September 11, 1977: The Atari VCS (2600) Is Released

September 11, 1977: The Atari VCS – Video Computer System – hits stores. The home video game revolution is underway. The machine becomes the most famous video game system of all time, selling over 30 million units. It was renamed the Atari 2600 in 1982, once its successor, the Atari 5200 SuperSystem, was released.

Its controller, with its single red button, introduced the word "joystick" to American lingo.

I wanted it. I begged my parents to buy it for me. They wouldn't do it. They said I had to save up my own money to get it. By the time I got close, the 5200 was coming, so I decided to go for that. On December 23, 1982, the happiest day of my childhood, Dad took me to Crazy Eddie in East Brunswick, and I plunked down $197 -- $597 in 2022 money -- and got it. It was a lot better than the 2600, but it didn't sell well. Within 10 years, it, too, would be considered an anachronism.

I played the 5200 every day for 5 years, wearing out a set of controllers, before real life intervened and I could no longer play it as often. Eventually, a 2nd set of controllers wore out, and I put the console away.

Those of you who weren't around then: You have no idea how big a deal the PAUSE button was to us, the OG "gamers." Today, people take it for granted, to the point where, in 2022, my mother was reading to a 6-year-old granddaughter, who got distracted, and she said, "Nana, can you pause the book?"

In 2020, I had to move, and get rid of a lot of things. I didn't have a place for the console, and I had no idea of how to hook it up to a modern flat-screen TV. So I had to say goodbye to an old friend. But the loss of 2020 (one of many) cannot erase the joy of 1982, which remains my happiest Christmas season.

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September 11, 1977 was a Sunday. Christopher Brian Bridges, the rapper known as Ludacris, was born.

The NFL season opened the following weekend. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* A doubleheader was split at Yankee Stadium. The New York Yankees won the opener, 4-3. Dick Tidrow, who alternated between starting and relieving, started and went 7 innings for the win. Reggie Jackson, heating up with Billy Martin following George Steinbrenner's ultimatum to bat him 4th or he's fired, hit a home run.

The Toronto Blue Jays won the nightcap, 6-4. Tom Murphy outpitched Don Gullett. Though they were a 1st-year expansion team that would lose 107 games, even then, the Jays gave the Yankees trouble. The following May 27, I saw my 1st live major league game, and the Jays beat the Yankees. Then came the 1985 American League Eastern Division race, and the 1993 Division race, and ever since then, I've called them "the pesky Blue Jays," or sometimes "the Peskies."

* The New York Mets beat the Chicago Cubs, 7-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Joel Youngblood went 3-for-5 with 3 RBIs.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-2 at Fenway Park in Boston. Jim Rice went 2-for-3 with a home run and 4 RBIs. Carl Yastrzemski went 2-for-4.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-5 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Greg Luzinski hit a home run. Mike Schmidt went 0-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the Cleveland Indians, 9-5 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Doug DeCinces, with the unenviable task of succeeding the retiring Brooks Robinson as the Orioles' 3rd baseman, hit a home run. Ken Singleton went 2-for- 4 with a walk and 3 RBIs. Eddie Murray, soon to be named AL Rookie of the Year, went 1-for-5.

Robinson played his last game on August 21. A week after this, September 18, "Thanks, Brooks Day" was held at Memorial Stadium.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Diego Padres, 7-3 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Montreal Expos, 10-4 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Willie Stargell did not play, but Bill Robinson and Dave Parker hit home runs.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-2 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Pete Rose went 1-for-4 with an RBI. Johnny Bench went 1-for-4 with 2 RBIs. Despite this win for the Reds, the Dodgers, who had previously done so in 1974, prevented the Big Red Machine from winning a 3rd straight National League Western Division title.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins, 4-1 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. George Brett went 0-for-3 with a walk, and an RBI on a sacrifice fly. Rod Carew went 1-for-5.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Houston Astros, 2-1 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* A doubleheader was split at Anaheim Stadium (now named Angel Stadium of Anaheim). The Chicago White Sox won the 1st game, 6-2. The California Angels won the 2nd game, 5-4.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-3 at the Oakland Coliseum. Robin Yount went 2-for-4 with a walk.

* And the Seattle Mariners beat the Texas Rangers, 6-4 at the Kingdome in Seattle.

July 9, 1981: "Donkey Kong" Premieres, Introducing the "Mario" Franchise

The original game

July 9, 1981: Video game maker Nintendo releases the arcade game Donkey Kong. Nobody knew it at the time, but they had just launched the Mario franchise.

In the original game, Mario must climb up a building under construction to rescue a woman named Pauline, who has been kidnapped by a giant gorilla, similar to King Kong. Known as Donkey Kong, he hurls obstructions in Mario's path. Shigeru Miyamoto, who designed the original game, used "donkey" as a synonym for "stubborn."

