Well, it’s back to 1977 for me: I just bought an Atari 2600 to replace the one my mom gave away to the Overfelt (quit yer snickerin’) kids down the street. And it’s a beauty: a “Heavy Sixer” <angelic choir> which for you non-Atari minded is the first run of the unit, made in Sunnyvale CA before the job was outsourced to Hong Kong. So named because it weighs half a ton and can stop 9mm bullets.
The unit has the original paddles, the original grey with black logo power supply, and the original joysticks. And best of all, I got it on eBay for an amazing price - my first big eBay purchase.

There is something sublime about playing the same games with your kid as you played when you were a kid. I even let the little guy beat me in Combat! What’s even more amazing to you programmers out there is this:

1010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010
1010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010

That’s 128 bytes - the amount RAM the thing uses to do everything.

The Atari logo is coming back, and it is quite the time capsule back to the days when disco and Jimmy Carter ruled the world. Then again, maybe I’ll fire up the PS2 and play a nice relaxing game of Half-Life….

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

View Technorati blog reactions.

Related Posts