[RetroPicks] Eternal, immortal, everlasting. In other words Atari 2600

Hello guys,

I still cannot contain my joy for my last purchase. Some days have already passed but I still cannot figure out I’m a proud owner of a wonderful Atari 2600.

First of all I have to thank my trusted shop in Verona. Last weekend finally I had the opportunity to go here and look with my eyes what was on sale. It’s a small but interesting shop and beside of the “obvious” PS2 and PS3 games there were some N64 and SNES games in almost mint condition. He had also a great boxed SNES that looked like brand new, an Amstrad and then Game Boy, N64, Dreamcast and a lot of other stuff (even a Ping-O-Tronic!!!).

I went there just to have a look but as soon as I stepped in my attention was captured by a shiny Atari 2600. As I gave a further look I notice that not only the console was almost new, and when I say new I don’t mean “in good shape to be 35 years old”, I mean “like it came out of the box the day before”, but also that along with the Atari the offer included more than 20 originall games with manuals. I don’t need to ay that everything was pristine. I  couldn’t contain my interest any further so I asked for the price that was 150€: not so cheap per se but very cheap if compared to the state of the items.

I managed to lower a bit the price (even because I didn’t have 150€ in my wallet) so in the end that was a great great deal.

The console is an Atari VCS, the first toi be named 2600, even if is commonly known as Darth Vader, for its dark color, released for the first time in 1982. It was complete with the original power lead and the antenna cable to connect it to the TV (everything in perfect conditions). Together with the console there were two original joysticks and two paddles.

When I turned upside down the console I even found the original warranty on it!

And now the games: most of them are the most iconic and famous games for this console. Almost all of them had their own manual, but some were loose. The list includes 22 different games, all of them working and in ideal condition:

• Backgammon + manual
• Battlezone + manual
• Casino + manual
• Centipede + manual
• Congo Bongo + manual
• Crystal Caves
• Defender + manual
• Dig Dug + manual
• E.T. the Extra Terrestrial + manual
• Galaxian + manual
• Jungle Hunt
• Mario Bros. + manual
• Math Grand Prix + manual
• Ms. Pacman + manual
• Pole Position + manual
• Popeye + manual
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Reactor + manual
• Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
• Super Breakout + manual
• Tutankham + manual
• Warlords + manual

I have some piece of history here: the universally hated E.T., one of the reasons of 1983 video game crash, Mrs. Pac-Man, one of the first games with a female protagonist (why they didn’t name it Pac-Woman?), Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, the first Atari conversion of the SW saga, Battlezone, one of the earliest pseudo-3D games, Raiders of the Lost Ark, a conversion of the famous Indiana Jones movie, Defender and Galaxian, two iconic games of their genre and so on.

I discover some of these games are less common than others, especially with manual, but the average price is about 10€. This means that the games only are more than worth the price of the whole lot! 🙂

Unfortunately some manuals were missing (there was also the Star Wars manual but it was missing the first page 😦 ).

There was only one more thing to check: works or not?

I hooked up the console to my old TV (I didn’t check with the new one because §i knew it would have been difficult) and I started browsing all the frequencies that were once the frequencies of the italian channels. It took me like ten minutes but finally I got this

So now my new adventure with Atari 2600 can start. I have a lot of games to try and to play so talk to you soon!

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