This game was followed the next year by Donkey Kong Jr., in which the script is flipped: Mario has imprisoned Donkey Kong, and his son, an ape wearing a diaper like a baby, must rescue him.

In 1983, Mario Bros. (abbreviation for "brothers") debuted. Now, Mario has a younger brother, named Luigi. Both are plumbers with stereotypical Italian mustaches, and the only apparent difference between them is that Mario wears red, while Luigi wears green. This was the 1st in a series of games, both in arcades and for home video game systems, where they battled a dragon named Bowzer to rescue a woman named Princess Peach. Neither Donkey Kong, Sr. or Jr., appeared. There were television shows, and a live-action movie that got badly panned.

The Mario franchise was so successful, it allowed Nintendo to pretty much knock the original participants out of the home video game business: Atari, Magnavox, Mattel, and Coleco. When the dust had settled, there were pretty much only 2 such companies: Nintendo and Xbox.

In a 2012 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History, "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist played Mario, and "Nice" Peter Shukoff played Luigi, against YouTube personalities Rhett McLaughlin and Charles Lincoln "Link" Neal played Wilbur and Orville Wright, respectively.

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July 9, 1981 was a Thursday. The only major league sport in season at the time was baseball, and the Strike of '81 was on. So there were no scores on this historic day.

May 22, 1972: The 1st Home Video Game System

May 22, 1972: The Magnavox Odyssey is released. It is the 1st home video game system.

It would be followed in 1977 by the Atari Video Computer System (VCS, later rebranded as the 2600), in 1979 by Mattel Intellivision, and in 1982 by the Atari 5200 SuperSystem and ColecoVision. Games for personal computers and later mobile systems like Nintendo GameBoy would lead to improved graphics.

Eventually, individual games would become legends, and even obsessions: Grant Theft Auto, Call of Duty, Halo, and the Arkham series of games involving DC Comics' superhero Batman.

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May 22, 1972 was a Monday. Screenwriter Max Brooks was born on that day, the son of comedian-director Mel Brooks and his wife, actress Anne Bancroft.

Football was out of season. The NHL season ended 11 days earlier, when the Boston Bruins beat the New York Rangers for the Stanley Cup. The NBA season ended 4 days before that, when the Los Angeles Lakers beat the New York Knicks for the title.

Only 5 Major League Baseball games were scheduled for that day:

* The Montreal Expos beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-3 at Jarry Park in Montreal. This was the only game in the east of North America.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Texas Rangers, 7-6 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Tom Egan doubled home the winning run in the top of the 12th inning.

* The Houston Astros beat the San Diego Padres, 7-0 at San Diego Stadium. Larry Dierker pitched a 4-hit shutout.

* The San Francisco Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, 9-8 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Dave Kingman hit 2 home runs.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the California Angels, 6-3 at the Oakland Coliseum. Catfish Hunter outpitched Nolan Ryan. Reggie Jackson went 2-for-4 with a home run, a walk and 3 RBIs.

March 27, 1982: Pac-Man Fever

March 27, 1982: "Pac-Man Fever" by Buckner & Garcia hits Number 9 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100. But this post is only a little about the song, and more about the phenomenon that inspired it.

As Time magazine put it: 

Pac-Man is bursting out all over. Not only has the 15-month-old arcade game swallowed up an estimated $1 billion in quarters to become the hottest item in the video-game market, but the little yellow creature is now invading homes and spawning nearly 200 offshoots ranging from jeans to a chart-busting pop song, "Pac-Man Fever."

Pac-Man is a pie-shaped yellow figure that scores points in a video game by gobbling up dots, colorful fruits and four ghosts that inhabit its mazy world. Pac-Man, however, wilts and vanishes when one of the ghosts eats it. The game was originally developed in Japan and is based on a ravenous folk character whose appetite could never be appeased. The name comes from pahu, the Japanese word for "to eat."

Retailers have been unable to keep Pac-Man cartridges on their shelves since the Atari division of Warner Communications Inc. introduced the home version in mid-March (list price: $37.95). Richard Simon, an analyst with Wall Street's Goldman, Sachs & Co., expects Atari to sell a phenomenal 9 million units this year and to take in some $200 million in the process. He predicts that Atari's Pac-Man earnings will ultimately surpass 20th Century-Fox's profits from Star Wars, the bestselling film ever made.

Another big scorer will be Bally Manufacturing Corp.'s Midway subsidiary. It has sold more than 96,000 Pac-Man arcade games under a licensing arrangement with Namco Ltd. of Japan, and also holds royalty rights to virtually all Pac-Man spinoffs. Coleco Industries of Hartford, Conn., has come out with a battery-run table-top model, while Milton Bradley Co. will be offering a puzzle, a card game and a nonelectronic Pac-Man board game. In addition to a parade of toys, pajamas, lunch boxes and bumper stickers, there will be Hallmark cards and gift wrapping, Dan River sheets and pillowcases and J.C. Penney children's clothing. Says Midway Vice President Stanley Jarocki: "I think we have the Mickey Mouse of the 1980s."

