This appeals to the geek in me

I got my first Atari computer in 1984 and learned to program it. I had a tape drive, a single-density floppy drive [later got a third-party double-density drive], a dot-matrix printer, and joysticks. It got me through the end of high school, all of my undergraduate years, and into my graduate studies, as well as my marriage and divorce before it finally died. I still have the original word processor, BASIC, and games on ROM cartridges, and I went on eBay a few years ago and got another computer so I could relive the thrill that it gave me. I also have a Nintendo that isn't one of the first that came out, but it is the original system, just a slightly smaller version. I thought I was doing well. But nothing like this Gen X compatriot. Were you a Commodore person, or Atari? Do any of you have any older models, either leftover from your life in the early days or found again?

Apple, Atari, and Commodore, oh my! Explore a deluxe home vintage computer den: Brian Green re-lives the 1980s with dozens of fully operational vintage PCs at home.

I tried to publish this post from my phone

Alas, it did not work. The Blogger application is still saying 'publishing' about 40 minutes later. So here goes.

There really is no room in my bedroom for any sort of game system, and I have an old Atari computer and a not-quite-first-generation-but-still-original Nintendo system from ages back. I had tried balancing these on a chest-of-drawers with an old 1990s TV and a Norfolk Virginia pine, but it didn't work too well. So....I looked and I could hook them up to my 'modern' TV in the living room. So now the bedroom TV just has an RF modulator and Roku box (which is very small) to deal with, so I can watch Netflix or listen to Pandora. The living room has a small Smart TV, so I can do that in there, or now, play Tetris or Gauntlet or Dig Dug to my heart's content. If the Nintendo is hooked up, the digital antenna works as well, as there is a port for it. If the Atari is hooked up, it's just that. I'm going to see if I can use a splitter, but it may need a switch to hook both up and alternate them. (I don't have cable television; I don't really watch it enough to justify the expense.) But really, who needs cable, as I have all the entertainment I need here.

One more tonight...

Don't you love it when you have a song in your head (in this case, Ed Sheeran's 'Sing') and so you turn on the radio and it's actually playing. I guess I'm a radio psychic! :)

By the way, I finally got a pair of Atari joysticks to go along with an Atari 600 XL computer I found on eBay, and they work, and this afternoon before I went over to my friends' house, I played Dig Dug, Gyruss, and Q*Bert. :) Ready Player One indeed! And I love the Gyruss music, even though it's old-style computing music and a kind of plinky. And after all, it is Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor:



But then, I wish my phone's version of Tetris had the original theme. :)



(It's called 'Korobeiniki'.)

I have a confession to make

Remember the reminiscing I was doing the other day regarding old school computing? That is, my old Atari, in response to the video of kids reacting to the old ASCII system?

This coincided with a message from eBay saying I should change my account password due to a breach. Now, I've been on eBay about twice since I opened the account a few years ago, once to get something a friend was interested in, and once to replace a puzzle I accidentally broke of said friend's. But I do have an account, so I dutifully went to change my password.

I was still thinking about my old Atari 800XL, and so I typed it into eBay's search engine, and found several listings, all more expensive than I would have spent--about $100, which is what the system cost when my mom bought hers all those years ago. Then I happened upon a 600XL computer that was one model below mine, but takes the same cartridges, purportedly worked, and was about a third of the price of the others.

So I bid on it. And no one else did. And the next thing I knew, I'd won the auction. I also bid on a joystick, and won that one, as somewhere along the way I divested myself of my joysticks. But I kept my ROM packs, mostly games, about fifteen in all. There's something thrilling about getting down to the wire and bidding on something in 50 cent increments. So have to watch that! :) Today I received the computer (it came very quickly--it was Monday when I won the auction). Tonight I took it home and hooked it up to my bedroom TV and yay, it works. I tried a couple of ROM packs to make sure. So as soon as the joystick gets here, I can play the games I loved, such as Joust, Dig Dug, Centipede, Frogger, Gyruss, etc. So I logged back on to eBay and left very positive feedback to the seller, who was very reasonable, included the connectors I needed to get it hooked up, and got it to me very quickly.

I'm afraid I'm a bit of an old-fashioned video gamer. I still have an old Nintendo system, too, one with cartridges for Gauntlet and Gauntlet II. :)

That I'll probably keep, but there are other things in my house that I might do best to put on eBay. Things like Elvis records from the 60s in great condition, an old Game Boy system that I've never really used, a wallet that is too small for my phone these days. I could have my own online garage sale. This has possibilities....

Okay, it's almost 1:30 am. I got home late because I was waiting for a break in the weather, where it was storming. Time for bed--7 am comes early. Good night! May you dream of little pixelated protagonists saving the world from evil.