Bountybob

When I got my Atari VCS in Christmas 1980 we couldn't get the TV Tuned to play it we even brought it to my next door neighbours house and couldn't get it to work there either.We thought there might be something wrong with the console.We called up the TV man and he came around with his son turns out we were trying to tune it in on UHF instead of VHF or vice versa.His son got it working and tried out Space Invaders he had a couple of games of it and said to me that's pretty cool.I had to wait a whole week for these guys to get it working because it was during the holidays.
The funny thing is something similar happened two years later when I got Defender for Christmas.The Pal Defender came with a heavy European multiple language instruction book .Can you believe when I opened it up Christmas morning no game cartridge inside it.The guy at the store forgot to pack it after demonstrating it us.I was gutted but we rang up the shop a few days later and they checked the stock and had an extra game so I got it a week later better late than never.

There was something nice about the games colorful graphics and sound effects.

I got my Atari VCS Christmas 1980.I'm positive it was a heavy sixer it shipped with Combat and I think it had Captain Atari
or Atari Club Catalog.I lived in a small town outside Dublin in Ireland most people hadn't even heard of Atari.I already had
because I had an Atari Touch Me game a couple of years earlier.It was cool to be one of the lucky few to own one(Initially I
only knew one or other kid who had a VCS and he had the same games I had) but the downside was that meant no game swaps.So I
was stuck playing Space Invaders and Combat for a while.Luckily these were Two very good games that had a lot of playability.
In 1980 in Ireland new Atari 2600 games where pricey The Activision games where almost half the price.Anyway over the next year
or two I ended up getting Laser Blast, Tennis, Defender, Battlezone, Skin Diver, Checkers and Phoenix.After a while the
price dropped and more kids had Atari's so I got a loan of Pacman, Superman, ET, Missile Command, Asteroids, Moon Patrol, Vanguard,
Empire Strikes Back, Berzerk, Haunted House, Yars Revenge, Pole Position, Jungle Hunt, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Star Raiders,
Demon Attack, and Vanguard plus a couple of others that I can't remember.Then around 1984 I managed to pick up some boxed second
games cheap Polaris, Gangster Alley, China Syndrome, Cross Force and Eggomania the first ever game to make use of my original VCS
Paddles.By this stage a lot of kids were getting home computers, I got a Sinclair ZX Spectrum at the recommendation of my friend
Leo who already had one.I wish I had known better I would have got an Atari 800 or a Commodore 64 instead.I ended giving away my
Atari VCS around 1985.I wish I had kept it.It was well played though and I'm glad I had it.

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Yes sure but it's hard to get the original boxes without some rub or wear on them not surprising considering the age.
The other problem is that the box could be a reproduction.That could be checked with a pocket microscope I suppose.

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Imagine if you had all of the original launch games in their original boxes in mint condition.That would be sweet.
I would collect them just to admire the artwork.I wouldn't even open them up to play them, well maybe just the once.