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25 Years ago today I knowingly, wantonly, became a classic gamer


Justin

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Not trying to steal your spotlight, Justin, but my experience was similar.  One day Atari stuff was readily available, the next...it was almost impossible to find anything with the name Atari on it.  It was like it all disappeared overnight.  As I mentioned before, the last 5200 game I got was Moon Patrol on my 11th birthday.  I didn't see anything Atari again until liquidated 7800 stuff hit a Circus World in Springfield, Missouri's mall...and that was by chance.  I believe that might have been 1990, 1991 at the latest.  Then I got a Jaguar advertisement in the mail from Go Atari.  I didn't even know about Lynx until the PlayStation days. 

 

What most newer generations might not ever understand.  Getting an Atari made you the bee's knees.  Yes, there was Intellivision and Colecovision but it seemed like Atari was where all the action was.  If you owned an Atari you were somebody.  Everyone wanted to come to your house to play Atari.  And it was always the woodgrain model that was sought after...not the 5200, 7800, or even the 8-bit computers...it was the little woodgrain console that captured what Atari was about and consumers' hearts.    

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Fantastic story. I love stuff like this, it makes those experiences we all had more real, knowing that others have felt the same thing. Summer/Fall 1993 was also around the time I started collecting for the 2600, back in the wild west, before the internet and before there was any perceived value in these old games and systems. That wonderful time when I could put a wanted ad in the local paper for atari and people would come to me with boxes and bags of systems and games for pennies on the dollar. 

 

thanks for posting this Justin 😀

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You've perfectly captured that magic moment of gaming goodness shining into your soul.  THANK YOU for taking the time to share and type this up. 

I 2nd that.

 

I love these kind of posts. I was sucked in the other night when you had your games list and told the story of contacting Atari and getting your 7800 and "extra" copy of PP2. 

Don't just watch TV, PLAY IT!

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Thanks for the wonderful comments guys! :wreck-it-ralph:

 

 

On 9/19/2018 at 11:02 AM, Atari Creep said:

I 2nd that.

 

I love these kind of posts. I was sucked in the other night when you had your games list and told the story of contacting Atari and getting your 7800 and "extra" copy of PP2. 

 

 

Thanks Chris! I've been live streaming on Instagram (you can follow us @atarigames) and got into this a few nights ago when I was playing Pole Position II for our 2018 Grand Prix event we had in High Score Squad. I started telling this story live and showed some of these items, it's what inspired me to write this post. I thought this was a story I wanted to share with everybody here in the site who may not have been on the livestream. Maybe I'll make a YouTube video about it one day.

 

 

On 9/19/2018 at 4:00 AM, kamakazi20012 said:

Not trying to steal your spotlight, Justin, but my experience was similar. [snip]

 

 

 

On 9/19/2018 at 5:54 AM, Atarileaf said:

Fantastic story. I love stuff like this, it makes those experiences we all had more real, knowing that others have felt the same thing. Summer/Fall 1993 was also around the time I started collecting for the 2600, back in the wild west, before the internet and before there was any perceived value in these old games and systems. [snip]

 

 

 

I'm a few years younger than the average 2600 player. Some of my friends in pre-school had older brothers with 2600. But by 1993 most of my friends had grown up with NES and didn't really remember much about the 2600 other than it was antiquated. When I dove head first back into Atari, NES was still on store shelves. All of my friends were into Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis at the time.

 

I didn't start with an Atari system in the house, having lived through the peak Atari years and thinking I could start collecting games now that they were on discount. For me it was more like a lost memory. There was a bit of an eeriness to it, although it was all positive. Trying to remember so far back to a time that I really shouldn't be able to remember but kind of did. It was like this lost thing that I was determined to get back, remember, rediscover, and the process of remembering things that I had forgotten, little bits at a time, had a serious impact on my Atari experience. I played and loved the games, but now there was a gaming historian side to me. It was a big puzzle that I was piecing together like an electronic archeologist. I'd find an article about E.T. and then learned about the video game crash. Every answer would lead to more questions. 

