Clint Thompson

Thanks go to John Hardie for scanning this in. Confirmation that work was done on this and not just a case mockup!
 

?????
 
Name a single Atari console or computer that wasn't based around a 6502-derivative or 68000. The closest you'll get is the Jaguar.
 
EDIT: You could argue the Transputer workstation, which was an amazing experiment, but I'm not sure that counts as it was canceled immediately.

The stand is only about 35 miles away from me. Which doesn't sound all that bad. Honestly id have to take the 91 freeway over there. That's like one of the nation's worst freeways. It'll probably take like 2.5 hours round trip.
 
Working a bit more in the game room again.
 

 
So messy.
Can't wait for it to be done!

John Hardie, Bill Dermody and myself will be sharing a few tables to host Jagfest 2018 there this year so if anyone is going, please feel free to stop by and play some unreleased goodies!

For those who may not have already seen this elsewhere, I received some really nice frosted and clear Lynx stands today and can't express just how nice they are. Especially considering the price for two of them shipped to me was right at $20. Look up RoseColoredGaming if you're interested. 7.99 once you add it to the cart otherwise they're $9.99 normally.
 

 

 

 
and by itself:
 

 
Both clear and frosted:
 

Check out the Rose Colored Gaming website: https://www.rosecoloredgaming.com
 
I also follow them on Instagram @rosecoloredgaming here: https://www.instagram.com/rosecoloredgaming/

I want one!!  Me likey 

For those who may not have already seen this elsewhere, I received some really nice frosted and clear Lynx stands today and can't express just how nice they are. Especially considering the price for two of them shipped to me was right at $20. Look up RoseColoredGaming if you're interested. 7.99 once you add it to the cart otherwise they're $9.99 normally.
 

 

 

 
and by itself:
 

 
Both clear and frosted:
 

Really glad to see you picked one of these up Clint! Rose Colored Gaming has a ton of amazing projects. I've communicated with him on Instagram a few times. Gorgeous, high test stuff.

For those who may not have already seen this elsewhere, I received some really nice frosted and clear Lynx stands today and can't express just how nice they are. Especially considering the price for two of them shipped to me was right at $20. Look up RoseColoredGaming if you're interested. 7.99 once you add it to the cart otherwise they're $9.99 normally.
 

 

 

 
and by itself:
 

 
Both clear and frosted:
 

For those who may not have already seen this elsewhere, I received some really nice frosted and clear Lynx stands today and can't express just how nice they are. Especially considering the price for two of them shipped to me was right at $20. Look up RoseColoredGaming if you're interested. 7.99 once you add it to the cart otherwise they're $9.99 normally.
 

 

 

 
and by itself:
 

 
Both clear and frosted:
 

I worked at my local TRU around the time the Lynx was out, I used to be cashier then went to maintenance and collect shopping carts carts. used buy star wars figures and some atari games at the store too. this was only for xmas season.
heres the funny part, this was basically the only christmas as far as I remember that my mom surprised me because was when I got my Lynx because she got the lynx at store I was working at

Such awesome stories and great pictures. I have limited Toys R Us stories but will share sometime, with no pictures so you'll have to use your imagination 🧠. Really dig that Lynx banner 😃

You can't really make it out unfortunately, but the smaller black sign to the right of my bedroom window is another TurboGrafx-16 display. This one was affixed to the top of the shelf-top TurboGrafx-16 kiosk. I tried to get the kiosk from TRU, but they said it had to go back to the rep or to corporate or something. I was able to take the sign off of it though 
 
The other sign is a familiar Atari Lynx banner 
 
 
 

 
 
 

Here are two images of the TurboGrafx-16 overhead display that mounted to the TRU shelf above where you'd pull the yellow tickets out to buy a video game. You can see the little plastic tabs along the edge that would have secured the sign to the shelf. Note that this is a newer sign because it has Air Zonk on the left side and Bonk on the right side, and Zonk came pretty late in the game for TG. Also the sign only says "TurboGrafx" rather than getting too specific with the TurboGrafx-16 logo or the TurboDuo logo. This is because they both shared one shelf area. If I remember correctly, there were two of these TurboGrafx signs because TurboGrafx took up two shelf widths on the aisle. By that time one shelf had a small, shelf-mounted TurboGrafx-16 system kiosk with tickets for standard TurboGrafx-16 HuCards, and the other shelf had a small TurboDuo kiosk with tickets only for TurboDuo Super CDs.
 
Also if you look closely you'll see a neon orange "strip" that has the TurboGrafx-16 logo stamped on it many times. This was a shelf strip that would mount into an actual shelf where price tags would normally be. They were just a decoration. All game systems had these, and I had one for Atari Lynx as well.
 
