What older systems (pre-1983) are worth having and why?

[nickfil]

i didn't know the vectrex had so much love for a system with such a small library and only vector based black and white lines.

it is a neat little thing though!

[Dakinggamer87]

I would say Atari 2600, Intellivision are great old systems to own.. I love Burgertime on Intellivision one of my favorite games on it.. Atari 2600 for large amount of classics like Yar's Revenge, Pitfall, Maze Craze, etc..

I may get an Odyssey eventually but that would probably be it for consoles pre-1983 for me at least but may change since vectrex seems like an interesting system I remember hearing about it a long time ago when watching a documentary...

[nickfil]

oh- also there is something to be said for the look of these old systems on the shelf. They are so beautifully retro 70s. Although my pre 83 systems don't get played as often, they are displayed prominently almost as art rather than an electronic game.

i may be over thinking this though.

[superlarz]

I have 2600, Intellivision and Colecovision... I dont really play any of them.. Sometimes I will turn on the 2600 for a few minutes, but its not often and never more than that... The Intellivision, i think, is actually pretty cool but the RFout on the back of mine has been slowly breaking and I am sending it in to get modded with AV outs, so when I get it back from that I expect to play it a little....

Now for Colecovision... I love the system. I love how it looks and I like how the controllers feel... Unfortunately, I got a boxed unit, and I asked the person I was buying it off of to take some pics of the system for me.. It all worked out so I went to pick it up, got home and pulled it out of the box. Thing still smells of new plastic. I dont think it was ever opened by the owner until I asked them to take the pictures. So the damn thing sits in its opened box retaining its new smell... I cant decide if I want to keep it like that (because cmon, how cool is it to have a new looking/smelling ancient console) and get another one, or put this gem out on the shelf with the other systems.

[Erik_Twice]

I also thought about getting an Atari 2600 but I realised the same thing as you. The best games are arcade conversions and there's no point to play any of the Atari conversions when you have MAME. It's also at a point where, as much as I try, the game looks too old so as to be enjoyable. It looks way to primitive for me at least.