How did you receive your first Atari "back in the day?"

[Prizrak]

My parents bought a Vader model when I was young and don't recall what age. I think I noticed it and was allow to play it maybe when I was 8 ( '83) or so and the system became mine and my brothers and played till I was 18 ('93) and got a job and focused on newer systems. Don't remember what I did with the Vader or whom I gave it to but wish I still had the old girl. Had to get me 2600 about 4 years ago and have been hooked all over again.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[MrMaddog]

I got my first Atari 2600 system back in Christmas '82, but I've always wanted one as far back as a couple years seeing all the TV ads for it.

 

That was the year I went with my mom to a depatment store where they had a dark room made up like an arcade and they were showing off all the latest video computer games.  She askes me what games I like and I said both Pitfall & Donkey Kong (which were featured on the other systems they had).

 

On Christmas morning, I saw a very huge box and some smaller ones.  Of course I wanted toopen the big box first but my mom told me to open the smallest box first.  I reluctently did and it was a Donkey Kong game for the 2600.  I was like, "Hey I don't even have an...." and automatically ripped the big box open and finally gotten an Atari to play Donkey Kong or any game on.

 

Of course after that I started wishing for the "newer" Atari system which was the 400 computer, which I eventually got five years later as the 130XE.

 

[Jasonhrb]

For me it was Christmas 1981 (I think, although it may have been '82). I would have been 7 in 1981, and like many boys of that age, I was obsessed with Space Invaders at the time.

 

But an Atari was still a big stretch for my parents at that time, and buying a new one wasn't an option. They found a used one from the local paper, and I remember the trip to go and get it (although at the time I didn't know that was happening)

 

My parents dragged me out one evening, and my dad disappeared into a house I'd never seen before and returned with a box covered in his coat.

 

On Christmas Day, I unwrapped a slightly dog eared Atari box, complete with Space Invaders, Combat, and Dodge em . I was utterly delighted (I'm not sure if I have ever been so excited by a Christmas gift before or since). I knew it wasn't brand new just from the box, but really couldn't have cared less about that. 

 

Of course, at that age I had no appreciation of how much my parents had to struggle to get the Atari, and it took a while for the penny to drop that the strange evening trip a few weeks before was the source of it. But it's now an abiding childhood memory, and a wonderful example of how hard my parents worked (in every respect) to give me the absolute best that they could.

 

Perhaps that's why the whole story of how I got my first Atari sticks in the mind even 40 years later. I actually feel grateful to my parents even now when I recall the whole thing

Edited April 3, 2022 by Jasonhrb

[eegad]

Light sixer, summer of 1980, for my 15th birthday.  Had been hounding my parents for the past year or more and they finally gave in. 

 

[Max_Chatsworth]

On 4/3/2022 at 3:57 PM, Jasonhrb said:

For me it was Christmas 1981 (I think, although it may have been '82). I would have been 7 in 1981, and like many boys of that age, I was obsessed with Space Invaders at the time.

 

But an Atari was still a big stretch for my parents at that time, and buying a new one wasn't an option. They found a used one from the local paper, and I remember the trip to go and get it (although at the time I didn't know that was happening)

 

My parents dragged me out one evening, and my dad disappeared into a house I'd never seen before and returned with a box covered in his coat.

 

On Christmas Day, I unwrapped a slightly dog eared Atari box, complete with Space Invaders, Combat, and Dodge em . I was utterly delighted (I'm not sure if I have ever been so excited by a Christmas gift before or since). I knew it wasn't brand new just from the box, but really couldn't have cared less about that. 

 

Of course, at that age I had no appreciation of how much my parents had to struggle to get the Atari, and it took a while for the penny to drop that the strange evening trip a few weeks before was the source of it. But it's now an abiding childhood memory, and a wonderful example of how hard my parents worked (in every respect) to give me the absolute best that they could.

 

Perhaps that's why the whole story of how I got my first Atari sticks in the mind even 40 years later. I actually feel grateful to my parents even now when I recall the whole thing

Yeah..I realized a lot about my parents when I became a parent myself

[+KaeruYojimbo]

I didn't have one as a kid. I bought my first 2600 at a yard sale in '96 or '97 for $2.

