So a lifelong friend and I connected for some old-school gaming this weekend. And when i say ‘old school’ while not quite as old as say, Frisbee, Monopoly, or Go – these were still pretty old videogames. He has an extensive collection of old (mostly 70s-80s but a few are even older) videogame consoles – the same ones we used to play on the big ol’ 25″ tv in his basement back in the day. We actually had an Atari ‘flashback’ console for those – it has a ton of games built into it instead of plugging cartridges in and out all day – and it even has a few previously-unreleased and prototype Atari 2600 games as a bonus, which is pretty cool (and I’m sure doesn’t hurt sales :)).

So after some Atari, we hauled out the Bally Arcade, then sidetracked to a couple (real) arcade games – we both have several of these – a couple of mine are at his house) – then off for pizza. Then back for more Atari, followed by Colecovision (played through nearly all the cart’s he had, although the controllers on that system haven’t stood the test of time well – they were all but impossible to use) and then back to Atari with a brief sojourn in C64-land. We also surveyed several other systems he has around, but ultimately forgot to get around to hooking them up.

Then of course the required pilgrimage to Fry’s in Wilsonville, followed by a quick dinner and then to Ground Kontrol (an actual arcade in Oldtown Portland with 80s-90s videogames and about 20 pinballs – great stuff!).

We got done around 945 pm. And the good thing is, there are plenty more games for NEXT time 🙂 We need to get back to more C64 – and then some older PC and Amiga games we used to play for hours on end.

Ah, memories…..

candybowl