3D Print your new Atari in 2025

[Clint Thompson]

Legal issues aside (if there are any, considering expiring patents on designs that I'm sure Atari isn't or hasn't renewed) I imagine 3D printing vastly improving over the next 10-years, making this a reality. We already have machines capable of printing very large pieces, so now it's just the natural progression of quality increasing while overall price of the printer and material decrease, making printing large 3D models off very affordable.

 

I don't own Atari but if I did, I think I would make it a point in driving this idea into something you could offer the general public. A way to easily print out your favorite Atari console for a nominal price (dare I say free even) and offering affordable FPGA packages that would replicate the hardware identically. You could essentially turn it into something to be sold like a kit for your children to assemble but most likely yourself being the driving force behind it ;-)

 

I think the idea of being able to spend a weekend with my kid in printing off and assembling a classic gaming console, exposing them to that kind of creativity and reliving a classic part of the past, would be great fun. It's something I feel they would truly remember for a lifetime and could help broaden their creative vision. Maybe it isn't going to be as special sounding if everyone owns a 3D printer by the year 2025 as they do with laser printers now and it's no big deal. I don't know, I feel like it'll still be something niche-like and that only the hobbyists will own but maybe someday we'll see 3D printers at local stores where we can just shoot over whatever design we want printed and go pick it up like an hour or two later, like we do with photos now.

 

Would that not raise interest with hobbyists and enthusiasts of classic gaming and Atari as a whole? I guess the idea originally was to put together a fan site that would offer every 3D model of Atari consoles and computers so that it could easily be printed with maybe a link to an FPGA kit that could be thrown together and tucked inside your freshly printed machine of choice to enjoy. I would think by then, you would be easily looking at under $100 for the entire package, maybe even cheaper, and it would be far more affordable to enjoy classic gaming that way than spending tons of money on expensive original hardware.

 

I guess you could just go buy a Flashback #27 but where's the fun in that. Plus, they will never come in all the different varieties of different consoles, computers or designs that Atari released. Then, in a few hundred years when little to no known original hardware exists, it'll still be easily accessible to future generations in experiencing and enjoying beyond just basic emulation and the joy of what Atari was in both software and physical form.