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THE GAMES OF MY YEARS: ATARI - PART ONE by Mr Biffo

20/11/2015

35 Comments

 
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This is the first part of a new ongoing feature.

I don’t remember the first video game I ever played.

I have a vague recollection of my sisters owning a black-and-white, plug-into-your-telly console.

It was one of the ones with a load of different built-in games, all of which were Pong. Or, at least, Pong in all but name... Which seemed appropriate given that Nolan Bushnell's Pong was itself a rip-off of a 1972 game by Ralph Baer.

Table Tennis was part of the Magnavox's Odyssey system, who went on to win a court case against Atari - a case that hinged around Bushnell making the mistake of signing the guestbook at a demo showing of their ground-breaking machine. Unfortunately, the one-time licensing fee that Atari was forced to pay to Magnavox was small change next to the millions the company made from Pong. 

I was never allowed to touch my sisters' game, though, and I actually don't ever remember my sisters - who are 8 and 10 years older than me - playing it either. What's more, I've never witnessed them playing a video game in the years since.

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In fact, after seeing the console in my mother's wardrobe - and being told it was a Christmas gift for my sisters - I never saw it again.

​I'll let you draw your own conclusions, but my theory is that my parents took it out to "check it worked", broke it, and never got a replacement. Or wanted to play a cruel trick on me. Or were fencing stolen goods.


At some point my parents must've tired of my ceaseless begging, and bought me a plug-in-the-telly thing of my own to shut me up. It was, I recall, a Binatone, which had sufficient switches and buttons that it doubled-up nicely as the flight controls of the Millennium Falcon.


​It also came with a light gun. I believe I may have discovered the first ever video game cheat, when I learned that it was possible to rack up an enormous high score by simply opening curtains on a bright day, and letting the sun shine on the TV. I've tried it since with Destiny. Doesn't really work, even if you do use mirrors.

ATARI SO GOODY

At some point, we got an Atari VCS. The 2600. A proper, cartridge-driven, console.

​This was the dream. Real arcade games on your telly. Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Battlezone (which - in the process - had gone from being a vector graphics work of beauty, to a bad acid trip in a cardboard box factory).

Not being a rich family, we used to go to a shop that rented Atari games. The place also sold fridges, ovens and washing machines, and had a selection of Betamax and VHS titles to hire. ​

One of these, was a film called The Goon Tube (or something similar) which I remember vividly, because the cover was a photograph of a flaccid penis, overlaid with a cartoon face. Even now, I subconsciously associate this image with Atari, and as metaphors go it worked very well for the Atari Jaguar.


There was something immediately magical, and simultaneously sort of rubbish about the 2600. On the one hand, playing "TV Games" at home felt like the future. At the same time, most of the games were borderline unplayable. Combat, Pitfall, Space Invaders - people forget their grinding slowness, now sufficiently distanced by time that their utter brokenness is diminished. 

Raiders of the Lost Ark was a particular nadir, and by comparing the same scene - as depicted in the movie and in the game - we get a sense of the gulf between potential and realisation.

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EXCITEMENT! THRILLS!
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EXCITEMENT? THRILLS?
EMPIRE BUILDING
The game that everyone wanted for the Atari 2600 was The Empire Strikes Back. I never got it. They never had it in at the shop with the flaccid penis film, and we couldn't afford to buy it.

But I knew a boy who did have it.

He was Michael Conabeer, and he lived a few doors down from me, and I pretended to be his friend so that I could play his copy of that must-have game.


There was nothing wrong with Michael Conabeer, per se, but... well, he was the sort of boy who would invite you round his house, so that you could watch him urinate in a coal scuttle. Or take you into his parents' bedroom to show you what he claimed were his mother's sex toys, at an age where you never knew there were such things as sex toys. Or, indeed, sex.

His family also had an irritating habit of shortening the word radiator to "rad", which irritated me at the time, young as I was, and continues to press my buttons even more today.

"Ooh, it's a bit chilly. I think I'll put the rad on"... "I'm just going to bleed the rad"... "Somebody's pissed in the coal scuttle again. You know: the one we keep on the box of sex toys next to the rad". 

A wholly unnecessary abbreviation, like curtailing like "totes" or "jel". If I ever heard someone say "I'm totes jel of your rad" I'd have to strangle them with their own intestines.


I digress.

The Empire Strikes Back. I somehow managed to convince him to lend it to me. It was rubbish of course. I mean, it was an Atari 2600 game, and you played it with a joystick that was about as ergonomic as a cow's skull. Nevertheless, it was the closest - at the time - a boy could get to being Luke Skywalker. Specifically, an ageing Luke Skywalker riddled with arthritis.


​"Rad" indeed.

