atari 5200 could play 2600 games?!?

[c0ldb33r]

I had no idea that they released an adapter for the 5200 that would allow it to play 2600 games. If this was common knowledge, then insert facepalm.jpg right here.

I didn't know until watching this youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydf-e...eature=related

The adapter isn't nearly large enough though.

[Tupin]

I knew it, but I think those things are hard to find.

No Mr. Narrator, they are not "everywhere".

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Atari did indeed release an adapter, but they did so way too late; Colecovision got there first and had their adapter ready to go not long after their system launch. Atari's 5200-to-2600 adapter was significantly later hitting the market, and that probably cost the 5200 a lot of market share.

Keep in mind that one of the big selling points in blowing the $200+ to step up to a new machine was "Will all of my old games still work?"...especially for mom and dad, who were probably paying for the upgrade. That made the Colecovision very appealing, because Expansion Module #1 hit the stores not long after the console itself did; by the time the 5200 adapter was out there, it was way too late.

[NoahsMyBro]

My recollection is different, but I can very easily believe I'm just remembering things inaccurately.

My brother and I were given a 5200 for Chanukah, I think when I was 13 years old. Given to us WITH the system was the 2600 Adapter. (I think it was still called the VCS adapter at the time.)

I'd have been 13 in '81, and 14 in '82. By the time I was 15, I had stopped paying any attention to home videogame systems. Assuming the above is accurate, the adapter would have been available for holiday shopping in either '81 or '82.

I thought the 5200 was released (nationwide) in '82. (According to the 5200 FAQ, the unit 'premiered in 1982'.)

If I received the system and the VCS adapter together in December '82, that doesn't jibe with a history of the adapter not coming out soon enough.

It may be that the CV itself came out earlier than the 5200. Of that, I don't recall clearly.

[Greg2600]

Isn't the adapter only working (without mod) with 2-port 5200's? I've read that the 2-port came out in 1983.

[BydoEmpire]

Yeah, I believe it only worked wiht one model or the other - can't remember which.

[Atari 5200]

atari 5200 could play 2600 games?!?

Of course I could play them!

[Trebuken]

On a side note...

Someone mentioned the Colecovision had an adapter for 2600 games.

Also, I believe the Intellivision had one as well.

[InsaneDavid]

On a side note...

Someone mentioned the Colecovision had an adapter for 2600 games.

And again, it's basically an entire VCS in a different shell.

[zektor]

CV playing 2600 games...I loved that back in the day. Imagine if you could but a PS3 and adapter and play Xbox 260 games as well...or vice versa. That was what it was like back then...very cool.

The 5200 adapter to play 2600 games is not hard at all to find...or at least it wasn't a few years ago when I was collecting. I think I had three of them, and actually had a hard time selling them off...seemed nobody wanted them back then.

[Yukio]

zektor, you could play hacked ROM's of Coleco Vision on MSX2/2+ from Sony. It is even possible to dump the Sony MSX cartridges to play on the MSX from a SONY 3 1/2 floppy or a Philips cassette tape.

The Spectravideo home microcomputer has a adapter to play Coleco cartridge and another to play MSX cartridge.

In fact a lot of persons are 'converting' the Coleco games to play on MSX computers.There was some official conversion done by Konami and others, I think that the games that you need to press "1" or "2" to start play are from Coleco. The MSX2 original games (like Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake) use the function keys (F1-F5) plus the two buttons of the MSX joypad.