Happy 50th birthday, Atari!

[akeley]

And this coming from a die-hard Spectrum / Amiga follower. Yeah, I wasn't exactly a fan back in the day, and did my fair share of platform wars ribbing, but it was never malicious. And nowadays, after learning a lot about their history and having access to all the software, I can appreciate how hugely influential this company was to the advancement of gaming and computing in general.

Thankfully, we have nearly all the Atari machines covered on MiSTer, with exception of Jag and some arcades, so tonight I'll probably do some 2600 gaming, which is still a terra incognita for me, and try to get a bit deeper into my ST favourite, Sundog.

What's your favourite Atari game / memory?

[limi]

Atari game consoles and computers never did anything for me personally, but they were absolutely top tier in the golden age of the arcades — Paperboy, Super Sprint, Marble Madness, Gauntlet, Hard Drivin’, Tempest, 720° — I am still extremely excited for these to come to MiSTer. (I know we have Gauntlet already)

The Atari Lynx was an incredible handheld for its time — full color, great form factor, only downside being that it ate batteries for breakfast. Luckily it came with a power supply that could be used when you were not out and about. And the cart format was super elegant, maybe only matched by PC Engine’s HuCards.

And is there a more iconic logo?

Happy birthday, Atari!

[thorr]

Probably my favorite memory was the year that both my divorced parents got an Atari 2600 (two total) for me and my sister at Christmas time and we got different cartridges at both homes, so we always looked forward to going back and forth. That and getting the patches.

[circletheory]

My favorite Atari memory is receiving an Atari 1200XL for Christmas from my Dad back in 1983. At 7 years old, this was first computer experience. I had a disk drive and played the heck out of Pac-Man and learned BASIC. Good times.

[FPGA64]

Atari died along time ago its now just a shambling Patent Zombie

[akeley]

Atari died along time ago its now just a shambling Patent Zombie

Yes, yes. This is why my OP refers to the Atari, not Atari SA, and uses past tense.

they were absolutely top tier in the golden age of the arcades

I've just realized that Battlezone is from Atari. I grew up in a small one-arcade town, and used to take a train on my own (being ~7 yo) to a big city 1hr away, theoretically to visit my dad at work there, but practically to go to an arcade where they had one of these units. Its 3D gfx was absolutely out of this world, and so I simply had to.

I think it's safe to say the kids these days have it a tad easier when it comes to videogame accessibility

[hainer92]

Probably my favorite memory was the year that both my divorced parents got an Atari 2600 (two total) for me and my sister at Christmas time and we got different cartridges at both homes, so we always looked forward to going back and forth. That and getting the patches.

That sounds like a blast. My brother and I always thought about how cool it would be to have 2 of a console.

[limi]

Pretty great interview with Nolan Bushnell celebrating the milestone:

https://www.howtogeek.com/812246/atari- ... ars-later/

[Xbytez]

I have some very clear and fond memories of playing Crypts of Terror on my best friends Dad's Atari 400 in their living room on the 'big' TV, playing on the Atari in the living room on the 'big' TV was only allowed on Friday nights.

Looking back I can see why these early explorations into computer gaming formed strong memories as this was also next to the open log fire, neither of which we had in our house, an open fire or a computer.

This then lead me to saving my pocket money and doing little odd jobs to eventually save up enough and buy my very own second hand Atari 800XL.

[Superdude]

Our family was going through a rough time in the early 80s. We did not get presents for Christmas except for some candy and dinner. In March, the video game crash happened. The hard times were gone and we had income coming in. My Mom saw a sale on Atari 2600 games. She remembered that we did not get much of anything for Christmas. She had a 20 dollar bill and bought 20 games. (They were blowing them out at Kaybee Toy Store for 1 dollar each) It was one of the greatest gaming day ever.

[aberu]

The first game console we had was an Atari 2600 my dad had, and I played the shit outta Frogger and Zaxxon on it, so I still feel some warmth toward them.

[PistolsAtDawn]

I think it's safe to say the kids these days have it a tad easier when it comes to videogame accessibility

And that's a good thing. I still miss arcades though.

[Malor]

Our first console was Pong, followed by a Fairchild Channel F (what a loser), followed by an Atari VCS, later called the 2600. I think ours might have been a woodgrain model from Sears, but I'm not sure anymore. My sister and I spent so much time playing Maze Craze. A fair bit of Combat, of course, I think everyone played a lot of that, but Maze Craze was what really held us for a long time. I also really enjoyed Yar's Revenge.

I played Adventure enough that when I fired it up on an emulator a few years ago, my hands still knew how to play it. Not me, my hands. I watched myself play all the way through the most complex version (it has three difficulty levels). My conscious mind remembered roughly where to place the bridge in the maze going north, but for the most part I watched tiny me play the game through my adult hands. That was a really neat and really weird experience. My hands are very good at Adventure.

Later we transitioned to the TI 99/4, then the 4A, then the expansion box when it went on fire sale. Ye gods, that was a terrible computer. We finally transitioned to the Amiga 1000 in Christmas of 1985. That was the last family computer; the next was an A500 that I bought for myself. So I was an Atari kid, a Texas Instruments teen, and a Commodore adult. I left the Amiga fairly early, too, transitioning to the PC probably in '89 or '90.

We also had a NES, but while the games there were fantastic, most of my focus stayed on the TI and then the Amiga.