 

I can tell you I felt incredibly alone in this when I first started. None of my friends really knew what this was or understood my appreciation for classic Atari games at the time. Everyone around me was pretty much on the same page, whatever was going on this month in GamePro with Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. My love of 2600 and 7800 lead to a new interest in Atari Lynx, and then the Jaguar was announced and that was an amazing new edition to the family. In 1993/1994 I used Lynx and Jaguar to drum up interest in Atari. My SNES/Genesis friends would come over after school to check out new games on my Jaguar right when it had first come out. We'd play Cybermorph and it actually went over well. So did Lynx. But then I'd bring out the 7800 and fire up Centipede and we'd play for hours. I remember one kid in the neighborhood, Trey, couldn't get enough Centipede and would always ask me about the 7800 on the bus. I ended up with a group of friends coming over about once a week to play Centipede and the other classic arcade games on the 7800 and it began to outshine the Jaguar and everything else that I had. It wasn't until high school that I met another friend who had a 2600 and 7800 and was excited about collecting for it. 

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post-1-0-37353300-1537329445.jpg

 

 

 

 

I thought this would be fun to share with you guys! When I first called Atari that August leading up to the Kay-Bee story, Geraldine at the front desk mailed me a little packet. Inside were order forms and a brochure. (You can see the envelope and a few of the pages in the picture above)

 

When Geraldine mentioned that she'd "mail me a catalog" I had it in my mind that it would be a "big Atari catalog" with descriptions and photos of everything, and cover all game systems and computers that Atari offered at the time. That turned out not to be the case. All week I waited excitedly for this cool catalog to arrive at my house filled with big pictures and descriptions of Atari video games and game systems for 2600, 7800 and Lynx.

 

When I went to the mailbox and found a normal white envelope, I was shocked. It did indeed have a "catalog" folded up inside, and it was great, but it was a few full color pages for the Atari Lynx. Full color, nice descriptions. But when it game to Atari 2600 and Atari 7800, all they had was an order form with a list of games, many of which I didn't know.

 

The little mail packet included the Lynx brochure, order forms to be filled out, and a "Cartridge List" for each game system. There was one page for 2600, one for 7800, and one for Lynx. These were product lists, black and white text, cx product number and price. No screenshots, no descriptions. Nothing too enthralling for an 11 year-old kid. I've included scans of all of these in my Atari 2600/7800 Strategy Guide that I had made at the time.

 

 

Without any kind of descriptions I had no idea what many of these games were. Sure I knew the familiar titles, but a lot of these games remained a mystery to me, and they captivated my mind. For half a year I poured over these documents and my imagination ran wild in anticipation of the day that I had saved up enough money to place my order! With nothing to go on but a list of game titles, my imagination filled in the blanks. Some of my ideas were spot-on, others were way off. Here are some memories of misinterpretations I thought you may enjoy..

 

 

:mac_floppy:

A few notes, in not knowing what I was ordering:

 

 

  • I thought Super Huey was about a goofy super hero named Huey. (Think of Scrapyard Louie flying through the air in a cape)
     
  • I thought Desert Falcon was a gulf war F-16 Fighting Falcon game
     
  • I thought Ace of Aces was a casino/card game
     
  • I thought Hat Trick was about a magician/magic tricks
     
  • I thought Pole Position II was a sequel to the Pole Position game that I remembered coming packed in with the 7800. Mistakenly I had thought I grew up playing the original Pole Position on 7800, I didn't realize that there was no "regular Pole Position One" for 7800 and that Pole Position II was what came with the system, and I ended up ordering an extra cartridge.
     
  • I thought Motor Psycho was a Mad Max type game.
     
  • I thought Ikari Warriors should have been called Atari Warriors.
     
  • I didn’t buy Donkey Kong or Donkey Kong Jr. because I already had those games on NES with Donkey Kong Classics. I should’ve bought them anyway.
     
  • I purchased Barnyard Blaster even though it required a light gun that I didn’t have and was no longer available from Atari. I have no idea why I did that.
     
  • I thought Tower Toppler would be two medieval castle towers firing cannon balls / missiles at each other until one knocked the other down.
     
  • I had no idea Mean 18 Ultimate Golf was uncommon or would ever have any value, I just thought an 8-bit golf game sounded like a lot of fun so I ordered it. If you've ever played it I think it's better than any golf game on NES.
     
  • I only knew what Scrapyard Dog was because it was shown in the Lynx catalog. I actually really like that game.
     
