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Confessions of a 1982 video game junkie

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    Museum Robot
    • May 9, 2007
    • 5788

    Confessions of a 1982 video game junkie



    When I think about 1982, my mind drifts to three things, action figures, Doctor Who novels (mostly written by Terrance Dicks) and VIDEO GAMES.

    My then eleven year old brain had Pac-Man fever bad, I was a total junkie. I bought terrible magazines about video games where even i could point out the grammatical errors, drew pictures of them, pretty sure I even bought that weird "Atari Force" comic book that DC comics made.

    My parents were not shelling out for a home system and they forbade Grandma to help in anyway but my dad knew of a job opportunity in printing that only a kid would take.

    So, the winter of 1982 was the year i toiled for weeks tearing misprinted sheets out of 35,000 Ottawa tourism booklets for exactly one penny each.

    Nights, weekends, I spent the entire March break tearing watching day time TV and tearing out that same page out of that damn booklet.




    The above page was my spirit animal, I stared at it during this period so much i probably bore holes into it.

    Eventually, I raised $300 from my endeavor and my dad took me to Pinocchio's toys in the midtown mall to purchase a system. He would also help me buy a game as well. I remember pressing my face against that Jeweler's case and picking out Activision's Kaboom!


    All was right with the world, I was so proud about owning this thing and played combat until 2am with my dad (who was also a big arcade enabler to be honest).


    However, i would encounter one little problem the following Monday, a problem by the name of George Plimpton.





    Mattel had launched a competing system called Intellivision and used Plimpton to snobbily tout it's superiority to Atari. This ad campaign was especially effective at my grade school where kids would quote the man (who probably never visited an arcade in his life) to mock the 2600 and my choice.

    Me, filled with incredible pride of ownership (after all, i earned the money) took it all too personal and often challenged the other kid to a fight, this was despite my 40/60 success rate in playground scraps, never tell me the odds or the stats.


    BTW I attribute my prodigious ability to snore as an adult to these pointless donnybrooks.


    Happily, this lead me to my tribe of the other Atari 2600 kids and we would happily swap games, occasionally, I would get a cartridge that totally reeked of cigarettes, causing my mum to have kittens but how else was I going to play Atlantis?



    While the rivalry existed between 2600 and Intellivision kids remained, we both looked our noses down at the Odyessy 2. This weird disdain totally disappeared if I was a kid's house who had it though, mostly because I wanted to play it of course....











    And then there was Leisure Vision, the system that you get when you send your dad to the store but don't come along to supervise. It's low priced and looks like the Intellivision and Atari had a baby, so you can't blame frugral parents and grandpeople for surrendering to it's siren song.


    My obsession with video games would last until about 1984 until I got caught up in the world of Home Computers (more on that later) and well, girls but i always think fondly of this weird little era where I had the fever...




    BrAiN


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  • Earth 2 Chris
    Verbose Member
    • Mar 7, 2004
    • 32498

    #2
    Great story. My mind boggles at the price of the Atari system. It's about the same price an XBox One or PS4 go for today! So in 1982 money, it was probably the equivalent of at least $500-700 today.

    Somehow, we got one at Christmas, and yes, Combat was also the game that bridged that generation gap. My dad still talks about playing "tanks and biplanes".

    George Plimpton didn't dog me, but Ladies Home Journal or one of those other Mom rags did. They convinced my Mom that if we plugged the Atari up to our big color set, our TV would be ruined by the game pattern. Of course if you leave it sitting on for days it WOULD do that, but my usually indulgent mother wouldn't budge. I never played my Atari on anything but a small black and white TV.


    Chris
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    • PNGwynne
      Master of Fowl Play
      • Jun 5, 2008
      • 19444

      #3
      I've never had gaming fever--I was the library/old movies kid that got mocked. But that's a well-told story that I can empathize with. Thanks for sharing, it made me smile.
      WANTED: Dick Grayson SI trousers; gray AJ Mustang horse; vintage RC Batman (Bruce Wayne) head; minty Wolfman tights; mint Black Knight sword; minty Launcelot boots; Lion Rock (pale) Dracula & Mummy heads; Lion Rock Franky squared boots; Wayne Foundation blue furniture; Flash Gordon/Ming (10") unbroken holsters; CHiPs gloved arms; POTA T2 tan body; CTVT/vintage Friar Tuck robes, BBP TZ Burgess Meredith glasses.