These pictures are actually screenshots from an upcoming video project that I can share more of with you when it's ready. It's been a pretty big undertaking. We'll save that one for another day. Enjoy!
 
 
 

 
 
 

FIRST WEEK OF WORK
 
Funny thing I just remembered looking at these pictures.. many of them were taken with my very first digital camera, which I bought specifically for this site when it first launched. I remember ordering it on eBay and it arriving at my house one day. I took it with me to school and to work to try it out and have some fun. I think it could hold like 50 pictures at most, and as you can see they aren't the best quality. But I'm glad I have them!
 
Here are some pictures from my first week working at Toys "R" Us. All of my fondest memories of working at Toys "R" Us come from that time, of working there, getting to be on the other side of the security cage, spending my day in such a magical place, and making some great new friends. These were good times. I started work at Toys "R" Us in the fall. The weather was turning brisk, we were about two weeks past "back to school" time, this site was just a few weeks old and every night was a late night cramming for tests and chatting away on Atari Age. I remember my first day at work was on a Tuesday afternoon. I worked 4pm to close. A pretty quiet and easy shift. There were only a few of us working in the store that day because its as pretty slow, and it made my first day on the job pretty fun.
 
I was just starting out and had to prove myself in other areas of the store before being assigned exclusively to the video games department. On my first day I got to help out in "R"-Zone (video games) quite a bit, but when it came time to close the store I was assigned to Seasonal & Board Games. This meant tidying up pool toys, getting the area ready for Halloween which was just around the corner, and cleaning up and facing the board game aisle. I ended up really loving the board game aisle. I love board games and have always said Atari was like board games for the tv. They come in boxes which are easy to face and make the aisle look nice.
 
Although life has moved on and we've all moved on to different things, some of my coworkers I met that first week have become lifelong friends. Let me introduce you to some of them:
 
 
 

 
Riding Razor Scooters Through the Aisles with Jared
 
This picture was taken just after close on my first day of work, September 11, 2000
Jared was the first person I ever worked with at TRU
Jared showed me the ropes on selling N64 and riding Razor scooters
Razor scooters were brand new that year
Jared & I used to ride them super fast around the store after close
SO many great times like this on slow days and quiet nights
 
 
 

 
Printing TRU Video Game Tickets & Signs with Trevan
 
This picture was taken on my first Saturday of working at TRU
We were printing TRU signs and tickets for the video game department
They were tricky because you had to hand feed signs into the laser printer
The signs usually said things like "PlayStation Greatest Hits $19.99"
- or - "All Prima Strategy Guides Buy 1 Get 1 FREE!"
This was also how we printed the yellow tickets you'd take to buy a game
Trevan was a really nice guy and knowledgable about video games
Trevan is the guy I mentioned earlier that I had sold a TurboGrafx-16 to
 
 
 

 
The Gooch Printing Tickets & Looking Up A Game
 
This picture was taken at the end of my 1st week or start of my 2nd
Pictured is Justin Teague, who started working at TRU a few days after I did
Diff'rent Strokes was big on Nick@Nite then, and we started calling him "Gooch"
He was a really cool guy, we used to go to the mall and do other stuff on our days off
After Christmas he started working in Wheels, assembling bikes and Power Wheels
 
 
 
 
One thing to note in the three pictures above is the diversity in uniforms. These were the early days when uniforms were a blue shirt with khaki pants, and they were pretty lenient with dress code. Trevan usually wore a blue shirt that TRU had given to him, with "Toys "R" Us" embroidered over the left breast. Jared and I wore our own clothes from home, mostly a blue button up shirt, grey undershirt and khaki pants. The Gooch usually went with a less common uniform, basically his own clothes from home, tucked in button up shirt, and a blue TRU vest that he kept in his locker. I don't remember many other people doing this. Usually vests were worn by managers, the girls up front at the customer service desk, and some of the guys who worked in the back on the loading dock.
 
These uniform variants make me think of Star Trek. Red shirt, blue shirt, the occasional vest. We wore our own shoes, just regular tennis shoes, although I had some brown Doc Martin shoes that went nicely with my pants and looked good at the time. It was a luxury I took for granted to be able to wear my own clothes to work. I could start the day out going to school or going out with friends, wearing a blue shirt with my sleeves rolled up, then tuck my shirt in and go to work. After the new store concept came in and we were given the new red uniforms, we had to wear black pants and black work shoes with radios.