  • I had no idea what Cracke’ed was but I thought it sounded stupid so I skipped it.
     
  • I had no idea what Jinx was, it sounded like Lynx and I took a shot in the dark.
     
  • I guessed that Fatal Run was the 7800’s Out Run or Victory Run. I ended up being right, but it wasn’t as good as I had hoped.
     
  • I had no idea what Food Fight was but I ordered it because it sounded like a lot of fun. Boy oh boy I was right about that.
     
  • The two games I wanted most were Xevious and Impossible Mission, and neither were available from Atari in 1993.
     
  • I had no idea what Secret Quest was but it sounded cool and I turned out to be right. When the UPS man finally showed up with a large package from Atari and everything inside of it, I was excited and surprised to see Nolan's picture on the Secret Quest box.
     
  • Believe it or not that was my “good handwriting” on my hand-written list of 7800 and 2600 games.
     
  • The worst part was mailing a check out to California with every penny I had and waiting 4-6 weeks for delivery. Every day I came home hoping to find a big package from UPS.
     
  • I had no idea the Atari 5200 existed until 6 months later when I saw it mentioned in an article in Video Games Magazine about the burial at Alamogordo. Nobody at Atari ever mentioned it when I called and nothing was left of it.
     
  • That summer and fall I’d call Big Lots and Sears Outlet every friday night hoping they’d have something in stock, and that I could go out with my family that night and take a look. I’d call and ask if they had any Atari video games or consoles in stock, and they would always call me “ma’am” because I was 11 and they thought they were speaking with an adult. I always thought that was funny.
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On 9/21/2018 at 12:36 PM, Justin said:

 

post-1-0-37353300-1537329445.jpg

 

 

 

 

I thought this would be fun to share with you guys! When I first called Atari that August leading up to the Kay-Bee story, Geraldine at the front desk mailed me a little packet. Inside were order forms and a brochure. (You can see the envelope and a few of the pages in the picture above)

 

When Geraldine mentioned that she'd "mail me a catalog" I had it in my mind that it would be a "big Atari catalog" with descriptions and photos of everything, and cover all game systems and computers that Atari offered at the time. That turned out not to be the case. All week I waited excitedly for this cool catalog to arrive at my house filled with big pictures and descriptions of Atari video games and game systems for 2600, 7800 and Lynx.

 

When I went to the mailbox and found a normal white envelope, I was shocked. It did indeed have a "catalog" folded up inside, and it was great, but it was a few full color pages for the Atari Lynx. Full color, nice descriptions. But when it game to Atari 2600 and Atari 7800, all they had was an order form with a list of games, many of which I didn't know.

 

The little mail packet included the Lynx brochure, order forms to be filled out, and a "Cartridge List" for each game system. There was one page for 2600, one for 7800, and one for Lynx. These were product lists, black and white text, cx product number and price. No screenshots, no descriptions. Nothing too enthralling for an 11 year-old kid. I've included scans of all of these in my Atari 2600/7800 Strategy Guide that I had made at the time.

 

 

Without any kind of descriptions I had no idea what many of these games were. Sure I knew the familiar titles, but a lot of these games remained a mystery to me, and they captivated my mind. For half a year I poured over these documents and my imagination ran wild in anticipation of the day that I had saved up enough money to place my order! With nothing to go on but a list of game titles, my imagination filled in the blanks. Some of my ideas were spot-on, others were way off. Here are some memories of misinterpretations I thought you may enjoy..

 

 

:mac_floppy:

A few notes, in not knowing what I was ordering:

 

 

  • I thought Super Huey was about a goofy super hero named Huey. (Think of Scrapyard Louie flying through the air in a cape)
     
  • I thought Desert Falcon was a gulf war F-16 Fighting Falcon game
     
  • I thought Ace of Aces was a casino/card game
     
  • I thought Hat Trick was about a magician/magic tricks
     
  • I thought Pole Position II was a sequel to the Pole Position game that I remembered coming packed in with the 7800. Mistakenly I had thought I grew up playing the original Pole Position on 7800, I didn't realize that there was no "regular Pole Position One" for 7800 and that Pole Position II was what came with the system, and I ended up ordering an extra cartridge.
     
  • I thought Motor Psycho was a Mad Max type game.
     
  • I thought Ikari Warriors should have been called Atari Warriors.
     
