PixlBit

I didn't have a 2600 because we had an Apple computer that played much better games.  I did play the 2600 a lot at friends and neighbors' houses, though.  But a few years later, I did get a 5200 for Christmas and it was a total surprise because I didn't even ask for one!  That was really my first home video game console if you don't count the Apple and the Pong clone my dad installed on the back of our TV that he built.  I know people say the 5200 is horrible, but I have good memories of mine because I was a kid and I was just happy to get it.  In fact, I didn't get a NES right away because I was perfectly happy playing Pengo on the 5200.

So have you heard that they are making Atari themed hotels?  And the first one is opening this year in Arizona!  Are you going to it?  When they build the one that they said was going to be in Austin, TX, I'm totally making a trip down there to stay in it!

The Atari 8-bit computer line is what the 5200 would have been like without all of its issues and a good controller. Atari was ahead of the curve on analog control, but neglected to put a self-centering mechanism in it (then again, Nintendo didn't get it right the first time with the N64 controller, either, since those sticks got pretty loose after awhile of using them and grinding up the plastic). Almost all of the games on the 5200 were on the 8-bit line, either officially or thanks to hackers since the 5200 shared the same basic architecture, just with less memory, plus many more. Atari 8-bit computers were the second-best game-playing machines of the 1980s after the NES.

We had a 2600 and then a 7800, which was great. I played a lot of Atari. 

It's crazy to look at art from that time period and think how cool these games would look if they had the tech to just use those art styles in the games. 

Yeah, that would have been cool. But I guess you gotta start somewhere. 

I'm going to look for that book. Although most of my Atari experience was with their 8-bit computers as mentioned above, my cousins and my best friend did have 2600s, with my friend having one of the slim 2600s they released in the mid-80s. I have the Atari Flashback Classics on Switch, which is a compilation of all three volumes released on PS4 and X1 - and once again, no Solaris. Sigh. Also no Battlezone, since Atari sold the IP to someone else while they were strapped for cash.  

Atari Anthology on PS2 had a lot of interesting factoids about the games. On Missile Command, they mentioned that the designers actually had nightmares about nuclear war while making it. On the 2600, the world in Missile Command was an alien world being attacked by another alien race, according to the manual. In the arcade version, the cities were meant to represent five major cities in California being attacked by the Warsaw Pact.

I remember missile command was included on windows 95 like Minecraft. Me and my older brother would compete for the highest score. 

Those box arts sure bring back memories. I didn't know this book existed. I want it. 

It's really cool. 

I grew up with an Atari 2600 so that book would appeal to me. 

Tell me: does it offer any info about the Demon Attack cartridge art? Because that one, in particular, was bizarre.

I just looked in the index. Looks like it's not in it. There is a game called Demons and Diamonds though.