. At the time I felt (my) home computer(s) to be superior to any video game and by the time the Sega and Nintendo arrive I had moved on to an Atari ST. My dislike of one-on-one fighting games and a lot of the Arcade stuff on offer then probably was a factor in my ignorance of the market.

 

Europe being a much more segmented market back then and Austria being quite small, I don't even recall seeing the German VCS carts that are around on EBay now. Probably most Atari VCS stuff sold here was original Atari and video gaming did not gain as much momentum here than it did in the US, probably resulting in less companies trying to jump on the bandwagon and selling crap.

 

Had I known about 40$ Vectrexes and 5$ games in the bargain bin in 1985 I might have tried to bring one back when I was on an exchange program to the US in 1985.....nearly made me weep when I read it....

 

I didn't get a VCS, 7800 and Jag until the early 90s and never got as attached to the later games as I was to my Atari 800 game library (mostly pirated, a clear advantage to a financially challenged teenager who was quite weary of "dud" games, having already spent a lot of pocket money on mediocre games for the G7000).

[bellview17]

Had my 2600 still playing the games I had...But, most new stuff was for my Commodore 64....

[Nebulon]

I think I'll make a new post for classic arcade photos to catch anyone out there that might possibly have old pics kicking around. After reading Keatah's post, I have the need to see arcade photos. Plus, it's a piece of history that deserves being documented more thoroughly.

[Byte Knight]

The Atari Service Center Dumpster:

 

My Dad and I would go to the Service Center in Arlington, TX at night and dig through the dumpster. Found some interesting things like cartridges, consoles, service manual, sales manuals, parts of computer components, etc. We would take the cartridges, assemble working copies, and sell them for pretty good money and turn around and use that money to buy computer peripherals. And generally we would buy a lot of the computer peripherals and games at the First Saturday Sidewalk sale (still going on to this day just different location), and the Dal-ACE User group meetings.

 

You have the coolest Dad EVER!! Wish my Dad would've taught me dumpster diving...

[jetset]

Even when you're 7-8 years old, you know that a company capable of delivering a product like that simply doesn't deserve to exist anymore.

 

Although Microsoft did that twice and came out fine. The thousands of original xbox units with the Thompson drive defect as well as the red ring of death on a good 30-40% (maybe more)? of the 360 units with the first years' worth of releases. But MS is still going because they stuck behind their product, fixed the problem (eventually) and pushed and supported the system, unlike Atari just letting the 5200 fizzle with little or no support.

[doctorclu]

 

You have the coolest Dad EVER!! Wish my Dad would've taught me dumpster diving...

 

Yeh we had a lot of fun doing that. I mean they threw it away and were no longer needing it right?

 

I am seeing that that lot people had a similar experience: A lot of us had moved on to computers so we barely noticed the decline in the console market.

 

I mean honestly the VCS was really old hat by then. We liked it and would sometimes play games on it for fun, but the sentiment was "You still play Atari?" Then I would say "Well, I play the arcade version on the computer" (mostly talking about the Pac-Man comparison) Then the reaction would be "Oh cool, you have a computer. Have you tried hacking into Norad?" And would suddenly get all fascinated.

 

Naturally we all dreamed of hacking into Norad after Wargames.

Edited March 24, 2015 by doctorclu

[Crazy Climber]

The main thing I remember is my allowance went a looooong way in those Children's palace bargain bins. No more begging for games, I could buy them my damn self

*edit - still had to beg for a ride though...

Edited March 25, 2015 by Crazy Climber

[travelnjones]

It never actually happened. Video gamers just shifted from atari to a newer better video game console that just happened to have a built in keyboard and was this magnificent beast -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64

[Lost Dragon]

@Jetset:and don't forget Sony with the original Playstation skipping FMV, loading issues etc blight.The original laser lens holder (i think it was) being plastic, warped when hardware got hot, i had to turn my day 1 PS1 on it's side, then upside down, then finally get it replaced due to that, yet because Sony handled the customer returns aspect so well, they were able to take minimal heat (no pun intended) from that, deep pockets of course helped.

 

Ditto the PS2, which made it to the UK consumer TV show, Watchdog here, with 'horror' stories of kids turning device on, pressing eject and DVD drive motor burning out as soon as tray opened.....

 

 

Again, Sony took minor damage, by getting on the case to ensure support was there.

 

By time i had issues with my PS3, Sonys customer service here in UK was horrendous!!! World apart from Sony i knew as a PS1 owner, yet hows PS4 selling?.

[high voltage]

Dont worry Atari is making a "Come Back" in 87.

 

 

Wow, that's some excellent newsreel. Glad they didn't choose Nintendo (for all the good that did)