20th Century Gamer

One of the thrills of collecting is coming across old favorites new-in-box, still factory sealed from decades ago. When I saw ten Apple II Atarisoft games in the AtariAge Marketplace Forums, I had to have them. AtariAge is a great resource for video game collectors and enthusiasts. While the site’s primary focus is classic Atari products, the large community actively discusses many other systems. The forums are especially good for discovering how to diagnose and repair old hardware, researching untrustworthy eBay vendors, and getting in on new homebrew releases.

From 1983-84, Atarisoft sold ports of popular games for competing platforms. Owners of Apple II, BBC Micro, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, Commodore VIC-20, IBM PC, Intellivision, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, or Texas Instruments TI-99/4A hardware got to enjoy titles previously only available for Atari’s consoles and computers. Warner sold Atari’s consumer division to Jack Tramiel in 1985, and shortly after the Atarisoft label disappeared.

The fact my Atarisoft games were only $1 each made the purchase impossible to resist, especially because they typically go for $10 apiece before shipping on eBay. The only downside is that a fellow collector was forced to give up these and many other gems from his collection because he lost his job in the poor economy.