My love for ATARI

I can trace my obsession with atari back to my freshman year of college. I had been familiar with the company mainly due to its importance in video game history. If you're really into games, you've probably heard of the urban legend that in 1983, ATARI buried hundreds of "E.T The Extra Terrestrial" game cartridges in a New Mexico land fill.

In April of 2014, the legend was confirmed as true, when over 1,000 games were unearthed from a city dumb in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The dig was documented in the 2014 documentary "Atari: Game Over". The documentary details the history of ATARI as told by the programers themselves, including Howard Scott Warsaw, who created Yar's Revenge as well as E.T.

My first real experience with Atari was at a comic book store. I was just browsing around an looking through the old video games, and I pulled out a copy of E.T., it was only .50 cents so I said, why not. It wasn't until about 5 months later when I wound up watching Atari: Game over on my way home from my grandmothers house during christmas break, and learned about the urban legend of ATARI burring hundreds of Atari games in the New Mexico desert.

From that moment on, I started acquiring games for the original ATARI 2600. Soon my library include classics such as, combat, Pitfall, Space Invaders, Yar's Revenge and Breakout just to name a few. Up until 2017, I was mainly focused on collecting for the 2600. Until one day, when my mom and myself went to a flea market in hopes of finding an original 2600.

I've been a fan of vintage computers for a few years, especially after my first viewing of JOBS back in 2013. I had slight interest in acquiring some form of vintage computer. While at the flea market, I cam across a both selling vintage gaming consoles. On the table, was a 1979 Atari 800. I knew I couldn't leave without it. $30 later, and I was headed home with a classic computer.

I immediately began hunting for games, user guides and peripherals to make my set up look like something straight out of War Games. I've made little to no progress at this point.

Atari has become one of my favorite things to collect and learn about. Its importance in video game history is an incredible story and needs to be heard by any fan of modern or classic games.