[Yoss]

I think it was Christmas of 83 or possibly 84 that my parents bought us a Vader console and a handful of games. I was young enough at the time (5 or 6) that I'd barely ever even seen a video game before so it was pretty amazing. I think we started with Combat, Pac-Man, Human Cannonball, Space Jockey, MASH, and Space Cavern. My parents must have gotten the idea from a visit to my aunt and uncle's a little while before. I hadn't been there, but they told me about a machine they had that hooked up to their TV and you played a game actually ON THE TV SCREEN! One of the games they described as bugs and worms crawling around and you had to shoot them. When you shot the worms, they broke into smaller pieces that crawled around and you had to shoot those pieces too. In my young mind that sounded so crazy and gross that it really left an impression on me. It certainly helped not to be aware of the 2600's graphical limitations. It's funny to think that they were just talking about Centipede.

[Raiu]

It was... around 1980? Don't remember exactly when, but Pac-Man had just come out for the 2600. I'd already played a lot of Atari 2600 (I wrote about it in this post from a decade ago), but all we had was a Telstar Ranger.

 

One day my brother and I came home from school, and Mom said "If you get your homework done quickly, I'll take you someplace special!" "Chuck E. Cheese?" "You'll see." (This was, of course, back when Chuck E. Cheese was not a nightmare)

 

Well, my brother and I rushed through our homework, getting it done in record time, and then ran into the kitchen "We're done! Where are we going? We'll get our jackets!" "You won't need your coats," Mom said, as she led us to the family room. Puzzled, we followed, until we saw the Atari 2600, already hooked up and ready to go, on the television set. We only had two cartridges, Combat (still the pack-in at that point) and Pac-Man.

 

We eventually had nearly 100 cartridges.

[+slx]

Great stories here!

 

I wished for and got an Odyssey 2 (in its European Philips G7000 incarnation) because I had seen and played it at a friends' place. My best friend got a VCS and so I got to play that a lot, too. While the Odyssey wasn't bad and I played it a lot, I soon realised the VCS would have been the better choice. I "upgraded" to an Atari computer a year later and only got my first own VCS (a jr.) years later when the price had dropped to less than the original price of a cartridge. I think it came with a 32-in-1 cart. TBH I didn't even play it beyond testing as I had an ST by that time and the nostalgia didn't quite mask that a lot of current games were better. I later got a light mixer in an EBay bargain and "collected" or rather amassed around 70 carts but if I play it's mostly in emulation as they're not hooked up. 

[Absalon]

It was a summer day in 1990, some month after the berlin wall came down. My dad came home with a used 2600 jr, together with pole position and this 32in1 catridge. I have no idea where he got it. I never saw anything like this before (in 1990!) and was quite amazed. 

 

I even remember my mother playing stampede like hell. The whole family played and tried to figure out how to play the games.

Some time later at my grandfather house, he proudly showcased his own Jr! He really bought a new vcs console with those strange gamepads. Crazy times !!

 

Not sure how long we used our console. Maybe something about 3 years. Then I got a C64 and lost interest in the vcs for many many years.

 

(Now I love my vcs and don't care about my c64 ?)

 

 

 

[kermit73]

Mine was a birthday gift in January 1982.  I must've whined enough to my parents after Christmas '81, when one of my friends got an Atari and another friend got an Odyssey.

 

My first games were Combat (with the console), Air Sea Battle, and Asteroids.  Air Sea Battle probably wasn't the smartest choice since I mostly played 1-player games.  My sister is 8-years younger than I and neither of my parents played video games.  I recall having my parents exchange Asteroids because the satellites weren't showing up.  Apparently nobody in our household read the manual closely enough to realize the difficulty switch needed to be on A.

 

A month or two later, we went to Toys 'R' Us and bought Night Driver so we could have a paddle game.

[Hawkeye68]

I had an Atari Video Pinball unit that I played all the time but I wanted a VCS so badly.  The cost, which was a lot back then, put it out of reach.

 

Then one day in the summer of 1979, when I was 11, one of my uncles brought a VCS over and said I could have it because his kids were "bored with it" and never played it.  It was a total surprise.

 

It remains, to this day, the best gift anyone ever gave me!

 

[Zonie]

Christmas 78. Heavy Sixer with grey power brick, but CX40's instead of CX10's.

I asked for Target Fun, which is what we played in summer camp, not knowing it was Air Sea Battle. Well, my mom couldn't find Target Fun, so I got Superman instead. Glad I did.