I was told there would be cake

scottydoesntknow: I was told there would be cake

last time i didn't receive a piece, and i was told...

This is what started it all for me.



/The lawn, get off of it

Beerguy: This is what started it all for me.

[www.ericwrobbel.com image 400x309]

/The lawn, get off of it

Batman and Robin agree.

That "Whats My Line" clip is much more interesting than it deserves to be.

scottydoesntknow: I was told there would be cake

The cake is a lie.

Beerguy: This is what started it all for me.

/The lawn, get off of it



This was my introduction to video gaming.

Cythraul: Beerguy: This is what started it all for me.

/The lawn, get off of it

[legacyfuture.files.wordpress.com image 650x676]

This was my introduction to video gaming.

That photograph is made out of lies and bitterness. Atari 2600 with Atari 5200 Pac Man on the screen.

Beerguy: This is what started it all for me.



/The lawn, get off of it

With a rack like that, it's no surprise that teenage boys couldn't keep their hands off of it.

Cythraul: This was my introduction to video gaming.

I had the one with faux wood paneling on it.

/still have it in a box somewhere

It's just that the parents are now gaming in their own basement.

(120" projector screen w/Xbox and surround sound is totally the shiat.)

Maybe it's just a generational gap, but I grew up with my NES, and I can't see the appeal of the Atari 2600. My parents had a 2600 and I still have one at home with several dozen games, but for me to name even 5 games on the 2600 that hold up in any meaningful sort of way would be quite the challenge.

Perhaps it was simply the case that in the 70's and early 80's it was all anybody had, and it was enjoyable, but even when thinking about it by those terms, I just don't see it. The technological differences between the NES, and everything prior, are huge, and in fact may be the biggest technological leap in the history of home consoles.

bdub77: It's just that the parents are now gaming in their own basement.

(120" projector screen w/Xbox and surround sound is totally the shiat.)

I hate you.

spman: Maybe it's just a generational gap, but I grew up with my NES, and I can't see the appeal of the Atari 2600. My parents had a 2600 and I still have one at home with several dozen games, but for me to name even 5 games on the 2600 that hold up in any meaningful sort of way would be quite the challenge.

Perhaps it was simply the case that in the 70's and early 80's it was all anybody had, and it was enjoyable, but even when thinking about it by those terms, I just don't see it. The technological differences between the NES, and everything prior, are huge, and in fact may be the biggest technological leap in the history of home consoles.

It's probably more about nostalgia than anything else. Not so long ago, I tried to play a few Atari 2600 games, and got bored, very, very quickly. Keep in mind that I partially grew up on Atari games before later moving on to NES. When I was young, those old Atari games were the shiat. Now.. meh. Good for a walk down memory lane.

spman: Maybe it's just a generational gap, but I grew up with my NES, and I can't see the appeal of the Atari 2600. My parents had a 2600 and I still have one at home with several dozen games, but for me to name even 5 games on the 2600 that hold up in any meaningful sort of way would be quite the challenge.

Perhaps it was simply the case that in the 70's and early 80's it was all anybody had, and it was enjoyable, but even when thinking about it by those terms, I just don't see it. The technological differences between the NES, and everything prior, are huge, and in fact may be the biggest technological leap in the history of home consoles.

As far as consoles go, yep. Although, I would put up almost any version of a game on a Commodore 64 (which came out in 82) vs. the NES version as being pretty equal in graphics and playability. And even the Colecovision, there are a few versions of the games on that that I'd put up with the NES.

But, I was 7 in 1980 which was the heyday of the Atari 2600 taking "off" and I remember playing Missle Command, Combat, Space Invaders, Frogger. Good times, mostly because of what you said... it was all we had. Although the versions of all those games, if not the graphics, at least the gameplay was close to the arcade.

I also recall playing Pac Man on an Atari and thinking "I guess I'm just playing this because it is here, because, really, this sucks".

Ms. PacMan later showed that the Atari 2600 could be programmed to do that game right, and how poorly they did trying to get Atari pacman out the door.

I am guessing you must be born around 1980 or something like that? You just have to put yourself in a world without an NES, or even a Colecovision.... Atari 2600 was pretty groundbreaking. I mean, go look at what passed for a "home video game" in 1973 from that Whats My Line clip..... you had to put an "overlay" on the screen for crying out loud.

TI-99 4a, Hunt the Wumpus FTW.

The first game I remember playing. Having three older brothers made this the perfect way to spend rainy summer days.

Three of us would gang up on the oldest and he'd always ragequit

/good times

I remember my aunt and uncle having a tv that came built in with pong in the 70s.

