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Fultonbot’s 1983 Atari VCS Quest: The Checklist

Here is my quest.

This has been bubbling under my skin for 34 years now, and this morning, while walking the dog, I finally understood what I must do.

In the summer of 1983, my brother Jeff and I sold a bunch of our Atari 2600 stuff  so we could buy a GCC Vectrex. The details of the sale have been lost to time,  but the purpose is crystal clear:  at 13 years old, we needed money so we could trade-up in he fast moving area of video games. This would have been a fine choice, if that era of video games was not about to close-in a like Death-Star trash compactor and leave us high and dry.   Soon, we were left with a dead console that had just a handful of games, wishing we had not sacrificed our Atari VCS in the process.  Now, 3 decades and change later,   I feel the constant pull of nostalgia to return to the golden video game days of yore with real games and real hardware.

To achieve this goal, I need to find all the games I once had in the in 1983..  To start, I’ve wracked by brain (with the help of AtariAge.com) to list all the games I believe I once owned, so I can try to locate them all.

Here is the checklist as best I can remember it.  This might be updated over time, as the quest gets moving:

  1. Fantastic Voyage (20th Century Fox)
  2. Fast Eddie (20th Century Fox)
  3. Turmoil (20th Century Fox
  4. 3D-Tic-Tac-Toe (Atari)
  5. Adventure  (Atari)
  6. Air-Sea Battle  (Atari)
  7. Asteroids (Atari)
  8. Basketball (Atari)
  9. Battlezone (Atari)
  10. Berzerk  (Atari)
  11. Bowling (Atari)
  12. Breakout (Atari)
  13. Canyon Bomber (Atari)
  14. Circus Atari (Atari)
  15. Codebreaker (Atari)
  16. Combat (Atari)
  17. Defender (Atari)
  18. Dodge ‘Em (Atari)
  19. E.T.  (Atari)
  20. Flag Capture  (Atari)
  21. Football  (Atari)
  22. Galaxian (Atari)
  23. Golf  (Atari)
  24. Hangman  (Atari)
  25. Haunted House  (Atari)
  26. Home Run  (Atari)
  27. Human Cannonball  (Atari)
  28. Indy 500  (Atari)
  29. Jungle Hunt  (Atari)
  30. Kangaroo  (Atari)
  31. Maze Craze  (Atari)
  32. Midnight Magic (7800 Era)  (Atari)
  33. Miniature Golf  (Atari)
  34. Missile Command  (Atari)
  35. Ms. Pac-Man  (Atari)
  36. Night Driver  (Atari)
  37. Othello  (Atari)
  38. Outlaw  (Atari)
  39. Pac-Man  (Atari)
  40. Pele’s Soccer  (Atari)
  41. Phoenix (Atari)
  42. Raiders Of The Lost Ark (Atari)
  43. Realsports Baseball (Atari)
  44. Realsports Football (Atari)
  45. Realsports Soccer (Atari)
  46. Realsports Tennis (Atari)
  47. Realsports Volleyball (Atari)
  48. Sky Diver (Atari)
  49. Slot Racers (Atari)
  50. Solaris (7800 Era) (Atari)
  51. Space Invaders (Atari)
  52. Space War (Atari)
  53. Street Racer (Atari)
  54. Superman (Atari)
  55. Surround (Atari)
  56. Vanguard (Atari)
  57. Video Olympics (Atari)
  58. Video Pinball (Atari)
  59. Warlords (Atari)
  60. Yar’s Revenge (Atari)
  61. Barnstorming (Activision)
  62. Boxing (Activision)
  63. Chopper Command (Activision)
  64. Dragster (Activision)
  65. Enduro (Activision)
  66. Freeway (Activision)
  67. Grand Prix (Activision)
  68. Ice Hockey (Activision)
  69. Kaboom! (Activision)
  70. Keystone Kapers (Activision)
  71. Laser Blast (Activision)
  72. Megamania (Activision)
  73. Pitfall (Activision)
  74. Plaque Attack (Activision)
  75. River Raid (Activision)
  76. Robot Tank (Activision)
  77. Sea Quest (Activision)
  78. Skiing (Activision)
  79. Sky Jinks (Activision)
  80. Space Shuttle (Activision)
  81. Stampede (Activision)
  82. Star Master (Activision)
  83. Tennis (Activision)
  84. Journey Escape (Data Age)
  85. Lost Luggage (Games By Apollo)
  86. Space Cavern (Games By Apollo)
  87. Tunnel Runner (CBS Electronics)
  88. Donkey Kong (Coleco)
  89. Venture (Coleco)
  90. Atlantis (Imagic)
  91. Cosmic Ark (Imagic)
  92. Demon Attack (Imagic)
  93. Dragonfire (Imagic)
  94. Firefighter (Imagic)
  95. Moonsweeper (Imagic)
  96. Riddle Of The Sphinx (Imagic)
  97. Star Voyager (Imagic)
  98. Armour Ambush (M-Network)
  99. Astroblast (M-Network)
  100. Frogs And Flies (M-Network)
  101. Lock N’Chase (M-Network)
  102. Super Challenge Baseball (M-Network)
  103. Frogger (Parker Brothers)
  104. Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back (Parker Brothers)
  105. Reactor (Parker Brothers)
  106. Gangster Alley (Spectravision)
  107. Planet Patrol (Spectravision)
  108. Communist Mutants From Space (Starpath Supercharger)
  109. Dragon Stomper (Starpath Supercharger)
  110. Escape From The Mindmaster (Starpath Supercharger)
  111. Fireball (Starpath Supercharger)
  112. Frogger (Starpath Supercharger)
  113. Killer Satellites (Starpath Supercharger)
  114. Phaser Patrol (Starpath Supercharger)
  115. Suicide Mission (Starpath Supercharger)
  116. Fast Food (Telesys)
  117. Jawbreaker (Tigervision)
  118. Marauder  (Tigervision)
  119. Polaris  (Tigervision)
  120. Space Jockey (US Games)

The good news (at least for me, not sure about you-all) is that I don’t have to start from scratch. I have a couple boxes filled with old Atari stuff in my garage.  Some of it dates back to 1983, some of if from when my brother and I received an Atari 7800 in for Xmas 1986, still more from when I bought a surplus Atari 7800 with a bunch of games in 1995, plus a few carts I have sporadically picked-up at 2nd hand shops in the ensuing 20+ years.     The next step of my quest is to unearth what I already have, and see how far I still need to go.

So now it begins: Fultonbot’s 1983 Atari VCS Quest.

 

 

 

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