Remember the Atari 400?

I'm sure that many of you Gen X-ers, like me, were saddened by the death of Apple's Steve Jobs last week, and found yourself looking back at all of the tech inventions we've seen in our lifetime. Before we got our Apple IIc computer in the mid-1980s, our family's very first home computer was an Atari 400 c. 1981. I remember coming home from school every afternoon and playing Pac Man, Space Invaders, and Asteroids on that computer in our wood-panelled basement. I almost wish I had saved it. Turns out that some people on Ebay have done just that. Check out this "vintage" Atari 400 Home Computer System with Box, 2 Controllers, BASIC & Extras which is available for $129.99 (I wonder what the original price was in 1981...). You can also find lots of Atari cartridges on Ebay, too, plus those carpal-tunnel-inducing joysticks. What do you think our Wii and X-box playing kids today would think of this clunker?

Image courtesy of The Game Console (fun site!)