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      • Hedji
        Citizen of Gotham
        • Nov 17, 2012
        • 7246

        #4
        Intellivision Family here. I was mostly proud to be different than most of my buds, but maybe just a little jealous of not conforming . Any time a friend would come over, they'd complain about the disc controller, and I'd try to defend it. Really, once you got the hang of it, it was fine, but I wonder if there was a legal reason Mattel Electronics didn't use a joystick.

        I know what you mean about staring at those pages. The simplicity of the main screen graphic, along with the fanciful box art, played the perfect psychological trick on me too.

        I honestly barely remember Odyssey 2 and Leisure Vision. Those look fantastically cheesy. I wonder if they offered any real play advantages over the big two.

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        • Bruce Banner
          HULK SMASH!
          • Apr 3, 2010
          • 4327

          #5
          We were also an Intellivision family. There were so many awesome games released for Mattel's fantastic faux-wood & gold box... I still collect the cartridges today.
          Later on, I bought a ColecoVision when all my friends were getting caught up in the home computer craze. I didn't regret it. I've always been a console gamer and still am today.
          PUNY HUMANS!

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          • HardyGirl
            Mego Museum's Poster Girl
            • Apr 3, 2007
            • 13933

            #6
            We were an Atari family. But, mine is a different story that I have posted on here in the past.

            Money was extremely tight when I was living w/ my dad and his girlfriend. There were 5 of us kids in the house ranging in age from 16 to 5. There was lots of government butter and cheese blocks and ground beef, beans and rice coming out of my ears. That year, all us kids got together and decided that we only wanted one gift for Christmas; an Atari 2600. We knew my dad and his girlfriend couldn't afford a new one, so we scoured the Pennysaver (a classified ads circular that came in the Sunday paper) and found one w/ 8 games for $150. It included the joysticks and the paddle controllers. We took it to my dad, and he agreed. We had so much fun playing Space Invaders, Pac-man, Combat, Air-Sea Battle, Video Olympics (aka different Pong games), Dodge'Em, Missile Command and Night Driver. Since I had previous experience w/ my old Telstar Alpha, I killed it in Pong games, and we'd often had cake bets (we used to get cheap cake mixes on sale, so the loser had to make the winner a cake!). Pretty soon, we got involved in the neighborhood game loaning with our friends. We also eventually found other games on sale and got E.T. and Bowling.

            Now I have both an Atari 2600 and an Intellivision II, but I love the Atari better. With the combined systems I have 220 games. But I seldom play them these days.
            "Do you believe, you believe in magic?
            'Cos I believe, I believe that I do,
            Yes, I can see I believe that it's magic
            If your mission is magic your love will shine true."

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            • Hedji
              Citizen of Gotham
              • Nov 17, 2012
              • 7246

              #7
              Great stories! I love that your family decided to pool together and the opportunity to get a used one came up.

              Comment

              • Klosterheim
                Persistent Member
                • Mar 23, 2013
                • 1121

                #8
                Excellent story.

                I also am astonished by the prices.

                Activision seemed to have the best video games.

                I think Chopper Command was a fun one, and one with a UFO, if it wasn't the same game. I think that I played Stampede.

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                • EmergencyIan
                  Museum Paramedic
                  • Aug 31, 2005
                  • 5470

                  #9
                  We had the Intellevision. I would have preferred an Atari.

                  - Ian
                  Rampart, this is Squad 51. How do you read?

                  Comment

                  • DavidCoppola
                    Veteran Member
                    • Nov 3, 2009
                    • 333

                    #10
                    Colecovision!

                    Comment

                    • Werewolf
                      Inhuman
                      • Jul 14, 2003
                      • 14615

                      #11
                      82, I think, was the year I got my first game console. An Atari 5200. Amazing graphics for its day but unfortunately terrible controllers.
                      You are a bold and courageous person, afraid of nothing. High on a hill top near your home, there stands a dilapidated old mansion. Some say the place is haunted, but you don't believe in such myths. One dark and stormy night, a light appears in the topmost window in the tower of the old house. You decide to investigate... and you never return...

