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  • Kim Scheinbergkims@mas.to
    Oct 23, 2026, 9:57 PM

    There's a thread over on Bluesky asking about the first video game you remember playing. I can't help but think the answers would be more interesting here

    Mine was _Tank_, a sit-down two-player arcade game made by Atari. Our family used to go skiing about an hour north of Montreal every year and we stayed in Le Chantecler Hotel. There was a Tank in the hotel lobby

    It was 1974 so I was 7. (I had a LOT of pinball under my belt by then.) Between me and my brothers, we probably dumped $50 into that game even though we only had a window of ~4 hours every day to play, and it was in strong competition with the indoor pool. Plus we needed to talk my dad out of parting with $5 for each of us every night. I think we lied and said we needed it for the jukebox in the bar/disco that we were somehow allowed to hang out in at night

    So... what was yours?

    #firstvideogame

    youtube.com/watch?v=3OsBUzYBJgU

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Replies

  • Ged Maheuxgedeonm@mastodon.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:00 PM

    @kims Loved Tank. This is one of my first too. We had an Odyssey game system before Atari that had Pong and that’s the first one I really remember. Was SO glad to ditch it when the 2600 came along. 😅🕹️👾

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  • Kim Scheinbergkims@mas.to
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:27 PM

    @gedeonm
    I had the Odyssey2 with such stunningly innovative games like Hangman, Las Vegas Blackjack, and Blockout!

    I loved the Atari 2600 and played thousands of games of Adventure and Superman. (I went so far as to map all the Superman screens, drawing each by hand.) I didn't ditch using the helicopter to save Lois until the Intellivision came out and I lost a couple weeks trying to beat my best friend at Hockey

    The late 70s was a great time to be a console game fanatic

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  • Ged Maheuxgedeonm@mastodon.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:35 PM

    @kims you sound like me with the Raiders of the lost Ark Atari 2600 game. I mapped that whole thing out oh to hell damn those dreaded tetsy flies.

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  • fedward :omya:fedward@distraction.party
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:12 PM
    @kims we had a Super Pong home console. I think I had probably played arcade Pong before we got it, but I would have been like 6 and I can’t be specific. I definitely played as much Breakout (1978) as I could get quarters for, but my mom thought it was dumb so that wasn’t much.

    #FirstVideoGame
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  • Kim Scheinbergkims@mas.to
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:33 PM

    @fedward
    My best friend's dad owned a bar that had a Breakout in it. He and I spent a lot of time hanging out there on weekends and the quarters never left our pocket. We were livin' the dream...

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  • extradreamsextradreams@musician.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:21 PM

    @kims i remember Tank! First video game? Maybe Space Invaders truthfully.

    But, I realy loved Major Havok!

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  • Kim Scheinbergkims@mas.to
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:37 PM

    @extradreams
    When we lived in NJ, my dad took me to Disneyland and seemed a little confused that I was more interested in the hotel Space Invaders machine than I was in Space Mountain

    The next year when my parents divorced and my dad moved to NYC, he got a sit-down Space Invaders with the hope it would get me to visit him more often

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  • effikaeffika@mastodon.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:35 PM

    @kims Adventure on a Tandy... I can't remember which one. I had so much fun just exploring, even if I never finished the game! The duck-looking dragon things made a big impression. Imagining what those must look like set me up to enjoy Infocom games once I could really read.

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  • Kim Scheinbergkims@mas.to
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:57 PM

    @effika
    I had no idea one could play Adventure on a Tandy. I wonder if the Tandy version had the famous Easter Egg

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  • MCDuncanLabMCDuncanLab@mstdn.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 11:38 PM

    @kims

    Memories are weird. I’d say Pong on the Atari at home. But very likely I’d played pong or other games at the pizza place. I doubt we got the Atari before 1978, interesting question for the fam. Maybe we have photographic evidence, it was probably a Christmas present to all the kids.

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  • MCDuncanLabMCDuncanLab@mstdn.social
    Oct 24, 2026, 12:28 AM

    @kims @sollat

    It was so fking exciting!! Not sure whether anything today compares. Video game, home computers, vcrs… like suddenly all these things you couldn’t do at home are available.

    Oh and microwaves.

    And layer deregulation of airlines so cheap flights for better or worse.

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  • sollatsollat@beige.party
    Oct 24, 2026, 4:24 AM

    @kims @MCDuncanLab
    No worries. I meant I played Space Invaders on an Atari we didn’t have until 82 at the earliest. So it’s possible I played Pac-Man on a machine at a pizza place before that.

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  • Kim Scheinbergkims@mas.to
    Oct 24, 2026, 10:10 PM

    @Trine_DK
    Never seen that one. I didn't play many arcade games after the year I lost to Robotron, Stargate, and Centipede at my local 7-11 in 1983

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  • Daniel Lsmokedpixel@mastodon.social
    Oct 24, 2026, 5:33 AM

    @kims Pong at Sydney Airport. They had a couple of free pong games in the departure lounge. My dad travelled a lot and my brothers and I would always play when we went to see him off.

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  • Matthew Turlandelazar@phpc.social
    Oct 24, 2026, 2:07 PM

    @kims An Asteroids variant of some type on the Commodore Amiga. I also have fond memories of Dig Dug.

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  • Martin Seegermasek@infosec.exchange
    Oct 24, 2026, 7:43 PM

    @kims I saw this game the first time in a summer camp in the cantina. It impressed me so much it became one of my first coding projects once I got my C64.

    The first video gam I ever played was Pong (~1974) at Madam Tussaud in London.

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  • Kim Scheinbergkims@mas.to
    Oct 24, 2026, 10:19 PM

    @masek
    My summer camp cantina only had pinball machines. And for money every week they gave us scrip, which was rather challenging to convert into quarters. I would often accept 7 quarter for $2, even less if I was desperate.

    I was often desperate, which was good news for the counselors at Kutsher's Sports Academy

    But the real jackpot was knowing the secret trail to the Kutsher's Hotel which had a real video arcade

    Also, super cool about the coding project!

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  • Martin Seegermasek@infosec.exchange
    Oct 25, 2026, 8:21 AM

    @kims The summer camp shared the cantina with the British Army, so the facilities were above summer camp average 😁. We also got fireworks from nightly air defense exercises. The cold war was strong in Northern Germany.

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