Decades later I would be witness first-hand to the final fall of Atari... and it wouldn't be pretty.
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PART TWO...
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
VIDEO GAMES: THEY'RE ALL BORING by Mr Biffo
DIGITISER2000: STATE OF THE UNION by Mr Biffo
​
VIDEO GAMES: A REFLECTION OF TERROR by Mr Biffo
35 Comments
Martin
20/11/2015 04:13:47 pm

"it was possible to rack up an enormous high score by simply opening curtains on a bright day, and letting the sun shine on the TV"

But the sun doesn't always shine on TV.

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Toaster
22/11/2015 01:05:51 am

Well played.

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Euphemia
20/11/2015 04:45:08 pm

To be "cuntinued" more like, you second part, cock-teasing bumlicker. This isn't Kill Bill! I want the whole thing NOW like the spoiled, me-generation swine that I am.

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Bananasthemonkey
20/11/2015 06:54:01 pm

'One of these, was a film called The Goon Tube (or something similar) which I remember vividly, because the cover was a photograph of a flaccid penis, overlaid with a cartoon face. Even now, I subconsciously associate this image with Atari, and as metaphors go it worked very well for the Atari Jaguar.'

Damn straight Mrs. Sometimes I fear that my entire personality may be built on moments such as this.

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MONKEYMANBOB
20/11/2015 07:10:54 pm

Jedi Arena (I think it was called that) and Spiderman on the VCS made me salivate. Oh to be swinging as Spidey or deflecting the beams fired from this training orb from (at that age) was the best film ever ever ever. How I wanted one. I begged. It appeared 3 years in a row on my Christmas list (along with TCR and Big Trak). But the best I ever got was a knock off figure 8 slot racer (6 massive batteries - dead by Boxing day), a WIRED control car which could only turn in reverse and a dual screen game and watch (Donkey Kong).
Had to wait until we got a Spectrum off the catalogue (it'll help with my homework ).
Should have called Esther Rantzen she'd sorted me out a Colecovision

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Hamptonoid
20/11/2015 08:02:20 pm

I enjoyed that muchly.

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Voodoo76
20/11/2015 09:27:43 pm

Can you confirm which is the film and which is the game picture of Indy please? I used to love our Atari, I remember running home from school on my lunch to play pacman, ah the memories. Didn't care for tuning in the effin channel though, what a pain that was!! A particular favourite game was Wizards of War!

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Mr Biffo
21/11/2015 09:08:07 am

Pac-Man was actually alright - certainly one of the better Atari conversions. Still a pain with that joystick though.

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Richard Wager
20/11/2015 09:54:56 pm

Fuck me you lived in a posh street if someone had Rads! I lived with nan and grandad and we had no central heating but they did have a Tandy games thingy. It had a light gun and some crazy motorbike game where you jumped buses. The one thing that sticks with me gaming in the late 70's early 80's was the whole get the machine out of the box play then pack it away like it was a board game or your Lego bricks. Life was good but bloody cold in winter..,

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Mr Biffo
21/11/2015 09:07:06 am

That is so true. I'd never really thought of it like that before - but nobody kept their consoles under the telly back then. How bizarre.

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Adam
21/11/2015 11:11:55 am

We did keep our VCS (and some earlier machine that i can't identify) under the telly, as our telly was on a stand. Posh, eh?

Chris
21/11/2015 07:23:30 pm

There was no point in leaving ours under the telly, because the phone cord style cable which attached the controller to the console made it impossible to move more than a metre away. That effectively meant you'd be playing with your nose pressed up against the screen, so the console invariably needed to be in the middle of the floor, so you could sit in front of the sofa (the cables weren't long enough to actually sit comfortably on the sofa, as you risked knocking somebody out with a game controller projectile, should it slip from your grip).

Also our telly sat on a tiny rickety table, and you needed to unplug the aerial to connect the console up, so it wasn't exactly convenient to leave it plugged in.

Kelvin Green link
21/11/2015 07:58:57 pm

Chris, I have in the past year re-acquired an original mega Drive and I was surprised to discover that the controller cable is about 4cm long, so until I get an extension I too will have to play Crude Ball with my face pushed up against the telly.

Richard Wager
21/11/2015 08:16:35 pm

Adam did, but he was posh 😜 Probably had rads too...


Col. Asdasd
20/11/2015 10:03:12 pm

Good read. Looking forward to more of this Biff.

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DeathHamster1
20/11/2015 10:24:44 pm

The film you're mentioning is 'The Groove Tube' (1974), notable for introducing us to Chevy Chase, a skit with a clown reading excerpts of Fanny Hill and, of course, the talking knob, aka 'Safety Sam':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UuF80YYzPA

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Mr Biffo
21/11/2015 09:05:55 am

That's the one!

