Today marks the 42nd birthday for the beloved Atari VCS (2600) and to celebrate this occasion, we at Atari Edge have a special treat for our readers. I was reading back through some old articles that I wrote on my personal website, and found an article that I wrote when the Atari VCS (2600) was turning 40 years old. That article happened to be the first of two articles I wrote and posted on my personal page in September of 2017, that led to the launch of Atari Edge in December of 2017. Two years later, we celebrate the 42nd birthday of the Atari VCS as well as the two year anniversary of the article that started it all for Atari Edge. Althought the Ataribox name has changed to Atari VCS, and images have changed, I wanted to keep the article in it's original form to celebrate the start of Atari Edge, and another birthday for the original Atari VCS.
Original Post: September 10, 2017
It’s interesting to sit here on the eve of the birthday of one of the most iconic video game systems of all times, and realize that I have literally grown up with the Atari 2600. I was born in July of 1977, and just a little under two months after I was born, Atari released the 2600 to the world. From the time I was old enough to walk and talk, I remember having an Atari 2600 joystick in my hand. Despite the crash of the video game market, and the rebirth with the Nintendo Entertainment System on July 15th 1983, I continued gaming on the Atari 2600 through the 1980’s and into the early 1990’s. When my sisters and I received the NES for Christmas in 1989, that was not the end of the 2600, and in fact, I continued to play the system along side the NES until the fall of 1992 when I purchased the Turbografx-16. Shortly after, I sold the Atari 2600 systems and games that I had to purchase more Turbografx-16 games. When the Atari Jaguar was released in 1993, I remember wanting the system extremely bad, but the $249.99 list price was a bit too steep for me at that age, so I kept gaming on my TG-16 console for many years to come.
Over the years, I have bought and sold many PC-Engine and TG-16 systems, but my love for Atari had never wavered. Since the first Atari Flashback console was released in 2004, I wanted to love the system, but there were always so many negative reviews of the console, that I never felt the system was ready for my purchase. If I was going to buy an Atari console, I wanted to make sure it was a solid system to play.
Around Christmas of last year, I finally found the system that would once again get me playing Atari 2600 games again. That system was the 2016 Atari Flashback Portable. With 60 built in games, and an SD card slot, I thought, this thing looks amazing, so I made the purchase. I have been playing the system ever since, and have been traveling down memory lane with games like Pac-Man, Dodge-em, Megamania, etc.
Atari has recently launched two more campaigns that are exciting for Atari fans, and I am sure many fans are at the edge of their seats waiting for more announcements to come. The Ataribox is a brand new modern console that Atari has been teasing, and I am expecting the console to be far more than a retro flashback type system. To the many people that have been comparing it to the NES Mini, I have some news for you. Atari released their Flashback consoles from 2004 to 2011, and since 2011, through licensing with atgames, has been putting out additional retro Flashback units, with their latest console, the Flashback 8, about to release in 12 days.
As the Atari 2600 turns 40, it is an amazing, as well as, exciting time to be an Atari fan, and for me personally, it is such an interesting time, as I have grown up with the iconic brand. With so many great memories, I can only hope that I can continue to build on those memories for years to come.
