Tell Me Childhood Stories

[ZippyRedPlumber]

I wonder how you guys spent time with the 7800, did you stick around with it even when it was the mid-90's.

 

I'd really like to know.

[BydoEmpire]

I bought my 7800 when I was about 18, I remember they had been discounted to $50 at Kay Bee.  I already had an NES and SMS, but I always liked Atari game and it was cheap enough to take the plunge.  I didn't buy that many games, but I definitely enjoyed Asteroids.  Most of my 7800 games came from garage sales (back in the mid 90s you could buy boxes of 2600+ games at garage sales for super cheap).

 

I remember buying it, but I don't have any really specific memories of playing it before college so I must not have put that much time into it... it's possible I bought it later than I remember, perhaps when I was home from college on break...

 

One memory I have is in my senior year of college I was sharing an apartment with 3 other guys, and I was playing 7800 Asteroids in my room. One of my roommates walked in and thought it was funny I was still playing such old games.  He took a picture of me which I think I still have somewhere.  At that time my roommates and I mostly played the Genesis & SNES.

Edited September 24, 2021 by BydoEmpire

[+Muddyfunster]

I never had a 7800 back at the time of the original launch, I picked one up, oh I guess around 1994. It was brand new in the box and was old stock being sold off cheaply from probably Argos or Toys 'r' Us. I had a bunch of boxed games too, probably 10 that I sold off years later as I decided the 7800 didn't interest me much (that aged well..). I still have a couple of boxes for the games.

 

 

[Shawn]

This one time, at band camp.....

[+jeremiahjt]

I bought my 7800 with birthday money at Kay Bee Toys in Odessa, Texas in 1987 or 1988. I cannot remember for sure which year it was, but it was definitely one of those two so I was 7 or 8 when I got it. I received an NES for Christmas in either 1988 or maybe 1989. I continued playing and buying 7800 and 2600 games though.

 

I bought Asteroids with my system since I had some extra money. I still remember my sister and the clerk pushing me to the NES. My original retail games also included Centipede, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Junior, Desert Falcon, and Rampage. Some time around 1994 my ac adaptor stopped working (might have been from a cat chewing on the wire). I finally found a replacement ac adaptor from AtariGuide.com around 2006 or so.

 

I was so happy when I was able to play 7800 games again. In fact I meant to make a thread here on AtariAge, but I never got around to it. Now I have the complete retail set and have started working on homebrews.

[+Pac-Lander]

My younger brother and I grew up playing the Atari 2600 and when the 7800 came out, it's all we could talk about. The NES was out and a lot of friends were playing that, but in the holiday season of 1986 we asked for and received the 7800. We loved it! I remember playing the hell out of One-On-One Basketball with my brother, and hours were spent on Xevious, Choplifter!, and especially Joust.

 

Great memories! It wasn't until two years later that we finally moved on to the NES, but I would still play the 7800. About 3-4 years ago, I dusted my original 7800 off and somewhat to my surprise, it still worked. I've been into retro-gaming ever since, and have collected dozens of new games, for the 7800 and for my original (and new BennVenn version) of the Atari Lynx. 

[+Muddyfunster]

4 hours ago, Shawn said:

This one time, at band camp.....

I'm amazed they let you go to band camp  ?

[+slx]

Bought mine surplus NIB on an Atari fair in 94 or 95 which I visited as a side trip from a business assignment.  Don‘t remember buying games then. I do remember testing it in my hotel room but then didn‘t touch it for years. I got some carts on early EBay plus some homebrews from AA and even a spare unit and a Concerto but didn‘t play it enough ever. Last time I tried I got a vertical hold problem and still need to find out whether the TV or the Atari is at fault. 

[Trebor]

 

[phattyboombatty]

Great topic! I wish I was able to get a 7800 back in 1984, but I (like most of us) was not able to do that.

 

I grew up in central California. We were definitely a test market for the Intellivision and (later) the NES, and I think we received leaks from the LA market as well, when it came to the Atari 7800. I'd heard through the grapevine that some friends-of-some-friends had gotten their hands on one, but it seemed a myth. 

