Hi, I'm Ron Gutierrez and this is a page about one machine: the Atari Video Computer System, which the world came to know as the Atari 2600. I got mine for Christmas in 1980 when I was nine. I still have that exact console. It sits on top of the TV in the den, plugged in, ready, with a Combat cartridge in the slot most of the time, because that is how it came out of the box nineteen years ago and I am sentimental.

My wife thinks it is a little strange that a grown man with a mortgage drives around on Saturday mornings looking for cardboard boxes of dusty cartridges. She is right. I do it anyway. If you are reading this page you probably understand.

Atari released the Video Computer System in the fall of 1977. The idea was simple and, at the time, a big deal: instead of a machine that only played one game forever, you bought cartridges and swapped them. The first consoles came with a pair of joysticks, a pair of paddle controllers and Combat in the box. The name "2600" came a few years later (it was the model number all along) and that is what everybody calls it now.

The original console is the "heavy sixer," with six silver switches across the front: Power, TV Type (color or black-and-white), left and right Difficulty, Game Select and Game Reset. Later ones moved the difficulty switches to the back, and in the mid-1980s came the little black "2600 Jr." which is the same machine in a much smaller case. Sears also sold it under their own name as the Tele-Games Video Arcade, and a lot of the cartridges you find at sales are the Sears versions with different labels. They play exactly the same.

The joystick: one stick, one red button, a nine-pin plug. That's it. No "start" button, no shoulder buttons, no thumb pads. The joystick was the CX40 and it is, in my opinion, the most recognizable thing Atari ever made. They wear out, the rubber boot cracks, and the little metal contact domes inside get tired, so a working one is always worth grabbing. I have eleven.

Underneath, the 2600 has a very small amount of memory and a chip that draws the picture one line at a time as the TV beam scans, which is why 2600 programmers were famous for pulling off tricks that seem impossible. The first cartridges were 2K. Later ones went to 4K, then 8K with bank switching. The whole game of Combat fits in 2K. Think about that next time you install something off a CD-ROM.

There were hundreds of cartridges made for this system. Most were not great. A few are perfect. Here are the ones I make every visitor to the den play at least once.

Honorable mentions: Haunted House, Demon Attack (Imagic), Solaris, Ms. Pac-Man (much better than the 1982 Pac-Man, which flickers like a strobe light), Keystone Kapers, H.E.R.O., and Circus Atari with the paddles.

As of September 19, 1999 the count stands at 211 different cartridges (I don't count duplicates, and I have a lot of duplicates — I own six copies of Pac-Man and I did not want any of them). Of those, 63 have the original box and 40 have the manual. I keep them in three plastic milk crates sorted alphabetically by publisher, then by title, the way any reasonable person would.

Hardware: the 1980 console, a second four-switch console for parts, a 2600 Jr. that I found in a box marked FREE, a Sears Video Arcade, 11 joysticks, 4 sets of paddles, one driving controller, one Keyboard Controller set that I have used exactly once, and a Supercharger (the thing that loads games off a cassette tape) which I still cannot believe I found for $3.

The ten I am still hunting: Chase the Chuckwagon, Quadrun, Gauntlet (the Answer Software one), Music Machine, a boxed Adventure, Tunnel Runner, Mountain King, Crazy Climber, Bumper Bash, and Mr. Do's Castle. If you have one, e-mail me. I trade fair and I have the six Pac-Mans to prove it.

I am typing up the full list of all 211 with condition notes. It is a long list and my typing is slow. Check back.

Almost everything in the crates came from garage sales, church rummage sales, flea markets and thrift stores, and most of it cost between a dime and a dollar. Here is how I do it.

