One Joystick, One Red Button: My Uncle’s Atari

Visiting my uncle came with a particular attraction: he had an Atari.

I’d already discovered TV gaming through our Binatone TV Master, mostly playing tennis with Dad and my Sister. But my uncle’s machine offered something else entirely. Suddenly, those two white bats and a square ball had competition.

My uncle was always into his tech and was one of the first people I knew with an Atari at home. It was a little wedge-shaped box with wood-effect trim, because apparently even the future had to match the furniture. There were switches on top and a slot in the middle for the game cartridges.

And he had a whole collection of them.

That was part of the appeal. You weren’t limited to the games built into the machine. Pick a different cartridge, slot it in, and there was something new to play. Space battles, basketball, cowboy shoot-outs—all from the same box plugged into the telly.

Trailing from the console were two wired joysticks. You probably know the ones: a chunky black base, a straight rubber-covered stick and one lovely red fire button.

One stick. One button. That was your lot. At least you never had to wonder which button you were supposed to press. If in doubt, give the red one another go.

The games I remember include Asteroids, Basketball, Combat, Frogger and Outlaw. Just those names are enough to bring the Atari back to mind. I’d gone from knocking a square around a screen to blasting space rocks, dodging traffic with a frog and taking part in a Wild West shoot-out.

Quite an upgrade.

Looking back, it wasn’t about how realistic anything looked. The graphics only had to give us enough to work with; our imaginations could handle the rest. A few shapes on a television screen became a spaceship, a tank or a cowboy, and away we went.

That little wood-trimmed box made visiting my uncle even more exciting. A choice of cartridges, a joystick and a red button, what more could I have wanted?

Did you have an Atari, or did you head round to someone else’s house to play? And which game would you put in for “just one more go”?