A few years ago my lovely wife bought an Atari 2600 for my birthday off eBay. Needless to say, any geek would fall over backwards at the prospect of being able to hold real cartridges again. The tactile reality of physical hardware eclipses even the finest emulator.

Hooking up the seldom used VHF connector to a modern LCD was like email morse code. “Good day sir, I find your strange 1080p disturbing. Would we not want to snack on these fine leeks instead?” The 2600 looks superbly craptastic as God intended. 4mhz in an air sealed box. Heating issues? What heat would be generated from a hamster brain? Hamsters don’t have modern issues like headaches and stress. There’s no grills, fans, heatsinks, red rings of death, 1000w power supplies or air conditioning bills to worry about. It’s *plink*, *bonk* and squares.

The system came with the more modern clicking controllers. They are shaped like lima beans and have little red triggers underneath. I was intrigued but this was not the controller I grew up with. I grew up with the Atari 5200 controller with the skirt around the joystick that looks like a 1994 RX-7 manual shifter skirt. So I ordered one off amazon, used, for $12. It came a few weeks later, from a Mom & Pop shop with names I couldn’t pronounce. The controller has a small scratch on the plastic cord as if it’s stripping but there’s plenty of insulation to go before she breaks.

I hooked it up and didn’t get much for video. I giggled some cables, blew the cartridge and flipped the switch and eventually saw a (c) 1981. Ah, brisk.