Atari Baby

So I have a big box of Atari now…the same secret source that provided me with that 25 year old Lego kit supplied it. Here’s a shot of the entire bundle, including Yasuda:

Dsc08255.jpg < Yossie Loves Atari And here are some detailed shots: Dsc08251.jpg Dsc08250.jpg Dsc08248.jpg

The first is a historic piece of video game history – it’s Nintendo’s first US release. None other than an Atari VCS version of Donkey Kong, which was released under license by Coleco. Interestingly enough, Coleco’s main US plant was in Amsterdam, NY, only a hop and a skip from where we live now. It was at that very plant that they manufactured not only Colecovision systems but also the product that made them truly famous – Cabbage Patch Kids.

The middle picture is a shot of the Atari game Yar’s Revenge, or rather the circuit itself sans plastic case (it is about an inch square). As a child, Kristin found this in a ditch (or something like that) and it still worked fine. It may even work to this day…

The third picture is a shot of some of the basic programming products in the stash. Two cartridges are shown – one for the VCS/2600 and one for an Atari computer (the 5200?) as well as the keypad overlays. We also have a fascinating programming manual which includes details on how to write a basic program that allows the user to program in machine code (ie. You would use the basic cartridge to write an assembly language compiler).

The big question is how much of this stuff still works? And unfortunately I can’t answer that because not only do we not have a TV with the required inputs, the box didn’t include the necessary output cable for the Atari itself. Furthermore, a fair amount of the cartridges are for different systems than the one we have (a vanilla VCS), which are known to have been discarded, unworking, years ago.

So this box will enter the abyss of my attic, lost to future time, until the day arrives that someone else makes a similar blog entry to this one…

Comments are closed.