back in the 80ies: was the VCS 2600 your dream-console?

[Mister VCS]

In the early 80ies my VCS was NOT my dream-console!

I often went to the warehouses and looked with big eyes to the Colecovision-machines.

This system was eye-candy for me (great graphiks, great games, a weird-keypad,

good promotion). But I never had the chance to bring one of this wondermachines to my

home, because of the price (549 DM or 270 US $).

None of my friends had this expensive system. But when I compared the Vectrex, which

owned my best friend, with my VCS I was more happy with my Atari!

 

Hey, it is my Post no. 100, TEMPEST I AM COMING!!!!!

[sonnenhexer]

In the early 80ies I have had no console, my first computer was a C116 which I get xmas 1985.

I started with consoles in the late 90ies, so I canßt say which was my dream-console.

 

Michael

[MattyXB]

My first and only console in the early 80 was the Atari 2600. So this was my favourite.

 

Then came the C64, Atsri ST, NES and others.

[StanJr]

Back then I was a stupid kid (by contrast, now I am a stupid adult), so I was pretty much happy with any console. I saw the pictures and screenshots of other consoles in catalogs and some of the games looked cooler, but I was so happy with my atari that I never really had a desire to get a different system.

 

Satisfied Stan

[ATARIPITBULL]

The 2600 has always been the one for me because all my friends had one so we would all share our games and lets face it there were a lot of them. I am not saying it was better than coleco and some of the other systems at the time it was just fun playing the Atari 2600 all summer long with my pals.

[Big Player]

Back in 1981, I was torn between the VCS and the Odyssey 2. My parents told me they would buy a console for Christmas and I couldn't decide between the two. One week I wanted one, the next week, I wanted the other.

 

My final decision, shortly before Christmas: The Odyssey 2.

 

Christmas morning came and what is under the tree? A VCS! That's about the only time I am glad my parents didn't listen to me.

 

And back then, it was always the VCS in the video game magazines and just "The Atari" around the house and at school. Never the 2600.

[vwyob]

VCS was a must for all my old school buds in '81. A friend had moved to the U.S only to come back a year later with one of these. It completely blew our minds and it was easy to understand why he became 'mr. popular'

I loved it from the word go and traded a zx81 for the vcs in '82 and still have this unit now. Only when someone told me about ebay did i remember my trusty vcs still living in its dusty box in my parents house.

First move was to buy all the titles i wanted as a kid but could never afford (nice to be an adult sometimes) I have a lot to learn about the history and all the facts about this great system, but that can wait. At the moment i am immersing myself in the nostalgia that gives me goose bumps now as it did then...and loving every minute of it.

[Skatepunk60]

I grew up at the late 80's so my eyes were glued to the Tandy CoCo 2 and NES but i did have an atari in the house that my parents sold but forgot to sell 1 joystick so when we got SEGA i thought that was the sega controller so i happily played Sonic with an atari controller until my mom saw me using the atari joystick and told me what it was and about pacman so I had to have one and after my mom bought me a atari jr i went to my friends house he had a heavy sixer but i liked mine so i let him keep his and he gave me all the games and a controller we played for three nights straight and eveen today he comes over to have pacman competitions

[Osmeroid]

For me, the ads on TV during '81 depicted the 2600 as an arcade system at home. The advertising was great (I was 9 at the time) and I loved it for that reason. When my brother and me got our Atari (the system I still use, not 12" from me now) we spent all of our Christmas money on a game each . I bought Frogger & Tony bought Defender. I spent the next few years in heaven.

 

Yes, the 2600 was not only my dream but also my brothers' too.

 

Long live Atari!!

[The Night Phantom]

In the '80s I already had a VCS. For a while I dreamed of a ColecoVision; when its Adam computer module became available, the dream became a reality as I got my first home computer.

 

Although I fantasized about having other systems, the big unfulfilled dream was the Atari 5200, over whose screenshots I drooled, little suspecting that on the inside the console and games were not all that different from the Atari computer my cousins had. Nowadays I have an XE Video Game System from that same computer line, which is pretty close to the dream. One of these days I might finally pick up a 5200 just for the heck of it. And for Space Dungeon.

