The 2600 was my first console too...3 times over! Yup, all 3 of mine broke down, even though we treated them like they were holy relics. Still, it's a great system for sure. Pitfall! is awesome! !! !!

*Sniffle* That pic brings back so many memories... Combat..my first 2600 game..

But my true heart will always be with the 800XL - It had basic baby..nothing beats Atari Basic - Make your OWN games ;)

It was my first console too, I had a lot of games but not remember most of them, only Pacman, Ms Pacman, Frogger, Moon Patrol, Snoopy and the Red Baron, Othello (which I never understand), and.... hmm don't know =(

yeah actually there are more complex titles on the 2600, Secret Quest is a simpler Zelda style game, complete with pass words,

Dragon Stomper is a simple rpg,

Radar Lock is an un-official port of after burner

somewhat faithful translations of double dragon,International Track & field, Ikari Warriors, Xenophobe and Rampage, all of which more or less retain the original gameplay and actually contain co-op modes

it also has somewhat faithful ports of commando and kung fu master

Solaris is actually a rather sophisticated space flying title, with a massive over world map

Fatal Run is pretty complicated as well, kind of like a more road blasters

and the later real sports line of sports games are fairly robust, as is pete rose baseball

and some really complex prototypes like Save Mary (a weird tetris type game, fun though)

all of these are pretty impressive for a system intended to be scrapped by 1980 and came packed with a whopping 128 bytes of ram and an amazing 1.2 mhz processor with a super cool 13bit address bus (mos6507, a scaled back 6502) not to mention it only had 2 sprites, 2 missiles and a ball for hardware graphic effects

Plus those wacky homebrewers actually have a working demo of megaman, that's right megaman, running, check it out at atariage.com for a heaping helping of awesome

plus tetris has been on the 2600 forever

Anyway, I likes me 2600 a whole lot, games like space invaders, pitfall 1+2, Pacmanjr, ms. pacman, track & field, moon patrol and millipede all rock hard, I've got around 200 atari 2600 games and a whole load of hardware varients and cool controllers

the 7800 and 5200 are nice as well, but man their controllers are both so aweful, fortunately wico commands, and euro pads can replace the original controllers, robotron on the 7800 is  fantastic with 2 2600 sticks incased in a lego container

Right on! Interestingly enough I was setting too hook up my Atari VCS the past weekend. I can't seem to find any of my damn UF-RF adapters though.

I think it's time I bust it out and teach my wife about videogame history and school her in Gaming 101.

Yes, but the best by far was Platformer.

Kaboom is still my favorite game to this day. The highest level was just ridiculous.

just get ac rca to coax adapter, radio shack might have them, or just make one yourself, all it takes is a rca jack and a coax jack

I just got a 2600 a couple weeks ago. From eBay.

Unfortunately, the fucking post office crushed the box and the base was cracked and several pieces broken out. I superglued it back together last week, and while it doesn't look fantastic, it still looks alright. Luckily it still works perfectly.

So far I only have:

Combat
Outlaw
ET
Berzerk
Space Invaders
Defender


Even my kid thought ET sucked, and he's barely 5. Also, if you hold the button down and wiggle the joystick in Outlaw, it looks like the cowboy is jerking off. Release the button to make it X-rated.

Berzerk is fucking awesome. I wish it had the digitized voices. But, I found out that the voices are in the 5200 version.

This is how popular the Atari 2600 was -- competitors would build add-ons for their machines to play its games. It would be like Sony and Microsoft adding the capacity to play Wii games. The Intellivision and Colecovision -- along with Atari 5200 -- all had adapters to play Atari cartridges. Coleco even made a 2600 clone -- the Gemini.

I have a Sears Video Arcade II (the only US version of the Japanese released Atari 2800) still in the main gaming room of my basement. I have over 500 games in three tubs in my basement. To get games that I did not own, without paying more money than I wanted to pay -- I had to start importing pirated games from Brazil and PAL games from Australia and Europe.

I like the 7800 as well. The history of video gaming in the United States (and worldwide) might have been very different had that system stayed on the market after its initial release in 1984. Speaking of which, I need to bring in is one of my 7800s as I have several recent home brew titles to test.

One thing I do worry about it how well these older systems will hook up to newer TVs. Do ATSC tuners still have the equivalent of Channels 2-3-4? I think they would since cable TV is still using them ... but I don't know since I don't own one.

For those interested -- Atariage.com is a great site with information on all consoles Atari, even the Jag.

Mike from Morgantown