As a person who loves technology and growing up through the 80’s-90’s I’ve had the grand opportunity to watch innovations evolve. One particular technological advance that changed my life when I was a young boy was the birth of the in-home gaming console the Atari 2600.
Pong & Bubble Screens
Before Xbox, Playstations, Virtual Reality, and Augmented Reality games graced our planet the simple game of Pong blew people's minds. When I was around five, I clearly remember my Uncle hooking up an odd console and paddles to our bubble screen television. The game he played involved two simple lines that bounced a small square back-n-forth across the TV. I was very fascinated by this game and began to notice video games continued to surround my atmosphere.
The next time I noticed the popularity of Atari and video games, in general, was when I went out to eat with my parents at a pizza-restaurant named Geoffreys. The place had a shady like atmosphere of a bar with the walls painted black and smoking was allowed in restaurants at the time, so it was quite smoggy. However, within the darkness when I was a real young guy I noticed a table-top Asteroids that lit up the players surrounding it. When I first played, I sucked really badly. But over time I became a master of Asteroids and was able to complete many levels with my triangular ship.
Atari was also very well known for other games such as the infamous Centipede and then the in-home console the 2600. The Atari 2600 made a significant impact on my life and society around me as children began to start to love playing inside. Throughout the late seventies and early eighties many kids began to become infatuated with video gaming. As games like Pitfall, Pac-Man, and Combat cartridges were made, our little brains were satisfied by the faint glow of the television. In 1979 Atari 2600 sales were one million and the product revenue doubled nearly every year after. The device had very little buttons, two joysticks or paddles, and serious games were released regularly like Space Invaders.
Nintendo Rolls Into Town
Atari sat in my family’s den for quite some time over the years we owned the console. We remained an Atari family even after the Nintendo explosion. I remember walking over to my friend's house who lived across the street, and he, and his brothers were playing Super Mario Brothers for the first time on their new Nintendo. I remember picking up the controller and when I saw my first mushroom I ran away from it being scared. Everyone in the room laughed at me when it happened. I did eventually grow a love for Nintendo, Super Mario, Final Fantasy, Skate or Die, and the Power Glove. But Atari remained in my heart forever.
As an adult, my best friend and I are all about retro-gaming. He has a stand-up machine at his home with over 36,000 emulated retro games. It has Nintendo, Neo Geo, Sega and many old school classics but I always go straight to the Atari. Alongside this at home my son and I have a new Atari game system that houses over 100 games inside of it. The joysticks are the same, and my son Joshua loved to play all the games I had played in the past. One of his favorite games is Adventure where you run around a maze searching for keys and killing a dragon with your sword. That game was one of my all time favorites as well, and I would play the game for hours often times getting lost in the mazes.
The 2600 and Retro-Gaming Will Always Be in My Heart
I give a lot of credit to Atari for making me what I am today. A lover of geek lifestyles and someone who is extremely passionate about technology. I attribute this love to the hours playing with that one button squeaky joystick and the 2600. Playing Space Invaders, Centipede, Stampede, The Smurfs, Empire Strikes Back over and over again until the wee hours of the night. Technology has changed us all, and if it weren't for the rock star developers creating games like Pole Position, we’d still be playing with sticks and rocks in the woods catching poison ivy. Go on, go on an Adventure! ;)
Jamie Redman is a journalist at Bitcoin.com and graphic artist at Crypto-Graphics.com. He has written hundreds of articles about decentralized technologies, peer-to-peer applications, and open source code. You can also follow him on Twitter @Jamiecrypto