Oooo, just writing this makes me want to rush off to eBay right now and get me a fully-working model. “Wii? Phttt. I got me an Atari 2600!”

Introduced around 1977 or 1978, I knew these as the “Atari VCS” (for Video Computer System), which they later changed to “2600″ in the early 80s when they introduced the next gen 5200 model.

It had industrial strength joysticks (although not the most comfortable) and game paddles, and by today’s standards, the whole thing was really simple to install, set up and operate.

The strongest reason for its success, I believe, was that it was the first video game unit that used game cartridges — as opposed to the games being hard-wired into the game console itself — which obviously meant a practically limitless number of games available to owners, at least as many as Atari and 3rd party game developers were willing to pump out.

It came bundled with Combat, which like the arcade version was 2-player only (and, quite frankly, probably one of the best 2-player head-to-head match games ever!). Despite its primitive “blocky” graphics and limited sound capabilities, a number of arcade ports were still oodles of fun (translation: I saw no sunlight for days!), like Asteroids and Space Invaders.

Not all the games were gems, of course. E.T. The Extra-Terrestial was a real dud. And I remember getting Star Raiders — the Video Touch Pad controller that came with it piqued my curiousity; eventually turned out Atari never used it for anything else — and was sorely disappointed. It was such a stinker, that I traded it away, Touch Pad and all, with a friend for his old, beat up Defender cartridge. Now that was a good trade!

Check out Atari 2600 products on eBay »