  • I didn’t buy Donkey Kong or Donkey Kong Jr. because I already had those games on NES with Donkey Kong Classics. I should’ve bought them anyway.
     
  • I purchased Barnyard Blaster even though it required a light gun that I didn’t have and was no longer available from Atari. I have no idea why I did that.
     
  • I thought Tower Toppler would be two medieval castle towers firing cannon balls / missiles at each other until one knocked the other down.
     
  • I had no idea Mean 18 Ultimate Golf was uncommon or would ever have any value, I just thought an 8-bit golf game sounded like a lot of fun so I ordered it. If you've ever played it I think it's better than any golf game on NES.
     
  • I only knew what Scrapyard Dog was because it was shown in the Lynx catalog. I actually really like that game.
     
  • I had no idea what Cracke’ed was but I thought it sounded stupid so I skipped it.
     
  • I had no idea what Jinx was, it sounded like Lynx and I took a shot in the dark.
     
  • I guessed that Fatal Run was the 7800’s Out Run or Victory Run. I ended up being right, but it wasn’t as good as I had hoped.
     
  • I had no idea what Food Fight was but I ordered it because it sounded like a lot of fun. Boy oh boy I was right about that.
     
  • The two games I wanted most were Xevious and Impossible Mission, and neither were available from Atari in 1993.
     
  • I had no idea what Secret Quest was but it sounded cool and I turned out to be right. When the UPS man finally showed up with a large package from Atari and everything inside of it, I was excited and surprised to see Nolan's picture on the Secret Quest box.
     
  • Believe it or not that was my “good handwriting” on my hand-written list of 7800 and 2600 games.
     
  • The worst part was mailing a check out to California with every penny I had and waiting 4-6 weeks for delivery. Every day I came home hoping to find a big package from UPS.
     
  • I had no idea the Atari 5200 existed until 6 months later when I saw it mentioned in an article in Video Games Magazine about the burial at Alamogordo. Nobody at Atari ever mentioned it when I called and nothing was left of it.
     
  • That summer and fall I’d call Big Lots and Sears Outlet every friday night hoping they’d have something in stock, and that I could go out with my family that night and take a look. I’d call and ask if they had any Atari video games or consoles in stock, and they would always call me “ma’am” because I was 11 and they thought they were speaking with an adult. I always thought that was funny.

 

I have every A7800 game on the list on the right that was sent from Atari that you received, Justin, in your picture. In fact, I have over fifty A7800 games in my collection, with some still with the boxes. I have had an Atari collection, starting with the A2600, for over thirty-six years now. We started our collection back in 1982, back when I was going to be eight that year, for USD$129.00 in 1982 dollars. Now, over 300 games later for five platforms, I could not be happier. I can relate to the part where people call you "ma'am". They did that to me when I was twelve. I will be forty-four next month. Thanks for sharing, Justin.

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LOL...I still get called "ma'am" on the phone when talking to customer service centers dealing with billing issues.  Hilarious.

 

In my area, the 5200 was known but not well received.  The 2600 was where all the action was.  Then there was like 2 years of nothing before the NES arrived.  Our area didn't get anything video game related until 1987 when the NES mysteriously showed up without any advertising.  Anything Atari was usually found at yard sales from people clearing out their garages, attics, closets, etc.  Even then most of what was found was 2600 or 2600 related.  And cheap!  I think the most I spent on an yard sale Atari was $20.  Mom and I bought them when we found them off and on.  Most of the time the controllers were trashed and the consoles didn't play too well or were missing switches...but we still picked them up.  I think at one point I had 12 2600 consoles with a few for parts because they wouldn't do much of anything.  I'm not exactly sure what happened to those because Mom and I were constantly moving from place to place for a while.  I think they got put in storage...and after a short while Mom neglected to keep up the storage payments.

 

My area never got anything Atari again until long after the company was sold.  Atari Jaguar stuff turned up at a computer store with a bad rep.  I traded off my fairly new AMD K6-2 500 Mhz tower setup for a Jaguar. CD, and a bunch of games.  All of it was new in boxes but the boxes were rather rough.  I don't regret doing it but I do regret selling off all that Jaguar stuff.  I mean, I had DOOM that played better than my PC version less music and I didn't have to fangdangle the computer settings to play it.  Myst was very fun on the Jaguar and the only port of the game I actually completed.  Jaguar got some good games but I felt it could have done more.  It's a shame no well-known third-parties ever jumped on or licensed their good games to be ported to it.  Anything would have helped.

