Thinking of buying an Atari 2600

[cubelmariomadness]

I knew that, but what does an Autoswitch even do? I tried some older ones as well though.

[MarioMania]

It's a good system

[linkzpikachu]

heres one question to round up this whole thread: do i really want to own one of the most iconic, longest lived, super cheap gaming system?

the answer?
YES!! ABSOLUTULY!!!

[cubelmariomadness]

Super cheap? I got mine for 30 bucks.

[satoshi_matrix]

Well that IS fairly cheap for a system that's not the Gamecube 

For the record, I did pick up an Atari VCS. It came with two refurbished original Joysticks and a set of cleaned and lubricated jitter-free paddles. It also came with 13 games:

Pac-Man
Phoenix
E.T
Asteroids
Defender
Combat
Space Invaders
Pitfall!
Ms. Pac-Man
Missile Command
Berzerk
Demons to Diamonds
Kaboom!

I'm really loving Ms. Pac-Man, Berzerk, Kaboom and Phoenix espically.

[linkzpikachu]

i got a 2600 vader in the box with paddles for $20.00

[petik1]

Damn, marlon's post was deleted already, but here it goes: where's B.J. Blazkowicz when you need him? 

[Romeo]

Satoshi, I would of suggested you to get an Atari 7800 since it is backwards compatible with the 2600.
Anyway, now you must head on over to atariage.com and see the "new" games that are still being released.
Check out their store.

This place also has the hook-ups for modern tv's and a heck of a community.

As a matter of fact, they are releasing some sort of expansion module for the 7800.
http://www.atariage.com/forums/forum/4-atari-7800/

[jackhandy566]

i use sega genesis model 1 controllers w my 2600's.

[Xious]

I'll address my 'Killeer Apps' list first, and get back to the other questions later, after I get some sleep..

In no particular order, my list of the best games for the 2600 VCS:

Asteroids
Centipede
Yars' Revenge
Adventure
Carnival
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr.
Mario Bros.
Defender
Swordquest (Earthworld & Fireworld are common, but Waterworld is a rare game and Airworld was never made.)
Frogger
Robotron 2084
Q*Bert
Xevious
Vanguard
Popeye
Warlords
Venture
Xenophobe
Crystal Castles
Super breakout
Circus Atari
Zaxxon
Solar Fox
Star Raiders
Time Pilot
Rainbow Invaders (New)
Joust
Spy Hunter
Star Wars: The Arcade game
Gauntlet
Night Driver
Keystone Kapers
River Raid
Solaris (one of the BEST!)
Mr. Do
Mountain King
G.O.R.F.
Missile Command
Midnight madness
Home Run
Jungle Hunt
Klax (Repro)
Jr. Pacf-Man
Space invaders
Berzerk
Pitfall
Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns
Kaboom!
Breakout
Bump'n'Jump
Pooyan (uncommon to somewhat rare)
Code Breaker (puzzle game)
Demon Attack
Crossbow
Demons to Diamonds
Dig Dug
Dragonfire
Earth Dies Screaming (pretty uncommon to rare)
Pole Position
Enduro
Galaxian
Frogs'nFlies

Also, no collection is complete without 'ET' and 'Haunted House', the latter of which is fun if you know what you are doing.

I strongly advise reading the manual for any game that you want to play: I can't stress how critical this is! Each game has its own controls and some require playing with different controllers, or using the difficulty switches during play. Further, many games have variations and you need the manual to know what they are. You can get them for every game as scans or plain text at AtariAge.com.

Also, the Wico--a big-name controller maker in the late-70s to mid-80s, like Hori was for the Famicom-controllers are far better than the stock sticks, which i always found a bit stuff. You can of course, use a SEGA controller, or the Atari 7800 European controller (like a NES joypad), but you can't use Nintendo controllers on the VCS as it uses a separate data line for each signal (UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, FIRE) whereas the NES uses one signal line for all, routed through the 4021B.

I recall that ColecoVision controllers work as well, as of course does the standard Atari 7800 joystick.

-Xious

[MarioMania]

Get one

[nintendodork]

If you would've read the OP's last reply, you'd have seen that he did.