Early game devices you grow up with?

[Tatsujin]

Since peeps in here coming from all around the world and places I was wondering on what game devices (PCs, HCs, consoles, arcade machines etc.) you were introduced to the world of Video Games and grow up with?

Sure there must bee some obscurities I have never seen or heard about bevore. Tell us your stories

For me it would be..

introduction: arcade games in the late 70s/eraly 80s at around 5yo in places like restaurants etc.
first HC: a V-20 at a dads friends home (that guy was kind of a computer geek back then). i think I've played a phoenix kind of game.
first own game device: G&W Mickey mouse double screen for x-mas '82. soon traded it with my dads green house, since I liked that much better (still my fav. GW today).
first console: a used atari VCS 2600, soon was replaced by a commodore C-128.

then it went on with amiga, nes, sms, pce, md, sfc etc. stuff.

[bob]

Has anybody heard of the old Coleco Zap game?  It was a small handheld with the LED lights that that you had to press the button to volley them back and forth.

This was literally my fist exposure to electronic games.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Coleco-Zap-Electronic-Handheld-Game-FREE-SHIP-/370865581231?pt=Electronic_Battery_Windup_Toys_US&hash=item56594facaf

[TheClash603]

I was born in 1983, so I think that I was a little behind the curve.  The order of consoles I owned when I was a kid was:

1.)  Odyssey 2
2.)  Atari 5200
3.)  NES

However, I had an Apple II C+ as well, which was arguably my primary gaming system in the late 80s.

I also had a gameboy pretty much right when it came out.

When my family went camping, which we used to do a lot, we had about 5 different Pong variants we would hook up to our old B&W TV.  I have no idea which ones we had, maybe one day I will search this out.

I also used to play this game A LOT when I was camping.

[turboswimbz]

as it turns out I am to young to add much here in the way of rarer stuff, My first Video game exposure was as follows:

Arcade - on the boardwalk from the time i was basically born - Outrun, Pac Man, Ninja Turtles than later Daytona  - still a fav of mine

Home Consoles - Turbo Was the First (I still play on this deck!) then of course later on NES, SNES, N64, PS, as so on

Hand Held - Game Boy

Computers - Dos based stuff, Apple II E.

however we did have 2 interesting Mattel hand held game like devices.
first



then later

ebay /mtNOLfPWoqZh9NSV-L3T-WA.jpg

[DragonmasterDan]

APF TV Fun


Coleco Pac-Man


I also had a 2600 as a kid, but most of the games I had were found in the bargain bin when the industry crash happened and were terrible.

In 1987 I got an NES which was when I first started to extensively play video games.

[jeffhlewis]

First gaming device of any kind in our home was a Tandy Color Computer. Downland and Demolition Derby were the only games I think we had besides some math software that I can't recall the name of:

Downland:

Demolition Derby:

I couldn't have been more than 5 years old when we got it but I remember being completely enthralled with that machine. It's pretty much single-handedly responsible for my love of games and my career path.

Sega Master System was my first real game console; got it during the Xmas of '87. Besides that, we had a slew of arcades in malls, mini golf places and whatnot when I was growing up...my earliest arcade memory is actually Showbiz Pizza. I remember going to a Space Port or Aladdin's castle in New Jersey around the time that the early CPS-1 games were coming out (Forgotten Worlds / Ghouls n' Ghosts).

Edit: Almost forgot - I used to play the shit out of this before I had any form of Gameboy/Gamegear:

[CGQuarterly]

Does a Speak N' Spell count?  That was the first electronic toy I ever got.  I was 3 or 4 years old, and was given that with the E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial expansion pack thing.  I really want to get one again, but they're kind of expensive because of some certain sub-group of electronic musicians.

[SignOfZeta]

Blip!

[NecroPhile]

Nothing too weird and obscure for me: just a 2600.

[geise]

I had this. Epoch Dracula! http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Epoch/Dracula.htm

[NecroPhile]

Ha!  Drac has a nice dainty grip on that joystick; he's a gentle fellow.

[geise]

The VFD screen was nice and bright.  The object of the game was to go and collect the diamonds and make you way to one of the coffins to get the treasure.  If you chose the wrong one you had to run from the bats.  Also there was a green lizard monster you had to avoid as well.  I spent way to much time with that game.

[MotherGunner]

Nuff said.



http://handheldempire.com/game.jsp?game=1612

[JoshTurboTrollX]

My first ever video game handheld device was the Pacman table top mini arcade.

I also got the Tandy CoCo2 in 1984 for Xmas with a copy of Downland.  It was my first ever video game experience in my bedroom and I was hooked ever since!

[NecroPhile]

Nuff said.

I too had one of these, along with a SMB G&W.  Good times were had with both, but I've no idea what happened to 'em.

[Tatsujin]

seems like that tandy was kind of an USoA c64 equivalent.

[tggodfrey]

Other than the little handhelds, my first gaming console was a Telestar Arcade.  That gave way to the Oddysee 2, 2600, & TRS-80.

Our first Computer (other than TRS-80) was a Tandy TL/2.  We had Kings Quest IV, Indy and the last Crusade, Chuck Yeager Flight Training (still have it), and a drag racing game.

[td741]

Apart from early arcade games and pinballs...

My first gaming devices were:
1) Radio Shack TV Scoreboard (Pong game w/Light Gun)
2) An LED Football portable game (didn't like football but it's a game!)
3) Merlin

Followed by 2600, Pac-Man watch, various Radio Shack LCD games, VIC-20, Chase'N'Counter, Dad's IBM Turbo AT (he did CAD work so EGA instead of CGA), TRS-80 CoCo3, C-64, Amiga, SMS, SNES, etc...

[xcrement5x]

I played a lot of the labyrinth game (the wooden kind with the ball bearing and the movable field) when I was a kid, then there was an electronic bowling game I would play all the time too.  I can't find it online but think my parents still have it.

The first major gaming I ever had was the C64, which is still sitting all boxed up in it's original packaging back at my parents place.  That was a family thing, but I used it the most.  Then eventually I got a NES and went console gaming ever since.  After the NES I had a Genesis which I saved up forever to buy as a kid, I didn't get into Turbo and PCE until well after it was dead.

[JoshTurboTrollX]

seems like that tandy was kind of an USoA c64 equivalent.

'cept it was like 100x better!!
CoCo <X------|-------->C64

;)

I was hooked when my cousin had the TRS-80 all in one monitor/keyboard/disk drive system and we played and wrote programs in Microsoft Basic. 

[roflmao]

I remember one of the first BBS's I started visiting back in the early 90's ran off a CoCo. That alone impressed me enough to keep going back to it.