 

Back in the day, I had to wait until about 1981 to get my own 2600 (I was 9 years old), but I distinctly remember playing my brother's friend's 6-switcher for years prior, as he would bring it over when he'd spend the night. But boy, was the home video game market heating up right about this time! It was my shared-fence neighbors who scored a ColecoVision in the summer of '82, and I was instantly infatuated. It wasn't long after that I'd heard and read about the 5200 SuperSystem, and I knew one kid in my neighborhood who scored one of those. It didn't take long for me to see that it had the same "engine" as the Atari 800 (which I'd been drooling over for years, as it was on display at the JC Penney's and the Upstart Crow book store). Regardless, I could see the amazing improvements that were being made in the video game market in the early 80s.

 

As I begged and whined for the Atari 800 home computer for the next few years—I had no comprehension that this stellar machine had aged a good 5 years—my dad finally gave in and got one for me sometime during the crash. This was probably close to late '83 or even sometime in 1984 when prices had been severely lowered. I was eminently taken with my Atari home computer, but soon realized how ridiculously expensive all the peripherals would be! I scored the tape drive for cheap, but had to save up my paper route money to get that sweet, sweet floppy disk drive. By then, the video game market was severely in the red. Without being fully aware of this, I read somewhere about the impending release of the amazing Atari 7800 ProSystem.

 

The 7800... WOW! Atari is coming out with another video game system already?? I couldn't believe it, but was over the moon about it. Technology was finally being churned out at a much higher rate, and this answered the call of what to do with all of those 2600 carts (following the excellent move by their competitor, Coleco).

 

Cut to the crash... That sweet exciting dream of the 7800 never surfaced... I'd heard that some people had gotten their hands on one, but to me it was an invisible apparatus that I soon realized I'd never see. late 1984 was miserable... all the way through much of 1985. This coincided with my junior high years. It felt like the bleak, dry desert in terms of "new toys coming out" that I'd really wanted to see at Toys R Us! That didn't stop me from riding my bike up to that glorious vinyl-smelling candy factory to snag terrible 2600 cartridges at rock-bottom prices.

 

Playing with my Atari 800 home computer kept me busy through out those windswept years of a dead video game market. The 7800 vanished from my scope... and eventually, the NES came out to save the day! Because we were a test market, I was the first kid to snatch one up in my area. But that is another story...

 

I never forgot about the 7800, nor any of the vaporware titles from the 2600's lineup. The fascination of all things Atari lay deep within my soul through all of my years of adolescence and young adulthood. It wasn't until I chanced upon a dusty, old, and discarded 7800 unit in a crude and chaotic thrift store that I would have my chance to experience the Atari 7800 at long last! Sometime around 1995, I dragged this thing out of a literal pile of electronic junk that was heaped in the back of the store amidst cables and stinky discarded toasters. It had the Goodwill blue-crayon price of $19.99 scribbled on the sturdy black plastic housing. This thing came with no games and no power supply. Yes, it was extremely overpriced, but I had to have it! I must've waited a year or two before I could actually power it up and do anything with it. As an early eBay adopter, I think I managed to get the power supply, and I probably had an old RCA cable lying around. I discovered a gaggle of RCA-to-coax connectors in a shed in the back yard of the house where I rented a room. Somehow, I managed to snag a Xevious cart somewhere along the way. Finally, sometime toward the end of my college experience (in the late 90s), I was able to plug that thing in, and get a grainy but full-color picture of the notorious green Xevious attract screen on my old Panasonic 27" TV. Glory!

 

And that is the abridged part I of my Atari 7800 experience.

[Dire 51]

Our 2600 had quite working sometime in the mid 80s, and we now had a ton of 2600 games gathering dust. When we heard about the 7800 being released, my brother and I were thrilled to find out it was going to be backward compatible with the 2600. So we talked our parents into getting it for us that Christmas (1987, I think). We soon managed to get a small library of 7800 games, along with dirt cheap 2600 games (some of which were just given to me by the guys at school that no longer had any use for them). My first game for it (not including Pole Position II) was Desert Falcon, which is still one of my favorites. This was quickly followed by Xevious, Robotron: 2084 (which I almost begged my parents for, having never seen a home port of it before), F-18 Hornet and one or two others. My brother ended up with Tower Toppler and Food Fight. We ended up buying more 2600 games than 7800, though, due to the price difference.