 

Atari remains my favorite because ... well ... it's Atari.  But other consoles in my collection battle for top-dog mostly because of the sentimental memories tied up with them as well.  Every game machine and game I had before leaving high school came from either my Mother or Grandmother.  They were gifts.  And that little NES kept me off the streets, out of trouble, and more.  I might not have done my homework always but I wasn't out causing trouble either.  Atari encouraged my wanting to read and the NES even more with the Nintendo Power magazines.  It's hard for me to not like the other non-Atari consoles as much because they were there growing up with me when, at times, it seemed like no one else was.  Mom would sometimes come and play but often times her asthma kept her from doing too much at once.

 

I love the 2600, 7800, Lynx, and Jaguar consoles but the 5200 is where it all started for me.  And those were very difficult to find in the wild then...and more so now.  I keep it close to my heart.  Every Atari console I have I sometimes just sit and stare at them, thinking back on the memories that put them in my life in the first place and those involved I no longer have.  

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On 9/18/2018 at 8:58 PM, Justin said:

This is the event horizon where I crossed over from simple nostalgia into being a classic gamer. It's the difference between nostalgia for the games you grew up with, and forming an appreciation for the games that came before you.

Fantastic essay, Justin. I'm impressed by your recollection and the artifacts that you kept.

This is where I'm at right now -- the last couple of years, I started diving back into Atari because of nostalgia. I collected more than 100 CIB Atari 2600 games before I even had a way to play the cartridges. The last few months, I started playing the games and have developed a bigger appreciation for the games and their cultural significance. Classic Gamer -- I like the sound to that.

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On 9/21/2018 at 12:36 PM, Justin said:

 

  • I thought Pole Position II was a sequel to the Pole Position game that I remembered coming packed in with the 7800.

Wait... it's not! 😄I guess I just don't remember now exactly the details of Pole Position 2 on the 7800 other than it not being very... well.... cutting edge for a new(er) game console.

I absolutely love the pictures of your price lists. I remember them exactly as that (sadly they were flooded when we had a mainline pipe explode on our street and flood the house we were living in) and while I didn't question it then, do question now why they made a point to send it in an envelope labeled as Atari Computer. Guessing its just what they had lying around to reply with? They were definitely cheap but on the other hand, they did respond! Not a single mention about the Atari Falcon either!?

I don't remember hearing any stories about anyone writing Nintendo or Sega and receiving a response. Maybe they did? But being non-domestic companies (and I don't mean Nintendo Power magazine or other publications responding on behalf of Nintendo or Sega) I'm not sure. Surely they had HQs in the U.S. but to what extent, I don't know.

Wrote Atari a few times and maybe the fact that they actually responded really set the connection on a deeper level. Wish I still had the one from Sam though. The Lynx catalog he sent had a bunch of markered out games that were no longer available and an updated price list to go with it with blowout pricing.

I called Atari constantly but it was only the automated line with a voice message response until near the end around late 95 when they actually started having someone answer the phones. I'm guessing you called the non 1-800 number though and their actual office numbers instead to actually get through to someone.

7800 - 130XE - XEGS - Lynx - Jaguar - ISO: Atari Falcon030 | STBook |STe

 

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14 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:

I absolutely love the pictures of your price lists. I remember them exactly as that (sadly they were flooded when we had a mainline pipe explode on our street and flood the house we were living in) and while I didn't question it then, do question now why they made a point to send it in an envelope labeled as Atari Computer. Guessing its just what they had lying around to reply with? They were definitely cheap but on the other hand, they did respond! Not a single mention about the Atari Falcon either!?

@Clint Thompson I think you may really enjoy this! When I was in 6th Grade I created my own 2600 & 7800 Strategy Guide. This was not long after the events discussed above. The Strategy Guide was the earliest incarnation of what would eventually become this website. I found my Strategy Guide last year, recreated it as a PDF, and made it available for download. I included the original Atari price lists and ordering forms in the back. I started a thread about it and included the downloadable PDF which you can check out here:

 

 

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