I still have one of these to show you!! I had no idea I had this! I've moved 8 or 9 times since I worked at Toys "R" Us, apparently in moving I must've had one of the Hasbro boxes left over from the site and used one to pack some of my own games in during a move. I can't believe I still have this and that this box has survived for like 18 years and is still in good condition. Even cooler, it still has the original price tag and packing information on the box! This gives you all of the shipping info, what store it ships to, what department, etc. The price tag on the side is easily removable, you peel it off like any sticker and place it on the shelf wherever the games went. This made it easy to put products on the shelf and have a shelf tag ready to go. This is a GREAT example of the master cartons that Hasbro tabletop games were shipped in:
 
 
 

 
Hasbro Master Carton
 
This is a master carton that would've contained board games
 
 
 

 
Check out the nice big Hasbro log stamped on each side of the box
This was during the time that Hasbro owned the rights to Atari
I would bring these boxes home and use them to ship orders from our web store
 
 
 

 
This box originally contained Connect Four
The "7046" was the store number. This indicated what store to ship to.
The price tag would peel off and be stuck on the store shelf under the games.

Here are a few things I found this morning. One thing I always brought home with me were Nintendo catalogs. I had been collecting classic games for almost a decade by then, and this website was new and in its infancy so I was thinking a lot about classic video games and cognizant of "What are the things I can bring home from work today that would be collectable to have in the future? What items today are the equivalent of the items that I love to collect for classic games?" Well, I always loved posters and catalogs. The vintage Atari catalogs that came with 2600 games. The posters that came with Nintendo, Sega, and TurboGrafx-16 that had all of the games on the back, and the Atari Advantage posters. I especially loved the Atari Lynx posters with the instructions on the back. When I was a kid I had those posters framed and hung on my wall.
 
So I got in the habit of collecting catalogs and displays. Particularly from Nintendo, because they always had thick, high quality catalogs every season. If there was ever something for a retro release, like the Classic NES games that were released on Game Boy Advance, I made sure to save everything I could. I also took home some retail displays, pamphlets, strategy guides and demo discs. I'd stash them away thinking one day they might be cool to have. We're almost at that point. Here are a few catalogs I was able to pull out this morning:
 
 
 

 
Early 2000s Nintendo Product Catalogs

These stories are GOLD , Justin.  I'm very much enjoying reading these.  Thanks so much. 

yeah i do!!! .... GCE Vectrex Star Trek bought on 12/26/1989 from the TRU Marrero, LA location - and they had dozens of them too! Should have bought more 

Other than pictures? I brought home some video game kiosks that I had for many years. I've moved a lot and I don't have much left from the past anymore, just in general. Other than the kiosks I brought home some "R"-Zone security tags, box cutters, and yellow printed signs that we had made that I might still have. I had some clear lexan displays, they were like little pieces of plexiglass 4 inches wide and bent into an L-shape with rubber edges. These were what was used in the glass displays to prop up video game systems and handhelds to angle them so you could see them better.
 
I also brought home a ton of minty fresh "Hasbro games" boxes. At the time, this website was in its infancy as Atari7800.com and had a web store which was a major component of the site. I still take pride in the high quality new and refurnished Atari video game systems we used to sell, nice and shiny fully serviced with new components and a warranty. This was when Hasbro owned what was left of Atari. Before I was promoted into the video games department I often worked in Seasonal and Board Games (which was usually combined to have one employee to cover both on normal weekdays). In the early days of my time at Toys "R" Us it was usually my job to bring the cartons of new board games out from the back, unpack them and stock the shelves with new tabletop (board) games. (Board games and card games are often referred to as "Tabletop games" even though some classic gamers associate that term with mini arcades, etc.) These were games like Monopoly, Sorry, Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Risk, Battleship, Mastermind, and The Game of Life. Each game would come packed in master cartons with the Hasbro logo printed on it, and usually contained 6-12 of whatever game was in there. Open a box and it had 6 Monopolies ready to go on the store shelf, and had price tags with the box. I made a habit of saving the Hasbro boxes and bringing them home to ship out new orders from the web store here on the site. The boxes were really thick and well made, and they were stamped with a very large Hasbro logo which I thought was a nice tie-in with Atari at that time.
 
By the way, public domain games like Checkers, Chess and Parcheesi were (and still are!) sold under a private label called Pavilion, which is a Toys "R" Us brand. Why let Hasbro take all the profit when Toys "R" Us could sell their own Checkers and Chess? Even back then they were trying to avoid financial issues, and by making and selling their own brand of board games, (and batteries and pool toys and many other things) it was one more revenue stream to bring much needed money into the company. If you like Toys "R" Us and want to support them, ordering a new Pavilion Games Checkers Set would be a nice reason to buy something new from Toys "R" Us while you still can.
 
More pictures and stories soon.

I thought this would be a nice time to share this with everybody. When I was in High School and College I worked at Toys "R" Us for a stretch. (I also worked at a new movie theater). Believe it or not I ran the video games department, which was called "R"-Zone. This also included music, movies, and electronics.
 
