I'm not sure if you've spent any time in resale or thrift stores, but it's funny how ubiquitous Atari cartridges are. What's amusing about this is that I've got a bunch in my garage. I still have the original 2600 console as well, and I recall plugging it in some years ago to my TV that could "see" channel 3 and 4 in old school NTSC. I was shocked that it all still worked.
I never owned the subsequent Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and I realize now that the only reason I even had the Atari was because it was being insanely discounted in 1985. In today's dollars, it was around $140 ($45 then), so not a a terrible proposition for my parents to buy as a Christmas present. Hilariously, they got E.T. with it, which I only know now to be one of the catastrophic failures in Atari's history. I enjoyed it. My favorites were Megamania, kind of a Space Invaders ripoff, and Star Raiders, which came with a cool keypad.
I'm not sure if I'm nostalgic about that console, exactly. In college, I scored a Super Nintendo (SNES), and today I have richer memories of that than anything else. Some years ago, Nintendo did a re-issue of that console with a specific slate of games in a smaller package that connected to HDMI. The important thing is that it had the original controllers, which I would argue are the most important part. There have been PC emulators of all the consoles for a long time. But playing with the keyboard or some other controller aren't the same.
As it turns out, whomever owns all of the Atari IP, and some of the Activision bits of the era, is making the consoles again. If it were like the Nintendo reissues (I bought the NES and SNES), I would say "meh." But these things will actually run the original cartridges, if you have them. And I have them. They're not expensive, and adjusted for inflation, about the same cost. These have the benefit of wireless controllers and HDMI though.
I've already pre-ordered the Atari 800XL computer, which is a more-memory variant of the 600XL that I wrote my very first programs on, saving them to cassettes. I used to type out programs from COMPUTE! magazines I got from the library. It's mostly going to sit on my desk, but I feel like I need to revisit the thing I first wrote software on. I wrote a game inspired by Wheel of Fortune in Atari Basic on that thing.
It feels like a dumb middle age thing to do, I admit it. I'm thinking about getting one of the 2600/7800 reissue consoles too, since I have the carts. I'm sure it'll result in a day or two of nostalgia, and that'll be it.
It's weird that I don't listen to Def Leppard from 1998, always pursuing the newest music. This retro gaming grabs me though, and I'm not sure why.
No comments yet.