[Stella'sGhost]

A friend of mine not only had an atari 2600 but also an atari 800, around 1981-82. I was amazed. Another friend of mine had an odyssey, but compared to the 2600 the odyssey was rather lame. So I finally got an atari around the same time I got my first computer, A TI994A. Back then there was not much to compare too, the C64 was not out yet, Coleco Vision was not out yet, Intellisvision was out but it had lame games. So basically Atari had the best games and the graphics didnt matter much because we had nothing to compare it to so we loved the atari to death, in the end it was the great games that kept atari at the top for so long. I mean even if the only games released were Asteroids, Defender, Space Invaders, MissleCommand, Combat & Adventure, that would have been enough! It was my dream machine, and still is today, because of its pure simplicity and the beauty of concept. I say again, long live Stella.

[Gunstar]

Hmmm...1980! Well, my first experience with a videogame, besides Night Driver and Outlaw in the arcades was a Coleco Telstar Pong machine. My older brother brought it home one day and we hovered over it for months. I later first encountered a VCS, in it's "Heavy Sixer" variety at a friend's house while sleeping over. He was the kid that was spoiled rotten and had all the best stuff including all the Star Wars toys and a projection television with ONTV (remember that? before cable?). I fell in love with the VCS on his 80" projection screen. It was my dream machine for years. My parents never bought us one because they thought we wasted too much time on Pong, let alone a system with many games. So I drooled over my dream at my friend's house for years. Eventually the other systems like Intellivision, Colecovision and the 5200 started coming out, and while Intv. never impressed me, I had the new dream of Colecovision or the 5200 before my old dream ever became a reality. Then, one day in '83 or '84, my brother brought home the 2600 with some new games and I has in heaven. I forgot about Colecovision or anything else (except Apple computers at school), and played the 2600 exclusively until '85, collecting about 200 games. In '85 I got my first real computer (I had a Timex/Sinclair 1000 for awhile); an Atari 130XE, and the rest is history...I fell in love with the Atari 8-bit and the 2600 collected dust for years. My brother bought a 7800 in '86 and I had it to play too. So the 2600 was my first dream, but only the beginning of my Atari dreams to come...I know own every Atari console ever made, plus the 130xeC64 computers and many other assorted consoles from 3DO, Sega and Sony...and my brother has an Xbox.

[The Night Phantom]

Although I have a VCS and some other systems too, the VCS is the console I dream of most today.

[Doc4]

Well, I for one am completely disgusted with today's game systems. Lack of originality (not always, but mostly) and serious lack of simplicity. I played a couple of racing games on the playstation, one in particular took me twenty minutes just to set up my profile. Car type, driver type, race type, tire size, engine type, engine power etc. and it went on and on. I finally lost interest in the game and watched my friend play it who had managed to save the whole mess on a card. Unfortunatly though I never knew anyone with anything besides the Atari 2600 in the eighties. No 5200's, 7800's coleco, intellivision etc. I didn't even know they existed until I had the Nintendo came out, and of course being a kid I wanted it bad. Especially to have that power glove, I swore to myself I would never take it off. Then I tried it once and never used it again. Anyway point is Atari rocks!

 

[ 02-23-2002: Message edited by: Monster greifen an ]

[Eduardo]

Yes, u betcha Mr. VCS.

 

My first console was an Atari 2600A woodgrain version with 8 games and it was "love" at first sight. My father only wanted to buy me a couple of games at first but I talked him into getting me more games instead of buying me action figures or RC cars (wich were hot items for a kid back in the good old days) so I ended up with an extra 6 carts. Not bad at all. Now I have over 200 carts but I remember that 8 seemed like a lot of games and it was cool to be able to trade them at weekends with my friends unlike other unfortunate kids that had "weird" consoles like Coleco that seemed to be stuck with the same games for life. At the time at least where I live if you had an Atari it was like you were "saved" and I made many good friends by trading Atari carts. So it was good to have an Atari.

 

I fell "in love" with Stella because my first videogame ever was a tabletop Bambino, I remember I didn't like it very much because the display was made of just green leds and the sounds were very primitive and there was a bunch of buttons mostly useless to move your character, when I first saw the Atari 2600 I was impressed by its "amazing" color graphics (go figure I was just a kid then) and the controllers were much more responsive than those flimsy button handhelds of the era.

