Video Gaming Antiquities

I was walking through Katy Mills Mall on a Monday afternoon when this blast from the past caught my eye. Prominently displayed in a case was a collection of video game consoles from the past. On the bottom was this old Atari system. I remember being around five years old and living in a mobile home in Liberty, TX. My brother and I were in love with this state of the art masterpiece. With games like PAC Man, Space Invaders, Cops & Robbers (I wasn't too impressed with Missile Command) we protested when our parents made us go outside and play. This was considered "high tech" back in the early 80s. The system was initially released in 1977. It sported a fancy 8 bit processor, 1.19 MhZ processor speed, and 128 bytes of screen RAM. Young folks today would gasp, shudder, and wonder what kind,of dark age of history I grew up in.







This next exhibit was originally released in 1983, in Japan. It arrived in America in 1985, and in my house around 1987. This surpassed Atari with its 8 bit CPU and 2 KB RAM. This was the first time a medium aside from books could take your imagination to another world. I visited the Kingdom of Hyrule, the land of Castlevania, the mystical land of Argool, and the beautiful countryside in Vietnam. Nowadays these are relics of a generation past and played only by those seeking a moment of nostalgia or true antique lovers. They will always hold a special place in my heart and in history.