 

The AC adaptor on our original 7800 died in the early 90s, but luckily I had a friend that knew someone that wanted to part with his 7800 and small library of 2600 and 7800 games, some of which I'd only seen but never played. I paid him what he asked, and our 7800 was up and running again. My friends couldn't understand why I wanted it with consoles like the Genesis and SNES around. Some even encouraged me to sell the whole lot.

 

That finally happened, thanks to my ex-wife, in 2004, when I had to sell all of my gaming stuff. Several years after that, I decided to start collecting over again from scratch, starting with buying a 2600 Jr. and a box full of games. Then a friend of mine from out of state came to visit and brought me a gift: a 7800 and a small stack of games. That reignited the flame. I managed to get all the games I had as a kid, along with some rarities thanks to some generous folks online. Then I discovered AtariAge and the store, and now I own more 7800 games than I ever thought was possible, considering how small the official library is.

 

That 7800 has since been AV modded and is my go-to console for Atari. Some things never change.

Edited September 25, 2021 by Dire 51

[gilsaluki]

On 9/24/2021 at 11:13 AM, jeremiahjt said:

I bought my 7800 with birthday money at Kay Bee Toys in Odessa, Texas in 1987 or 1988. I cannot remember for sure which year it was, but it was definitely one of those two so I was 7 or 8 when I got it. I received an NES for Christmas in either 1988 or maybe 1989. I continued playing and buying 7800 and 2600 games though.

 

I bought Asteroids with my system since I had some extra money. I still remember my sister and the clerk pushing me to the NES. My original retail games also included Centipede, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Junior, Desert Falcon, and Rampage. Some time around 1994 my ac adaptor stopped working (might have been from a cat chewing on the wire). I finally found a replacement ac adaptor from AtariGuide.com around 2006 or so.

 

I was so happy when I was able to play 7800 games again. In fact I meant to make a thread here on AtariAge, but I never got around to it. Now I have the complete retail set and have started working on homebrews.

Fair to Midland, half way to Odessa.  Grew up in Odessa.  

[+jeremiahjt]

3 hours ago, gilsaluki said:

Fair to Midland, half way to Odessa.  Grew up in Odessa.  

I was living in Monahans at the time.

[gilsaluki]

13 hours ago, jeremiahjt said:

I was living in Monahans at the time.

Sand dunes.?

[PhoenixMoonPatrol]

I use to visit Ardans in my area,awesome toy and video game store. And sure enough I always walked by that area where I saw a lone 7800 box,always sitting in the exact area,never ever moved,no interest I guess. I even asked the clerk was there an actual system in their store or was that just a dead display box,turns out they had a few but no one ever bought any. But man did the 7800 peak my interest,I use to want to walk in that store and buy one. By that time Atari's brand was old hat,Nintendo ruled the scene,but I wanted so badly to play those upgraded Atari classics like Asteroids and Ms PacMan. Everyone was into Mike Tyson's Punch Out but man even then I wanted to just play more of the Atari games I loved so much and that damn 7800 box always haunted me in Ardans. 

 

It wasn't until 2005 that I finally got my hands on the system,off Ebay,bought it with its original box. I marveled at the advertising on it,just trying to soak up the old Atari era with the pictures on the box,the games shown on them. I bought a large bundle of games off Ebay and the one I wanted to play allot,Asteroids was really great. Loved the spinning 3D look on the rocks,the sound effects,the 7800 controllers were decent,allot better than the Atari 5200 controllers I tried years before when a friend owned a 5200 for a few weeks before returning it for a refund. But I loved the games on the 7800,Donkey Kong was so damn good,but the sound was ear piercingly bad,I remember wanting to turn the volume down when I heard Mario running across the screen. But bah the games were great,oldschool,but thats exactly what I expected out of the system,and for that I was happy. Centipede was amazing too,just great stuff. Then I found Atari Age,started buying home brews,I think the earliest game I bought was the reimagined PacMan game made by PacManPLus. Also was floored by Asteroids Deluxe,and my very favorite..Space Duel. The homebrew scene made the system go to the next level for me. Since then its been gems like PacMan Collection,Astro Blaster, and many others. Good stuff. 