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Hoboerotica
21/11/2015 06:55:08 am

"Rad"? *shudder*

"do you want to go to spoons for a vinda?"

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Mr Biffo
21/11/2015 09:05:38 am

Ugh. Don't.

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Antony
21/11/2015 11:03:37 am

Ooh you're onto a winner with this, was a great read! I remember loving space invaders though, didnt find it slow. There wasmone famous day in our house when my brother and I started playing together early one school holiday morning and we said bye to dad as he left for work. At 6ish he got home and we were still sitting there playing it. He shouted "how long are you going to play that mindless moronic game for?!" words which became instant classics in our house!

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Kirby
21/11/2015 12:08:39 pm

OHMIGOD I HAD THE EXACT SAME BINATONE.

Still do as it happens. It's on display in fact, right next to all the other consoles I haven't touched in years but still keep in some weird unhealthy shrine to my lost childhood.

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Mr Biffo
21/11/2015 12:22:03 pm

I'm pretty good at not hoarding these days. The only thing I couldn't let go was my Astro Wars machine.

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Kelvin Green link
21/11/2015 12:21:56 pm

Blimey. That Binatone thing at the top was my first console too, although I'm a bit younger than Biffo so we had it second hand, without the gun, so I couldn't play any of the shooty games.

As a further coincidence, the next games machine I had was the Atari, although ours had the wood grain; I miss the days when electronics had wooden parts. I remember being terrified by <i>Battlezone</i> for some reason.

If the next machine you feature is the Acorn Electron, Biffo, I'm going to assume that you have stolen my identity.

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Leigh
21/11/2015 09:24:29 pm

Enjoyed this article Dave.

I had a mate whose whole family used to pronounce pizza as 'pitsa'. He remained calm and resolute in the face of not only logic and reason but also threats that I would pour my squash over his poxy Amiga if he didn't stop doing it.

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WatchMeTriggerFinger
22/11/2015 12:25:29 am

Great read, Mr. Biffo. Brings back memories of my independent video shop "round the block" that used to hire out Atari games at 50p for two nights. Particular highlights were Frostbite (a shameless Frogger clone) and Decathlon. I remember being the first kid down the street to get hold of the latter and spent hours with my brother and Dad, hunched over the joystick (sans rubber coating) to see who could waggle the quickest, with an audience of friends outside huddled around the bay window, peering in to catch a glimpse of the Olympian tussle going on indoors.
"If you do x, y and z, I'll let you have a go on my Atari," used to be a great bargaining tool, particularly if you wanted to stop the local ruffian either gozzing at you or giving you a monkey scrub.
Wonderful times.

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FEoD link
22/11/2015 09:06:15 am

Maybe it's because of your Cockney accent Biffo, but the article implies he was pronouncing it as "rad" to rhyme with "lad" but surely it would be "raid"..?

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Mr Biffo
23/11/2015 09:11:49 am

It was "rad" as in "lad". Somehow "rad" as in "raid" wouldn't have been as bad.

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Lorfarius
23/11/2015 07:45:04 am

Coal scuttle? Wow there's something I've not seen in a long...long...long, long time.

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Stay
23/11/2015 06:16:19 pm

I found my dads porn drawer when I was about 10. In my haste and confusion I read the word "penis" as "pendenis" (it was the first time I had seen the word its it written form). This helped me get through 11 years of working for a man who's surname was Dennis.

This drawer also revealed the true reason for my dads love of the video recorder... I remember the first VCR we had was huge with big mechanical button and its remote control was connected via a cable. I almost got caught twice watching "those" videos - the most pant filling moments of my life. Trying to rewind the tape back to the correct position via the counter and then sneaking the tape back up stairs Mission Impossible style.

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Mr Biffo
23/11/2015 08:34:21 pm

"Pendenis" made me perform a LOL.

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Stay
23/11/2015 08:47:41 pm

I still internally giggle whenever I meet somebody with Dennis as part of their name with the only exception being Dennis The Menace.

Mr Biffo
23/11/2015 10:12:02 pm

My dad's name is Dennis. HIs middle name is Percy.

Stay
23/11/2015 11:09:54 pm

Oh, does that mean your middle name is also Dennis?

kevbloke
25/12/2015 05:47:34 am

I remember seeing you playing empire strikes back. Had no idea you borrowed it from Michael. An interesting read, brings back memories.

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Pippo
23/1/2016 10:45:39 pm

Thanks not only for an amazing read (I was forever curious about the goings-on behind the scenes of Digitiser, much like with all my favourite computer magazines) but also for solving the mystery of the rental video cover that freaked me out as a kid, and had haunted me to this day. Like a spooky ghost willy with eyes.

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