This week at Flashbak, I recalled the dawn of the home video game age, and the arrival in my life (and the culture) of the Atari 2600 (or VCS).
Here's a snippet and the url (http://flashbak.com/games-fun-remembering-atari-vcs-46013/ )
"I officially entered the
video game era on Christmas morning, 1978, when my parents -- or was it Santa
Claus? --- gave me and my sister a remarkable and unforgettable gift: the Atari
VCS (Video Computer System), which also goes by the designation of Atari 2600.
I was nine years old.
We enthusiastically the
unwrapped the huge, flat, rectangular box, but had no idea what an Atari was.
My folks explained, simply, that it is a game you can “play on the television.”
That sounded….different.
My father hooked up the
Atari to our family room TV set (a zenith, color model), and quickly unpacked
the first game cartridges: Combat, Missile Command, and Space Invaders.
We played Space Invaders
first. And from the first moment the
strange aliens began their downward march on screen (to a military-sounding
thump…), I was hooked."
Continue reading at Flashbak.
Ah, the memories. I think i was 5 when we got ours. I'd dutifully started tossing loose change into an old shoebox that had been retconned into a rough piggy bank, and my parents either took pity on the effort (or had been planning to all along) and come Christmas time, out came the 2600.
ReplyDeleteWhile I already was a burgeoning arcade afficianado (even though I couldn't always see the game due to my height in those days), this was the first point that the games came home. I never looked back. :)