[RJ]

I was 18 & my story can be heard on noswear gamer's Atari 7800 Game By Game podcast premiere episode & subsequent episodes throughout.

 

I bought one to play Mario Bros at home & refused to buy an NES. 

 

https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-atari-7800/classic-episode-1-the-atari-_84tfDyMxhZ/

 

(44:30 in)

Edited October 3, 2021 by RJ

[newtmonkey]

The 7800 was the first console my parents bought me when I was a kid, as I had inherited my older brother's 2600.

 

The NES had been released, but due to it being difficult to find or too expensive (probably both), my mom ended up getting me a 7800.  I think a lot of kids would have been disappointed not to get a NES, but not me—the two games I got (Pole Position II and Choplifter) looked about 100x better than the stuff I had been playing on the 2600.  We ended up picking up a few more games from the bargain bins over the next couple years (I remember Summer Games and Food Fight), but then it became increasingly difficult to find 7800 games at all in stores in my area.

 

We eventually got a NES, but I kept my 7800 hooked up and happily played games on both systems.

[+x=usr(1536)]

Growing up, I didn't have a 7800.  The end.

 

Mine was purchased in the 2000-2001 timeframe from an electronics surplus dealer (Weird Stuff Warehouse in the SF Bay Area, for anyone who may remember them), and spent most of its next 20 years in a storage bin.  Dug it back out a couple of years ago, and have been having a blast with it.

[SS]

I don't know if I was even aware of the 7800's existence until the later 1990s, when I was pushing 30 years old.  A rekindled interest in my other old Atari equipment and subsequent internet research is what brought the 7800 to my attention.  Luckily, systems and especially loose cartridges were super cheap at that time so I pretty quickly built up a modest collection.  

[Pete5125]

Got one in around summer of 92, during the great big lots blowout, it was 20  bucks or so games were around 3 bucks, I already had  a Genesis, my friend up the street had a 7800, but only pole position for 7800, and mainly 2600 games.

 

So I was hopeful that a Atari system made to have 8 bit grafix would b great.

 

I got it home it recieved a bad signal with a buzzing sound, returned it to get another one with wonky picture, the controller hurt my hand, games were ok ports of games I already played to death on 2600, so I wasn't impressed returned it a 2nd time. 

Do wish I kept it, but I could never understand how they felt it was a competitor for nes, with controllers that hurt your hand and pole position as the pack in.  Some of the newer he's commando, fatal run, basket brawl were closer but still didn't look as good as nee counter parts

[Keatah]

I never got into the 7800 even though I had plenty of Pe-NES game consoles and computers. Especially distracted (unfortunately) by the 16-bit "revolution" with the Amiga. So I don't have any 7800 stories to tell, but loads of others.

[eightbit]

I originally wanted an NES after seeing a friend get one and seeing Super Mario Bros. Everywhere I went, none in stock. My last stop was Child World, and again, none in stock. They said they were not expecting any for months. But, they had the 7800 Pro System. And that is how I ended up with it.

 

My parents got me that and Xevious. I took it home and while I did enjoy both the pack in Pole Position II and Xevious, I really still wanted that NES. I talked that friend into trading me his NES for the 7800 a few days later and he did. After his folks found out, they spoke to my parents and they made us trade back!

 

I did end up with an NES months later but over the course of time that I had the 7800 I became pretty attached to it. Even the friend who's parents made me trade back had his parents go out and buy him one as well. I remember he was pretty addicted to Dark Chambers.

 

Over time I purchased a bunch of games for the machine and grew up playing Food Fight, Galaga (loved that port) and many others. 

 

Around 88 or 89 (or maybe even later...my mind is too old!) I went to Child World looking around for deals and they had a pallet of new boxed 7800 Pro Systems that looked like they just wheeled out on the sales floor from old stock in the back room. $10 a system. I purchased four and gave them away as Christmas gifts the following year. 

 

 

[+thanatos]

Probably around '88, we went to our aunt & uncle's house for a weekend about 2 hours away, and our cousin showed us their 7800.  We already had an NES, and my sister and I pretty much laughed it off!  "What's this crap?  No Super Mario or Zelda?"  I still kind of feel bad.

Had no idea there was a newer Atari system back then!