1. Thursday night, read the classifieds. Circle every sale that says "toys," "games," "electronics," or best of all, "kids grown, everything must go." A sale with a Nintendo mentioned is a good sign; the Atari is usually in the same box underneath it.
2. Map them out the night before. I hit the ones in the older neighborhoods first. A subdivision built in 1975 has Atari in the closets. A subdivision built in 1992 has Super Nintendo.
3. Be there at the start. If the ad says 8:00, be there at 7:45 with cash in small bills and a cup of coffee. Be polite about it. The early birds who push are the reason some people put "NO EARLY BIRDS" in the ad.
4. Ask. "Do you have any old video games? Atari, anything like that?" Half the time the answer is "oh, I think there's a box in the garage." That box is why you came.
5. Buy the whole box. Don't pick through it for the ten you want. Offer five or ten dollars for everything, console, cords, joysticks and all. The junk is trade material. And the good stuff is sometimes hiding in an unlabeled cartridge with the sticker peeled off.
6. Check the cartridge slot of any console for bent pins, and look for the power supply (the 9-volt brick). A console without a power supply is still worth a dollar.
7. Be nice. If the lady says her son loved that Pitfall, tell her it's a great game and that it's going to a good home. It is.

Best find ever: a boxed Supercharger with six tapes for $3, from a man who said, and I quote, "I don't know what that is." Worst mistake: passing on a Chase the Chuckwagon in 1996 because the label was torn and I didn't yet know what it was. I still think about it.

Nine out of ten "broken" cartridges just have dirty contacts. Here is the whole procedure. Do not blow into them; your breath is wet and that makes it worse in the long run.

1. Get cotton swabs and a bottle of isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol from the drugstore. The 90% kind is better than the 70% kind if they have it.
2. Most Atari cartridges have a spring-loaded door over the contacts. Push it open with a fingernail (or a popsicle stick) and hold it.
3. Dip a swab in alcohol, squeeze out the excess, and rub the row of gold-colored contacts firmly, both sides. The swab will come out gray or black. Keep going with fresh swabs until it comes out clean.
4. Go over it once with a dry swab. Let it sit ten minutes to dry completely before you plug it in.
5. If it still won't play, try it a few times; the cartridge slot in the console itself may need the same treatment. Unplug the console first, then run a swab in and out of the slot.

For the plastic shells and labels, a damp cloth with a drop of dish soap. Never soak a cartridge. For sticker gunk on the shell, a little cooking oil on a rag takes it off, then soap. Do not put anything on the label itself except a dry cloth.

This is the question I get asked most. The 2600 does not have the yellow-red-white plugs. It has one cord that ends in a little box called the RF switch, which was designed to screw onto the two antenna terminals on the back of a 1977 television. Your 1999 television has a round threaded coaxial connector instead and no screw terminals.

The fix costs about three dollars. You need a 300-ohm to 75-ohm matching transformer (Radio Shack has them; it looks like a small plastic block with two spade lugs on one end and a round threaded plug on the other). Screw the two spade lugs from the Atari's switch box onto the transformer, and screw the transformer onto the TV's antenna input. Set the switch on the Atari box to "Game," set the little switch on the back of the console to channel 3 (or 2), and tune the TV to that channel. If your TV insists on being on "cable" input, switch it to "antenna" or "air" in the menu.

Even simpler: throw the old silver switch box away and buy an automatic RF switch like the ones that came with the Nintendo. The Atari's cord plugs right into it (it's the same kind of plug), and it has a coaxial end for the TV. The picture is a little snowy either way; that is just what the 2600 looks like. It looked that way in 1980 too.

If you have a VCR, you can also plug the Atari into the VCR's antenna input and let the VCR do the work. Then you can tape your high scores, which is something I have definitely never done.

People write to tell me I can play all these games on my Pentium with an emulator program, and I know. I have tried a couple, including one called Stella that is very well done, and it is a fine thing that somebody went to the trouble. If you have never seen these games, an emulator on your PC is a good way to find out what the fuss is about.

But it isn't the same. The keyboard isn't the joystick. The monitor isn't a snowy 19-inch Zenith with the volume turned up too loud. You can't hold a cartridge in your hand and read the little picture on the label and remember the day you found it. A 2600 costs five dollars at a garage sale and it will still be working when your PC is in the landfill next to the E.T. cartridges. The real thing is better. Come over and I'll prove it.

• The Board Game Closet — Walt runs the Hobby Horse ring and a Friday game night. Ask him about his rating scale.
• Pinball Wizard's Basement — Sal has four pinball machines in his basement. Four! His wife has rules. Mine would too.
• Quake II Clan [DUST] — the other kind of gaming, from the other end of the Arcade.
• Saturday Morning Memories — if you remember the 2600 you remember these cartoons.
• Brian's PC Help Page — for when the emulator won't run.