                      Comment

                      • cjefferys
                        Duke of Gloat
                        • Apr 23, 2006
                        • 10180

                        #12
                        At the time, I felt that we were the only kids in the neighbourhood who didn't have an Atari yet. Finally got one Christmas of 81 or 82 after tons of hounding from my sister and me. And of course, my dad, who was the main resistance point about getting one to begin with, ended up playing it as much as we did!

                        Then finally, the Commodore 64 came along, I bought one and we had a dual disc drive at our high school computer lab (which had Commodore PETs, not 64's but the disc drives were compatible) and figured out how to illegally copy video games for the 64, SCORE!

                        Comment

                        • palitoy
                          live. laugh. lisa needs braces
                          • Jun 16, 2001
                          • 59200

                          #13
                          Originally posted by cjefferys

                          Then finally, the Commodore 64 came along, I bought one and we had a dual disc drive at our high school computer lab (which had Commodore PETs, not 64's but the disc drives were compatible) and figured out how to illegally copy video games for the 64, SCORE!
                          When I brought the C64 into our house, my father lost his marbles insisting it was just another Atari. I had to prepare a defense not unlike Aticus Finch proclaiming it as an educational tool and one I would use to print out my homework. I did do that but mainly i was playing space taxi and Bruce Lee.....
                          Places to find PlaidStallions online: https://linktr.ee/Plaidstallions

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                          • jwyblejr
                            galactic yo-yo
                            • Apr 6, 2006
                            • 11141

                            #14
                            Had the Sears version of the Intellivision myself. Then got the Coleco Gemini(an Atari 2600 clone) a couple years later. The cool thing about the Gemini was the controller. It had both the joystick and the paddle on it. I remember seeing the Odyssey back in '85 at a hardware store of all places.

                            Comment

                            • MRP
                              Persistent Member
                              • Jul 19, 2016
                              • 2035

                              #15
                              I got an Atari for Christmas in 8th grade (so would have been December 1982). My favorite game I got was Pitfall by Activision and the Empire Strikes Back game which was essentially the battle on Hoth with you in a snowspeeder vs. an endless army of Walkers. I also loved my home version of Venture by Coleco, which as a D&D fanatic at the time was basically a video game version of a hack and slash dungeon, and one I played in arcades wherever I found it. I was also fascinated by the concept of the Swordquest games, but the play on the first one was not very good and the contest Atari had for it bombed and the series never finished. I also spent a lot of time playing Riddle of the Sphinx, which I got just before spring break that year in school.

                              I would sometimes bring cartridges to school to trade with other kids to try other games, and a few of my parents friends with kids had Ataris too, so we would swap games between visits to keep things fresh. Any new games I got were either bought by me with money saved form odd jobs (I didn't get an allowance, I had to work to earn any spending money I had and my parents only bought toys or games for my birthday, Christmas or an occasional reward for a good report card). The only thing I could convince them to buy for me in between those occasions were paperback novels to read, so finding alternate means of getting new games to try was an imperative.

                              The only thing about Intellivision that intrigued me was the AD&D game I saw advertised, but the few times I played anything on Intellivision at friend's houses, I hated the controls. I did however want to get a Colecovision, but my parents were having nothing to do with it after having shelled out the money for the Atari and a second TV for the house for me to play it on that Christmas. Once I hit high school in fall of '83 (I went to a Catholic high school the next town over so didn't know many kids form 8th grade there, and I had been the new kid at the school in 8th grade so didn't keep in touch with anyone from that school once the school year was over), my sources of new games had dried up and I got tired of the games I had, plus I found a new group of kids to play D&D with, so I played less and less. A few new games at Christmas time (Joust) renewed my interest for a bit, but by the time freshman year was over, I wasn't playing much at all, and by junior year I had sold the console and all the games to a neighbor to help pay for driver's ed courses my parents required me to take (and pay for) before they would let me get my license.

                              -M
                              "Opinion is the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding." -Plato

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