AtariAge Forums: Ransom - Viewing Profile

I'm a middle-aged guy who got into gaming in the mid-70s, when my dad would play arcade games with me at the pizza parlor. My first system was a Coleco Telstar Arcade. In 1980, my parents bought me an Atari Video Computer System for Christmas. That was my "Red Ryder BB Gun" Christmas, if you're familiar with the movie, "A Christmas Story".

In 1982, my parents bought me the Colecovision with the 2600 adapter so I could keep my old games and still play the new stuff. Then the 5200 came out, and I sold the Coleco and my games, and bought that. I loved Star Raiders, but the rest was just OK.

By then I was itching to write my own games, so I returned the 5200 and the games (yes, the games were returnable at that time!) and got an Atari 400, a 410 recorder, "The Programmer," and "The Entertainer." I quickly ran out of memory for my programs on the 400, and for Christmas 1983 my parents bought me a 1200XL and a 1050 disk drive. (I think Atari dropped the 1200XL from its product lineup the very next day. But I still love that computer more than any other.)

Within a couple of years, I got my first job and started buying my own computer and video game systems, and stopped leeching off my parents so much. First I bought an Apple //c, and very much enjoyed programming it as well as playing the games for it that didn't seem to come out for the Atari (such as Wizardry). A couple of years later, I first bought a Turbografx-16 as soon as they appeared in stores, and then a Sega Genesis as soon as they popped up. I think I'm the only person in the world who actually paid full price for and enjoyed Budokan for the Genesis.

I also got into collecting old systems at this time (1988-1992), and was able to find a tremendous amount of good old Atari 2600, 5200, and other classic system stuff at flea markets and garage sales (as well as some Silicon Valley warehouse-style shops). I built up quite a collection, everything from Pong to Channel F to TI 99/4a and beyond.

In 1992, I graduated from college and moved from my native California to Illinois. I got rid of a bunch of my systems before moving, but kept all the stuff I actually remembered from my childhood. When they came out, we bought an SNES and a Jaguar, but didn't really play with the classic consoles much. A friend gave us their old TG-16 and games around 1994 or 1995. A few years later, when it was time to buy a house, I sold everything but the Atari 8-bit stuff, the Jaguar, the TG-16, and the SNES through a useNET newsgroup.

Although I continued playing games on the Atari 8-bit computer, it wasn't until 2006 that I got back into the classic scene when I bought an Intellivision. It was one of the few systems I'd never owned (although I had swapped my 2600 and games for an Intellivision and games with a pal back in the 7th grade -- just for the summer). I really wanted to play some of the great games I remembered, such as AD&D and Utopia. So I bought a console and started trolling eBay looking for games. Of course I bought them all complete in box, since the overlays are often useful and the instructions are often necessary to understanding the more complicated Intellivision games.

That Intellivision led to re-acquiring a 2600. And that led to getting an NES to go with our SNES. I bought a 19" NTSC LCD TV to hook them all to (via switchboxes), and set up a nice desk where I could have all my systems connected at once. I converted a closet into a nice place to store the boxed games. And for a couple of years, that was fine.

In 2009, I decided to add the Genesis, 5200, and 7800. That led to setting up a second area for gaming, and putting an older 15" NTSC LCD TV into service. It also prompted me to reorganize the closet again, and acquire more shelves to hold all the games.

These days, I play classic games daily. I really get a lot of enjoyment out of all the games, and out of having them readily available to play. Fortunately for me, my wife is also a gamer, and we can be found wiling away many an hour playing games together.