With the new "Internet TVs"... it sounds like that will be coming back, as Visio's are supposed to have some "Steam" like game abilities built into the TV, to download games.

 

That was my first video game. Also my first "hack", as I discovered you could jam the VIC-20 cartridge in at an angle, turn on the computer, then jam it the rest of the way. Then with a few pokes to god knows what, I could make a dump to tape.

With my home made 8K expander, I then loaded it back into RAM, where it would promptly not work since it wouldn't run from RAM.

Cythraul: This was my introduction to video gaming.

Man, that photo is a hardcore fake. Someone should have gotten sued for that travesty. The 2600 Pac-Man was just a flickery blob moving around a light-colored maze making plucked rubber band noises.

Ed Finnerty: That's right. Controllers molded into the system.

I think my Dad got one of those in 76 or 77, I vaguely remember him playing around with what looked like a drawing program on the black and white TV when I was 5. Later on, my mother wouldn't let video games in the house, so my brother and I would have to go over to a friend's house to play Atari.

spman: My parents had a 2600 and I still have one at home with several dozen games, but for me to name even 5 games on the 2600 that hold up in any meaningful sort of way would be quite the challenge.

Pitfall -- nearly endless replayability, even if you knew where everything was
Asteroids, Berserk, Defender, Missile Command, Space Invaders -- all fun, reasonable ports of the arcade versions
Yar's Revenge -- insanely fun space shooter

7 off the top of my head.

/Combat and its... 116?... variants had lots of replayability, too.

We had Intellivision on our house growing up. The Dungeons and Dragons game had creepy sound fx. You could hear a snake or dragon before it bit you, but had no way of knowing what direction it was coming from.

I suppose that's why I love sound cues in films/games. You get this shiver of awareness and your first impulse, to look around, is useless.

rpm: Did you readjust the absolute addresses once you reloaded it? Don't remember what address range cartridges were at.

It was simpler than that, the code simply poked itself into oblivion. ROM wouldn't change values so it kept running. I put a switch to the R/W line to disable the write signal. Presto, "ROM". Yeah you needed to make sure you popped the code back into the right block. I think the fun was that games resided in something called block 5, but the tape loading routines wouldn't load back to that block.

So I added another switch to let me change the block of my 8kx8 RAM chip.

It's been a long time though. What really sticks out in my mind is collecting empties for an entire summer to collect the 40$ I needed for the two 8Kx8 SRAM chips I wanted.

scottydoesntknow: I was told there would be cake

You. Magnificant. Bastard.

/Newsletter?

Cythraul: Beerguy: This is what started it all for me.

/The lawn, get off of it

[legacyfuture.files.wordpress.com image 650x676]

This was my introduction to video gaming.

Pac-Man that looks like Pac-Man? N00b.

mark.jms: I, for one, will not allow the 2600 to coat-tail off of it's much more capable successor.

When you know what a 2600 is, you're amazed it can display just one pixel.

Jesus, subby, that tired cliche is older and irrelevant than the Vic-20.

Really though, isn't it amazing how games have come from even 20 years ago? The shiat is damn near photo-realistic in some ways and you can play with others in real time. I'm not even a gamer and I'm amazed by the progression.

highendmighty: theorellior: Cythraul: This was my introduction to video gaming.

Man, that photo is a hardcore fake. Someone should have gotten sued for that travesty. The 2600 Pac-Man was just a flickery blob moving around a light-colored maze making plucked rubber band noises.

True Dat!

Umm, okay. Whatever. My memory isn't what it used to be. I just know the first game I played on Atari 2600 was either Pacman or Missile Command.

mark.jms: Cythraul: Beerguy: This is what started it all for me.

/The lawn, get off of it

[legacyfuture.files.wordpress.com image 650x676]

This was my introduction to video gaming.

WTF is going on there? That's an Atari 2600, showing an Atari 5200 Pac-Mac screen.

2600 looked like this:

[www.webpacman.com image 320x257] 

I, for one, will not allow the 2600 to coat-tail off of it's much more capable successor.

FINE!

God damn. How many responses are there to the image I posted?

I was about four years old, okay. I don't remember exactly what Pacman looked like like on the 2600.

Mentat: Cythraul: Beerguy: This is what started it all for me.

/The lawn, get off of it

[legacyfuture.files.wordpress.com image 650x676]

This was my introduction to video gaming.

Pac-Man that looks like Pac-Man? N00b.

fark.. off.

Gonad the Ballbarian: i2.photobucket.com

That's the Atari I had! My grandmother got it for me for Christmas, and my mom biatched for months about her getting it for me. I played the hell out of it. I played it for so long that I actually bought games for it at Goodwill.