 

My first contact with video games was with Asteroids Arcade, that was way back in the early 80s, two teens were fighting over the cabinet to insert their coins and play a game, they were making so much noise that I decided to take a look and checkout what the hell they were so excited about, and when I saw those wireframe B/W objects flying all over the screen and seeing them being able to move the ship trough the controllers looked like magic, and the first thing that crossed childish mind was "This is the most advanced machine on earth, how can I have one of those things" LOL. Now you can imagine what was my impression when I first saw Asteroids or Centipede in glorious color trough an Atari 2600, "gotta have it".

 

Ah those good'ol days

[Junie]

Yes, 2600 was the machine I wanted. I was born in 1979, but grew up with Uncle Bushnells toys

 

We usually got game systems when family and friends lost interest in them, 2nd hand I still do. The first machine I remember playing was the Pong machine. Me and my dad would play for hours, usually until the early morning.

 

Then came the Atari 2600. I have many fond memories of playing it. I use to play for hours on end, it seemed everyone had one. I use to play it at my cosuins house, and they got me stuck on H.E.R.O. and River Raid. At my friends house, they had Spider-Man and a game I think it was called London Blitz which was quite fun, and of course many others as well.

 

Sadly something happened to it, I think the power connector went bad and that was the end of the 2600 (I still don't know what happened to it). We got a Atari 5200 in it's place.

 

The 5200 was a lot of fun, my favorite game we had for it was River Raid.

 

The only problem was the controllers, my dad would get so mad and blame me and my 2 sisters when the controllers would break. Usually he managed to fix them, but one time he didn't and took me to the store to get some new controllers.

 

At the store for the 5200 controllers is my only memory of of seeing all the Atari 2600 games, systems, and everything else like you can only see in pictures now. The store we went to was called Hills, it was a big department store that was bought out and is now called Ames.

 

I do have some fuzzy memories of seeing Atari stuff at a store called 3-D which was alot like Big-Lots.

 

Well once the 5200 controllers were not available in stores anymore and my dad couldn't fix them that was the end of it. I remember my dad got so damn mad at the controllers he took the system and the controller and flung them over the hill.

 

The 5200 is still sitting at the bottom of the hill where I use to live as a kid out in the country.

 

Then we got a Commodore 64. It came with a large drawing tablet and pen. Whenever the pen was moved over the tablet it would draw it on the TV screen. I own a MIB Commodore 64, floppy drive, and printer but I am still looking for that cartridge program and the drawing tablet.

 

Well my first game system I ever bought in a store was a NES. Me and my sisters put our christmas money together and went and bought it when they first came out. It was alot of fun but my parents grew tired of us fighting over who's turn it was, so the system went back to the store about a week later.

 

Now I own everything except a Atari 5200, and even have manay duplicate systems, 2 Sega Genesis, 3 Super NES (Some of both styles), etc.

 

I heard my cousins still have the Atari 2600 and the games I played in my childhood. I'll have to see if I can get everything, including "my" H.E.R.O. game then I would really have a collection-- Actual Atari items from my childhood.

[Atari-Jess]

Well, I was born in '86 so no, I never even heard of the 2600 until I was 7 and I didn't care for it until I was 13. (I seen it in a second hand store and I couldn't buy it, complete in box if i remember correctly. there was actually a couple of them complete in box!) anyways, The NES was the system to get in those late eighties and I dont even remember wanting one, or any video games, I got my NES for my birthday in 1991 (feb 19-24th(?)) So I never even had an interest in video games until then. Im pretty sure I would have remembered as I have a very good memory of my very early years. (which doesn't make much sence but hey)

[MikeStyle]

I was very young, so i don't really remember that time. The only thing i still know is seeing me playing the 2600 with the son of the family living over us. I used to play "Bobby is going home" and i loved it. But it was sooo hard. Then it took over ten years for me to get a 2600 again, and i still love it.

