My mom was visiting family in New York in 1971. She told me about passing by a department store and seeing something on display in the window that totally blew her mind. I can't remember how she described it because first she said it was an atari and I interrupted to tell her that the vcs didn't come out until 1977. Then she said it was pong and I interrupted again to let her know that the c-100 didn't come out until 1975. It turns out it was the magnavox odyssey that she had seen. She asked her aunt about it saying that there was nothing like that in Alabama. Her aunt called it a tv game and explained that it was still in the testing phase. I'm just wondering if anyone here has any similar stories about seeing a new game system before it was available to the general public.

I had a TI-99/2 in about 1984, that was about it. I made a ball bounce around the screen with basic programming. My parents had a guy hook it up to a 25" console tv. The back of it was off and he had spliced the wires into the tube. I was more fascinated with the tv humming and lights that I ever was with the computer, besides, computers were a fad, they were never going to amount to anything, right?

The first game console I ever played was Nintendo NES with Mario and Duck Hunter, circa 1988. Not trend setters, but game consoles were never going to amount to anything, right?

I gotta go, there is a call coming in on my portable phone, yeah, it's a cellular phone, but I am not sure if I will keep it, it probably won't amount to anything, right?

Don't even get me started on buying water in a plastic bottle, ha!
Sam

I'm not old enough to remember when the nes was new, but it was the first game system I played, and I think I have more games for it than any other system. I know both of the games I'm getting for Christmas are nes cartridges. I have games and systems all over the spectrum, from 1975 to current-gen. I have pictures of my 9 year old nephew playing an atari pong c100 with my mom.

I am a HUGE fan of my classic Atari 2600. I have countless games stashed away somewhere. Though I did not actually grow up with an Atari 2600, my sister and her husband had one when I was little. The game system brought me some solace from an otherwise troubling home life.

I was old enough to remember when the NES was still in production, but not new. I still have a NES and play a mean game of Tetris.

I can one-up you there; I had an Atari 7800! I was quite the expert at Joust and Dig-Dug, if I do say so myself.

Dig Dug was released for the NES as well.

7800's are hard to come by. Do you still have it?

Nah, we got rid of it once I got a Super Nintendo. I don't remember what we did with it, but I assume we probably either gave it to a friend or donated it to charity. I do still have my original Game Boy, though (with the green and black screen). It actually still worked until a couple of years ago.

I played a lot of games before the general public (No game systems though). Been involved with Beta testing for ever it seems! Used to be an active members of the Activision Visioneers before they decided to cancel the program and bring the testing in house only. Those were the days!

My first game system was an Atari 2600. I would have been maybe 6 or 7 when we got it one Christmas???

Then in 86 I saved my money forver and bought myself an NES! That was an awesome Christmas, I got two brand new games, Zelda and Metroid.... I still remember the TV commercial that year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-qBkWerZDg

Heh, his weirdness definitely spoke to the isolated weird kid in me!

If you still have old NES and SNES games sitting around but no system..... http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/b76e/?srp=4

Rock on!!!

(And as far as Beta's go, I'm currently involved with the Diablo 3 and Tribes: Ascend betas!)

Diablo 3 has been a long time in coming. But I know Blizzard wants to be sure it's perfect. I was a Diablo II addict for many years.

Since the majority of this thread has been about the 8-bit era did anyone have or does anyone still have a sega master system? While the nes is without a doubt my favorite part of the 8-bit era, possibly my favorite part of video games in general, the sms is without a doubt my favorite sega system.