Retro Gaming Hacks

Buy and Run an Atari 2600

Hook yourself up with the most classic of classics, the VCS.

Maybe you sold it at your own garage sale. Maybe your mom threw it away while you were at college. Maybe you were too young to own one in the first place. Whatever the reason, you’ve found yourself wanting an Atari once again. Yes, the very first video game company did produce many different consoles, but when I say “an Atari” you know what I’m talking about: the Video Computer System, a.k.a. the VCS, a.k.a. the 2600, a.k.a. the Atari.

For the purposes of this hack, I’m assuming that you’re not interested in the collections for PlayStation 2 and Xbox that let you play emulated versions of classic games [Hack #16] , nor are you interested in the popular standalone consoles that plug directly into your modern-day television’s AV inputs and play from a selection of classic games [Hack #15] . No, you want the real thing, whether for nostalgic reasons or to play the games you remember that, for licensing reasons, will never, ever, be included on Atari Anthology, like the execrable E.T. or the 2600 versions of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.

Well, then: here’s how you’re going to do it.

A Bit of History

Though the company was doing well with the success of the Pong arcade game as well as Home Pong [Hack #2] and knew that their new machine, codenamed “Stella,” could transform video games into an even bigger business, Atari did not have the capital to launch the new platform. So founder Nolan Bushnell decided ...