How did I not know that the Atari 2600 is back in production?

It’s back! It’s backwards compatible. It has wood grain. 

It’s just a little smaller than before.

I’m assuming you still need to blow on the cartridges if something’s not working right. 

Price: $129.99. 

Neat, right? 

Atari's had a rough go. They keep trying to tap the retro market with varying degrees of success. I REALLY want this project to work. HOWEVER, I feel like the true retro heads don't really start until NES era and Atari gets left out in the cold. Even when I go to a lot of the good retro shops (there's an EXCELLENT one in Lakeland FL if you're up for the drive) Atari is usually a minor inconvenience for them. 

I'm very excited about the prospect of Microsoft re-issuing DOS 5.0.

My father-in-law gave me his mint condition 2600.  We plugged it into an old TV and we were underwhelmed by the games as we're spoiled by the new games. 

Datsun240ZGuy said:

My father-in-law gave me his mint condition 2600.  We plugged it into an old TV and we were underwhelmed by the games as we're spoiled by the new games. 

They were violently difficult, almost impossible to learn without instructions, had awful control interfaces, and... your average 3 year old can draw better. But that's also 50(!) years ago. Videogames have improved a TON since the days of Pitfall and Adventure, but don't offer the same...panache. 

1988RedT2 said:

I'm very excited about the prospect of Microsoft re-issuing DOS 5.0.

Need some DOS?  I know a guy.

Pitfall was the best. I will die on that hill. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

I'm sorry you're so wrong. Centipede, followed by asteroids and then pitfall 

In reply to Mndsm :

Try being a colecovision, intellivision, or 3DO fan. They're either totally trashed or priced like they're made from cocaine and gold bars.

I'd like to see a modern Atari Lynx or Jaguar, or for a really rough go, a 5200 or 7800.

I still remember when my dad bought home our 2600. He worked for a company that owned several toy store chains so he kinda got first dibs on stuff. (One day I need to write down the story about when the place literally blew up.)

Anyway, the next day at school, I was trying to explain it my classmates.

“You can change games by swapping in different cartridges!”

At the time, we really just had consoles that were limited to one game. (Well, other than Coleco Telstar.)

In reply to David S. Wallens :

And the yellow Pong system, it had a whopping 3 games. 3!! Pong, hockey, and tanks I wanna say. Memory is a bit fuzzy.

Ooh Tanks. I spent do long in that growing up. And swearing at Kaboom!! And pretending I could drive in night racer...

So obviously I'm too young to have had a new 2600, well I wanted a genesis for Xmas when I was like 5-7, so instead I got my uncle's Atari 2600 and stash of games, because it's practically the same thing.

Mndsm said:

I feel like the true retro heads don't really start until NES era and Atari gets left out in the cold. 

This is disappointing because the 2600 was such an absolute cultural revolution when it dropped. The NES games certainly hold up better across the board, but it was still just an improvement on an existing idea when it came out. We had no context for the 2600 when it was released.

Also, that CX40 joystick is still one of the best control devices ever.

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

Was that Atari joystick on that sub that went down to the Titanic?

In reply to JG Pasterjak :

Yeah, what JG said. The 2600 represented something 100% to us. A video game system with swappable game cartridges? Until then, that just didn’t exit in our world. The 2600 opened a door that we didn’t know could even exist. 

Also, anyone else remember playing Track & Field with the CX40? Many joysticks died to bring us the gold. 

And I don't care if it is not needed, I would dummy hook one of these up behind the TV and move it every time I want to play. 

The wife bought a couple of the handheld RGB connected games that looked like the old Atari joystick. The games were fine but the joystick was terrible. I'd be down for the system with a real joystick.

RevRico said:

In reply to David S. Wallens :

And the yellow Pong system, it had a whopping 3 games. 3!! Pong, hockey, and tanks I wanna say. Memory is a bit fuzzy.

I think the other game that used the rotary controllers was Breakout.

Of course, the game that came with the 2600, the one that started it all, was Combat.

Also, that CX40 joystick is still one of the best control devices ever.

Yes, but not very durable. I remember it had little metal discs on the PCB that were pressed down by the joystick to complete the circuit. After a while, the plastic covering on the PCB would loosen up and the discs would move out of place and suddenly one of the directions would stop working. So you'd take it apart, move it back into place, and use it until it failed again. When Wico came out with the Commander and Boss, they were a huge step up because they used leaf switches.

So, this thing is not quite the Atari you remember. It's more of an emulation box than actual Atari hardware. From what I've heard, it takes the cartridge, copies the ROM to memory, and plays it from the hardware. Not sure how long that will take from cart insertion to playing, but it won't be instant like it was on an old Heavy Sixer. Still cool though that they made this. 

The Retrogaming crowd is very odd. Lots of people like to pretend that nothing before the NES existed. Most retro shops here won't touch pre-NES stuff, and that irks me. Although MY first console that I called my own was the NES, I have a fondness for what came before it. Before the NES, we had a Colecovision in the house (that I still have!) and my older cousins had an Atari VCS (later 2600). When they got the NES, they wouldn't let me play it, so I would sneak off and go into the spare bedroom where their Atari was set up on a TV cart. There, my love for the ol' Atari was born. My neighbor growing up had a 7800 as well, so I have many pre-NES memories of which I'm nostalgic for. 

I still have a few working Atari 2600's, a 5200, and a 7800, including this sweet Sears Tele-Games Light Sixer in an Atari hardshell travel suitcase, so I'm likely out on this new one. 


 

Id be interested if they "remastered" the games just enough to support modern resolutions (16:9) and frame rates.

In reply to Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) :

COMBAT! 

RevRico said:

In reply to David S. Wallens :

And the yellow Pong system, it had a whopping 3 games. 3!! Pong, hockey, and tanks I wanna say. Memory is a bit fuzzy.

Ooh Tanks. I spent do long in that growing up. And swearing at Kaboom!! And pretending I could drive in night racer...

So obviously I'm too young to have had a new 2600, well I wanted a genesis for Xmas when I was like 5-7, so instead I got my uncle's Atari 2600 and stash of games, because it's practically the same thing.

I'm now considering unearthing one of my ataris and plugging it in on the other TV so i can compare Night Driving to FH5 or some other current racing game...for lulz. 

ProDarwin said:

Id be interested if they "remastered" the games just enough to support modern resolutions (16:9) and frame rates.

You sir, would be interested in the Atari 50th anniversary collection they released recently. 

https://atari.com/products/atari-50th-the-anniversary-celebration

In reply to Tony Sestito :

Yes, the badge-engineered Sears version. 

Unfortunately I do not know what became of it - it may have been thrown away by my mother, or lost in her house fire - but because my old man was a Sears fan, we had the Sears version:

We played the hell out of it, which is something, because my father was not a game fan of any kind.

Also, because my old man was a cheapskate and worked in an engineering lab, he and his buddies figured out how to make dummy cartridges (think Doc Brown aesthetics) that were basically a Frankenstein breadboard with 4 or 6 ZIF sockets on them  Then they burned the ROM from each game cartridge onto a series of 6 chips and shared copied around the lab.  So I had half a dozen retail games and a couple dozen bootleg titles, each of which was on a series of loose chips that had to get swapped onto the breadboard to change games.  How we managed to keep all of a given game together without mixing any up remains a mystery.

Standouts I recall were COMBAT, Space Invaders, Missile Command, and Adventure.  We also had the paddle / knob controllers and at least one racing game - Indy 500 or Grand Prix.