Retro Gaming Hacks

Buy and Run Later Classic Consoles

Get your hands on some underappreciated classics.

I’ll be frank. I’m not much of an Atari 2600 fan [Hack #3] . Not that I don’t enjoy a good game of E.T. every now and again, but my personal retro gaming tastes run a bit more eclectic. And hey, why restrict yourself to the VCS when there are plenty of other consoles out there for around the same price? Put in a couple hundred bucks and you could amass ten thousand 1981 dollars’ worth of electronics; the fever-dream of every bellbottomed schoolboy.

Tip

Many of the tips and pointers in the preceding hack [Hack #3] will apply to the purchase and setup of most of the consoles mentioned in this one, so I’m going to concentrate on the things that differ—non-standard accessories, unique pitfalls, etc.

Mattel Intellivision

There were other video game systems on the market when traditional toys giant Mattel threw their hat into the ring in 1979, but the Intellivision (short for “intelligent television,” don’t you know) was the first major competitor to the 2600. Mattel ran comparison advertisements on TV directly attacking the 2600’s admittedly lesser graphics capabilities, and Atari fired back with ads demeaning the Intellivision’s lack of arcade hits.

And they were both right! But they each took steps to remedy these deficiencies—Atari by introducing its RealSports line that looked and played better than their earlier efforts (but not as good as Intellivision Baseball, etc.) and Mattel by introducing some ...