Yeah this was my first also. I think it was the Magomery Wards edition, because I vaugly remember my parents picking it up. It was a black box with a special edition sticker on it.  At the time Magomery Wards and Seares was going at it with their catalog wars. I think we know who won that...

As an interesting side, my second system almost was the Sega Master system. Because I seen it during the great crash and asked for it. My mother pointed at the bargin bin of games in the store and told me I had a system and look at all the cheap games for it. She eventually got me an NES a year or so later after everything settled down.

Fun fact for those that might not know, the 2600 and Sega Genesis used the same controller ports, so you could technically use the Atari Joystiq on your Genesis. It only had one button, but that's all you needed for Sonic anyway.

I don't really remember those days because my school system purcased Apple II's and stocked their elementary schools and middle schools with them. (I guess they though the IBM clones were too hard for children) My first experience with a IBM clone was in middle school in 1990 so it was probally a 286 or 386, my grandmother bought me a book with stupid programs. One of them was a TSR and when the librarian had me remove the programs after playing with them, bricked their system. Though my first experience with a compture was a TI-.... forgot the model number I would intensionally get detentions to stay in the classroom to play frogger on that. My high school was like stepping back in time they had 8088's for the bulk of their systems. Then they moved to getting 13 486-dx computers. At the time I had my first computer it was a DX2 stocked with all the games you could get your hands on. I loved Commander Keen.

Sega Master System is valid here? It was my first console. I got an Atari after that too, but it was already broken (I'm currently trying to fix it, it's a "Darth Vader" one).

boy you don't know nothing bout asteroids.

I grew up in a household full of gaming systems:

Atari 2600, SpectraVision, Bally Astrocade, Vectrex early PCs (TRS-80, Texas Instruments)

Those were my brothers or father's my own system was:

ColecoVision

I still play a lot of arcade and old classic's on Wii's VC and my smartphone

Sweet! I have a TI-99/4A. I remember wanted a TS-83 CoCo really bad. Later I got a Tandy 1000 IBM compatable.

My bother still has all those old systems, plus a lot of others he's acquired over the years.  Hopes to open a gaming museum one day.

If anyone is interested in a "Team Retro" signature image I made this:

Half size code: <img src="http://oi51.tinypic.com/1zb6rfo.jpg" alt="" width="110" height="150" />

Would the GameBoy Color and GameBoy Advance count as Retro?
That's as retro as I can get...