The Atari 2600 Project

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I have in my possession a working Atari 2600.

Pheer me.

This thread will detail how it came into my possession, what interesting games still hold up in 2022 and my takes on old classics. With pictures and booze. Are you ready? For Atari, pictures and booze? You'd better be.

No spoilers.

[Jizaboz]

Recap/restore kit installed already to avoid awfulness?

My “wood” 2600 developed bad video issues like static (more so than usual) and colors looking like crap. Installing most of that kit it is behaving much better! Now if only I could keep people from breaking one of my original sticks I keep gluing back together.. joystick repair kits don’t cover the “base” pivot part of the casing that the new shaft (heh) breaks instantly with too much torque.

[AArdvark]

What games do you/ will you have?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Well, I bought a flash cart, so just about all of them.

Apologies for the delay. I want to take a nice picture of my 2600, not a phone pic.

[Jizaboz]

Aye. Flashcart for playing, real games for storing has become my style for nearly all old console play.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

The first game will be Super Breakout.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

First up. Flack got me this incredible, original 2600 for my birthday.

[AArdvark]

(Wipes drool from mouth with back of hand)

Schweet! What are you using for a monitor? Something with bakelite knobs, I hope

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

So here's the lucky thing. I think it was modified to take....... Co-ax? And my TV has such an input.

I didn't even burn an HDMI slot for it!

My wife asked if we could limit what is connected to the main TV. So it's just the PS4, 800 and 2600 right now. I intend to make it retro world in my office this summer.

[Roody_Yogurt]

My two favorite 2600 games are Pitfall 2 and Riddle of the Sphinx. Pitfall 2's music is just so damn catchy and especially compared to the simplicity of Pitfall, I'll always be impressed with how they elevated the design to cinematic (for its time) levels.

For Riddle of the Sphinx, it was one of the first games I played where there was enough mystery and ambiguity that it often felt like there was a game element waiting to be discovered. I have often thought that the best interactive fiction does the same thing, conveying the sense of a larger world than is actually implemented. I think I replayed Riddle of the Sphinx as recently as the 00s and could still see how it had sparked such feelings in kid me.

[Jizaboz]

My wife asked if we could limit what is connected to the main TV.

Absolutely not!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I require such limits. It was a mess out there and I am going to be honest, the Saturn wasn't exactly getting a lot of home use.

[Jizaboz]

I require such limits. It was a mess out there and I am going to be honest, the Saturn wasn't exactly getting a lot of home use.

Yeah I hear you bro. Totally joking. Only thing plugged up to our main TV now is the PS4 and a spare HDMI cable for the Pi setup. Saturn and Dreamcast have been put in storage for a long time here as emulators for both are much better now and I played the shit out of those systems back in the day. Got a spare older LCD I drag from the bedroom into the computer room to play Atari, Commodore 64, NES, and NEC Turboduo on.