Columbia Records' Pac-Man Fever (sample lyric: "I've got Pac-Man fever/ I'm goin' out of my mind") was No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 last week. Book publishers are weighing in with works like Signet's 128-page paperback guide, Mastering Pac-Man, which has put in an appearance on the New York Times bestseller list, and Pocket Books' How to Win at Pac-Man. Meanwhile, Bally last week introduced the first model of a Pac-Man pinball machine. The company hopes it will revive interest in pinballs, which has been all but eaten away by video games like Pac-Man.

Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia were from Akron, Ohio, and had been recording music together, mostly novelty songs and commercial jingles, since 1972. Garcia died in 2011. As of March 27, 2022, Buckner is still alive and actively writing songs.

Kids today, they don't understand the phenomenon of arcade games, and Pac-Man in particular. There has been no game since that has approached it in popularity. No, not any game in the Mario franchise (Donkey Kong had debuted the preceding July), not any game in the Halo or Grand Theft Auto franchises, not any game that could later be played on GameBoy, PlayStation or Xbox.

Kids today, they don't get that their Xbox games and other computer games are descended from the Atari 2600 and 5200, Mattel Intellivision, and ColecoVision; with the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sony PlayStation in between. They don't know the pain of saving up the $197 to get the Atari 5200 at Crazy Eddie or Toys R Us, and the $35 to get a new game cartridge. Hell, they don't know about Crazy Eddie and their commercials about how "his prices are in-sane!" And Toys R Us has been gone for a few years, too.

And they don't know about the arcades that inspired those home video games, most of them in shopping malls, with names like Space Port and Fun-n-Games. There were lines to play Pac-Man at video arcades. No, I am not making that up. I stood on such lines.

They don't know the thrill of hearing the Pac-Man theme, or escaping the ghosts, or eating the "power pill," which made the ghosts edible and worth bonus points, instead of being deadly to touch. They don't know the thrill of developing a "Pac-Man pattern," a "solution" to the game, to get you to the next level. They don't know the thrill of hearing that bell each time you racked up another 10,000 points, earning a "bonus life."

When my nieces were younger, I had to tell them:

When I was your age, we didn't have kids sitting around getting fat playing video games. We actually had to go out and play. Act out the scenes of sports, and war, and cops & robbers, that you might now see in video games. And if we wanted to play video games, we had to leave the house, get on our bicycles, ride to the mall, and go into the arcade.

"Uncle Mike, what's an arcade?"

It was a store with video game consoles.

"Uncle Mike, what's a console?"

It was a machine with the video game inside, put on... how can I describe this... a TV screen. We used to call the old TV sets "consoles," too. We'd stick a quarter in, and play the game. Some games were so popular, there'd be a line. Some guys would set themselves up as the next guy to play by putting their quarter on the machine. And the quarter, and the place in line it represented, was respected: Nobody dared slip it into their pocket.

"Uncle Mike, what's a quarter?"

Yer killin' me here...

25 cents in 1982, with inflation factored in, would be worth about 76 cents in 2022 dollars. That's a shade over 3 quarters. Today, there are "retro arcades," or "yestercades," usually in hipsterish towns, and they tend to charge 50 cents, or 2 quarters for 1 play.

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March 27, 1982 was a Saturday. Steven Pienaar, who captained South Africa to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup, was born on this day.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 5 games in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Detroit Pistons, 123-121 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands. Rudy Williams scored 39 points in defeat for the Nets.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Dallas Mavericks, 96-85 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Phoenix Suns, 140-134 in double overtime at the McNichols Arena in Denver. Despite the high school, the game's leading scorer was Alex English of the Nuggets, with 29.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Utah Jazz, 114-110 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah. George Gervin scored 47 points for the Spurs.

* And the Milwaukee Bucks beat the San Diego Clippers, 128-99 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena).

There were 8 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat the Hartford Whalers, 5-4 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat their Provincial rivals, the Quebec Nordiques, 4-2 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Minnesota North Stars beat the Boston Bruins, 6-5 at the Boston Garden.

* The Philadelphia Flyers and the Washington Capitals played to a tie, 4-4 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Chicago Black Hawks and the Pittsburgh Penguins played to a tie, 3-3 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Colorado Rockies, 9-4 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* The Vancouver Canucks beat the Calgary Flames, 7-2 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

* And the New York Rangers, the St. Louis Blues, the Buffalo Sabres, the Edmonton Oilers and the Winnipeg Jets were not scheduled.

And in English soccer, Arsenal beat Birmingham team Aston Villa, 4-3 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.