[Nateo]

Bieng the same age as Atari-Jess, I didn't know what it was like to be popular and be good at video games at the same time. Anyway, I lived in a town that was kind of anti-Nintendo. Therefore, the Sega Genesis was the system to own. However, I was a strange child, and had the NES constantly on my mind ever since I was three.

I saw a 2600 when I was seven, but I didn't relize what it was until two years later. For some reason, the NES was taken off my mind, and VCS was lodged in brain. I'll never know how, I'll never know why. I finally got one when I was thirteen.

[Atari-Jess]

wow thats pretty damn similar in years and such

[King Atari]

Well, I grew up playing home computers, and I was content with that until the NES came out. My next door neighbor and my older cousins had one, I wanted one so bad I almost couldn't take it. A few years later, I got my first 2600, and the NES gathered dust. Today, I play all my systems a lot, but 2600 the most.

[Adriana]

All of my friends had an Atari (just "an Atari," none of this "VCS" or "2600" crap) back then, oh, around 1980 or so. Every Christmas, I begged my parents for one, but they thought it was too expensive. One year, they bought me a dedicated pong unit from Radio Shack with four games on it. Needless to say, I got bored with that pretty quickly. When I continued to ask for an Atari, they said no, claiming that I didn't play with the videogame system that they had bought me, so why should they waste money on "an Atari." They thought it was just collect dust like the shitty pong unit. And there was simply no explaining to them about different cartridges, and how I would never get bored because I could always get new games.

 

Finally, I had to take matters into my own hands. They wouldn't allow me to buy one with my own paper route money, so I had to WIN one. The newspaper I worked for had a contest for its carriers: if you signed up a certain number of new subscribers, you could win a variety of prizes, the top one being an Atari VCS! I hustled my butt off, signing up as many people as I could, and I GOT MY ATARI -- finally!

 

Damn, my parents were pissed when it showed up in the mail a few weeks later. I was 13 at the time, and they thought I had mail-ordered it behind their backs. I had to prove to them that I had WON it -- that was the only way they would let me keep it. I played that thing to death. Eventually, as punishment, they would ground me from it. But at least I proved them wrong -- that Atari never sat around collecting dust.

 

18 years later, and I've still got the damn thing, along with about 500 cartridges. Hmmmm... maybe my Atari collection is just a personal vendetta against my parents to prove to them that they were wrong!

[iguana]

I was very lucky when I was young. I hung out with 2 "best friends" I hade the Atari 2600 one had a coleco vision and on had an intellevision! We were in heaven taking turns on each others machines. I admit that I was jelouse of the others grafics but how can you compare the library to Atari. we ended up playing Atari more than the others though my freind did get the expansion pack to play 2600 on his coleco game. THere is just no sub for the feel of a joystick in your hand!

[The Night Phantom]

Thanks for sharing your story, Adrian. I really liked it.

 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Adrian:

All of my friends had an Atari (just "an Atari," none of this "VCS" or "2600" crap) back then, oh, around 1980 or so.

---

 

Of course, in those days, the VCS/2600 was the only Atari system, excepting the home computers (considered an entirely different category by most) and the Pong units (already retired and also categorized differently because nonprogrammable). Today I sometimes find myself having to explain to laymen who ask me about “the Atari” that they could be referring to any of a number of different platforms (though usually it's the VCS that turns out to be foremost in their minds). Unfortunately, “Atari” is often the layman's shorthand for the entire video game industry of yore, the myriad different companies having been blended into a single entity by the melting pot of memory.

[jahfish]

hehe, i was born in 71. so with 6/7 years in 78 , i touched the first original nolan pong console. charles, a friend of the family and neighbor, was working for pan am as pilote. so he often brought back nice items from california .... next year again it was an atari console, our beloved 2600. and as his daughter wasn't into the pong and computer games, the 2600 was to be mine very soon. so i was the lucky owner of it pretty early (in times when it still costed a fortune and my parents wouldn't buy one: all parents thought you'd need to be 10+ years old)

 

but that was also meaning: Atari wans't my dream console anymore .... i wanted an arcade, as soon as my parents let me play on one ..... in italy kids play those very soon in the cafes, so occasionally on holidays i played galaxian and pacman.

 

my computer dream was to get a next cube (besides the c64 that i got) .... and it still is ....