I have some pictures from back then that I thought would be good to share. I'm posting a few now, but will have more throughout the week as I find them. Most of these are of my friends and coworkers rather than the toys, but they will give you a glimpse at some of the people who helped create magic. And if you keep an eye out in the background you might catch a glimpse of the video game world transitioning from the PS1 / Saturn / N64 era into PS2 / Dreamcast / GameCube / Xbox.
 
I grew up going to Toys "R" Us in the '80s and early '90s. I had so many insanely fond memories of going to Toys "R" Us and looking at all the new games and systems from Atari, Nintendo, Sega and TurboGrafx. I've written entire blogs about hunting down Atari Lynx games at Toys "R" Us in the mid-'90s. So many good memories were made here. I chose to work at Toys "R" Us as a high school job to pass on some of that magic to the little kids of that time, and also to experience what it was like to be on the other side of the security cage filled with video games.
 
I worked at a time during the "transition" between "old concept" (classic Toys "R" Us with traditional aisles that ran the length of the store) and the new floor plan which did away with aisles in favor of breaking up the store into "Worlds". The new store design was a more open floor plan (similar to what we have today) that featured "Worlds" such as Boys World, Girls World, Imaginarium, Wheels, Kids "R" Us (clothes), Babies "R" Us, Seasonal, Board Games, and "R"-Zone. This was also when Toys "R" Us did away with the yellow security tickets for video games, and the big beautiful glass cases that showcased all of the new video game systems and accessories that we'd all press our faces up against looking at the latest and greatest stuff.
 
Our uniforms also changed at this time. We used to have a "dress code" where we'd wear our own clothes to work, basically a light blue button down shirt, with optional grey undershirt, and khaki pants. This changed to an official red Toys "R" Us shirt with black pants. You'll be able to tell in the photos if they were taken earlier or later on based on the color of our shirts. (red came later). I remember not liking the uniform change. Originally we were wearing our own shirts. It used to be easy to leave work and go do something fun with friends right afterwards without having to change. I'd just take off my name tag and untuck my shirt and go have fun. When the red shirts came in, embroidered with the Toys "R" Us logo on the chest, we weren't able to do that. It meant more laundry and more clothes stuffed into my locker and car.
 
Working at Toys "R" Us during the transition was kind of a big ordeal. There was major construction going on inside of the store to an extent that I was surprised we were even open. Major chunks of the store were draped off with massive cloudy-clear plastic sheeting, there was dust everywhere and the sounds of construction filled the store. But the show went on, and the holiday shopping season was fast approaching. Within a few months we had converted the store to the new floorpan. 
 
There were four of us who worked in the video game department at that time. Jared, Jeremy, Trevan, myself, and Justin Teague who we called "The Gooch" after Arnold's nemesis in Diff'rent Strokes. I don't remember why this was but clearly there was only room in "R"-Zone for one Justin 😎
 
Here are some pictures from Toys "R" Us during this time. More will follow soon.
 
What are your fondest memories of Toys "R" Us?
 
 
 
 

 
THE TOYS 'R' US AFFAIR
 
Pictured is my co-worker Jeremy standing next to a pile of then-current Atari products.
Believe it or not this site already existed when these photos were taken.
"The Toys "R" Us Affair" was one of our first blog entires.
It was an adventure thru Toys "R" Us in 2000, looking for remnants and influences from Atari.
These photos were originally taken to be on this site as part of that blog entry.
 
 
 

 
Jeremy unlocking the security cage
 
Jeremy was my friend and co-worker who worked with me in the video games department.
He's unlocking the cage where all the video games & expensive merchandise was stored.
This is where you would take your yellow ticket to redeem your video game after purchase.
The tall yellow bar to the right is the button you'd press for service. We'd come out with your game.
Notice the store display for SegaNet sitting on the counter.
 
 
 

 
Jeremy in the security room
 
The security room is different than the cage.
The entrance to the security room had all of the main computers and info
This opened into the room where money was counted and kept in a safe
 
 
 

 
PlayStation 2 Pre-Order Display
 
PS2 pre-order display from Summer/Fall 2000
This is where you'd pre-order your PS2, games & accessories
This was at the front of the store in the Seasonal dept, not in the video games dept.
It had replaced some of the summertime pool toys
 
 
 
More to come

You are most welcome, and thanks. Happy to oblige.

Thanks for the correction, I eventually plan on updating it later this year and will correct it then along with whatever else I change. It has been suggested to make the Jukebox place randomly on-screen as not to create burn-in for those using CRT and I may implement a play all feature and/or randomize song play if I can get the amount of music to about 20 tracks in a 4MB space.