Wow, indeed time flies. My parents got divorced in 1977 or 1978 or something when I was 7 or 8, and first thing I remember my dad doing when he moved out was to go buy me an Atari at Sears. It was the divorce guilt that made him buy it I am sure, plus he kept at his house so I would have a reason to want to go visit him. It was the first video game/computer I ever owned.
I can actually remember going with him to buy it fairly clearly, which is pretty amazing since I remember little else from that era. I seem to remember it costing $365, and we also bought "home run" at the same time. I played a few games against my dad but that's about all the video games he ever played after that. I'd play each game for days on end until there was just nothing else to do with it. It's amazing how focused in you can get on these games when you are that young.
I also remember going to the mall almost every weekend and begging my dad to shell out $70 for a new game. I feel shame about it now, thinking how expensive those games really were in 1970s dollars. The boxes always looked so amazing. The games were almost always a disappointment though. Arcade games were way ahead at the time. I think I ended up with about 40 or 50 of them in the end. I sold the system in the early 80s I think to help fund something else I wanted badly. Skis, guitar, I can't quite remember. Like anyone else, I sure wish I hadn't sold it now, would be nice to still have. But the games really are pretty crap when you go back and play them. Some were pretty good, most Activision games were good, and Imagic games seemed on another level. Even some of the simpler early games like Space Invaders, Adventure, and combat were pretty well done. We also had Indy 500 and the paddles, which was pretty cool, but very expensive.
I didn't own another system until I bought my Amiga in 1988. Had to go beg to play NES games and with C64s and the like at friends houses.
