Lefty Limbo

Make that old, dusty Atari 2600 look like new again with this handy tutorial. I found my old Atari after over 15 years of storage and brought it back to a lustrous life. Now you can, too! Read on…

My Atari 2600 had been boxed up for at least 15 years. When I tried plugging it in, it didn't work.

After some thorough cleaning with alcohol and a toothbrush, and finished with a protective coat of Armor All®, I took another chance…could I bring it back to life?

Update: June 10, 2011: I’ve been receiving a lot of traffic lately from searches on “how to clean an Atari 2600 console” (and similar verbiage). If you’ve found me by that method, welcome! I do hope this article helps, and your comments are appreciated. Thanks for reading.

So I found my old Atari 2600 buried in my closet, along with all the original (third party) controllers and a box of cartridges which I’d bought from another hardcore Atari fan over a decade ago. You may remember me mentioning this in a previous post. No, this isn’t the one that I bought from Craigslist; this is the one I begged my dad to buy me back in 1981 for $139 from Fedco. Yup, I thought this baby was a goner, but it’s found its way back into my arms somehow or another. Maybe it knew I bought another Atari and it got jealous.

My Atari had been in a box all along.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work when I plugged it in. But after about 15 years of being buried behind all my clutter, it had gathered some serious dust. So I made it a mission to clean it and bring it back to life. The adventure was pretty darn enlightening, and I took a lot of pictures of the process. If you got here by Googling “how to clean an Atari 2600″ or “how to clean my atari 2600,” then you may find this inspirational…
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As a truly tragically nostalgic child of the ’70s/’80s, I simply could not pass up the opportunity to nab a vintage Atari 2600 VCS, complete with a stack of games, for the nice price of “under fifty bucks” (as Atari desperately tried to market it in the late ’80s/early ’90s). Thank you, craigslist, and thank you, Patrick!

I almost settled for Atari’s newest release of the “Flashback 2.0″, which attempts to recapture the spirit of the original “woodie” system (named for the wood grain front panel which adorned the first generation 2600 VCS). It’s cheap, convenient and comes with 40+ games installed within, meaning no use for bulky, cluttery cartridges.

But inside, I knew for sure that there’s nothing like the real thing (baby). The whole Atari experience, for me at least, was much more than just being able to play games on TV (rad!). The VCS console was like the center of entertainment. I relished popping in my favorite game cartridges and flicking the on/off switch, watching the game glow to life on my TV screen. I loved that quiet, patient hum of the game as it played the demo screen, just waiting for me to hit the Game Reset lever. And when I did push that lever, my hands flew immediately to the joystick or paddle controller, not wanting to miss a single second of the action that was about to take place.

So luck would have it that someone on the Westside was clearing out some clutter from their abode, including his old Atari 2600 from his childhood. So one rainy day I drove down to pick it up.

It felt so good to drive home with the Atari packed in an equally vintage ’80s cardboard beer box next to me. I felt warm and fuzzy inside, like I was giving it a new home. At stop lights I’d look over at it and smile, remembering how much I used to play Atari when I was a kid (about ’80-’82). For awhile, the Atari 2600 was my absolute favorite toy.

As the rain pelted the windshield, I recalled how I would sometimes neglect my homework/chores so badly from playing Atari that my dad hid the Atari’s infamous TV/GAME switch—the only connection to the virtual video wonderland of Atari games. I’m telling you, that little switch made all the difference between a super exciting and dreadfully boring day. So I’d have to finish my homework or whatever other chores I had to do in order to get it back.

You may be asking yourself, “Dang, if he loved his Atari so much, where is it now?” That’s the sucky thing—I’m not sure if I have it anymore. I’m pretty sure it’s buried somewhere in all my own clutter in the garage, but not 100%. (Guess what—I found it!) So before my golden days darkened forever, I had to grab someone else’s sunshine. And I’m sure glad I did.

Update: After trying to play Super Breakout I found the paddle controllers to be faulty; a victim of the “jitter” effect which apparently is a common disease of aged controllers. Not to worry—there are lots of paddle controllers for sale on Ebay for cheap, or I can even be adventurous and try to clean and fix them myself.

On my recent trip to Houston I was able to visit my folks’ new home for the first time (they’ve been there for 6 years). In addition to a homecoming to my mom & dad’s hearty home cooking (heaps of corned beef hash, steamed rice and eggs for breakfast plus chicken adobo and arroz caldo for dinner), I was also able to reacquaint myself with a big ol’ stack of old photo albums which chronicle my life from birth all the way through my teen years. Born in 1970, I’ve been privileged with everything from the plaid plague to the bowl-cut boy look which pretty much defined my existence until the discovery of Dep® gel in 1983. Ah, what decades of decadence.

Above are some photos I found of me showing off my brand new “Wild Silver” bike, which my dad bought for me from JCPenney in 1979. The bike was not even a day old when these pictures were taken. It’s kinda funny that it looks like I changed my shirt to a Star Wars one midway through the photo shoot. It would make sense, that was my favorite shirt in the world.

I remember being totally stoked when I got this bike, but I couldn’t even ride it anywhere ‘coz the neighborhood was so bad and I risked getting it swiped from me by the local cholos, who eyed it like a prize from the day I pushed the pedal.

When we moved to Westchester only a few months later, I found myself in a neighborhood 1,000 times more clean, quiet and safe than Culver City was, so my bike enjoyed a period of sea-salted, sun-soaked happiness, which was cut short by the arrival of the “new” style of BMX bike, which did away with banana seats, fenders, chain guards, and nearly everything else which my Wild Silver had stood so proudly for. Not wanting to be singled out for ridicule, I quickly shunned the Silver and it remained in my garage from then on while I sought a new bike. Yes, in only matter of months it went from star stallion to dead like disco.

Anyways, I’ve been on a scanning safari, placing these photos on the platen and plastering the plethora onto my hard drive. So you best believe you’re in for a mighty treat of super-sweetness as I take you on a trip through trippiness.

I should be posting this in Vintage BMX but have instead decided to host a quick Show and Tell for the thousands of loyal Lefty Limbo readers who peruse my site on a daily basis.

What you see is a classic icon of ’80s youth pop culture—a 1980 Mongoose BMX bike. I adopted this gem from an old friend of mine whom I used to ride bikes with back in junior high. He sold it to me many years later (I think mid-’90s) at his garage sale which I just happened to stumble upon one Saturday morning. I can’t thank him enough for entrusting me with this awesome bike.

I’m hoping to get some input from Vintage BMX about how to get rid of some of the rust and oxidation which has appeared from years of storage. Perhaps I can get some input from some of the Limbo crowd first, eh?

The Mongoose may have been iconic of my ’80s childhood, but the number plate adorned with prismatic stickers is a total throwback to the decade of rad. There is simply no substitute and no greater sign of the times. I clearly remember saving my allowance to go to the local bike shop to browse through the glass case of prismatic stickers. Doug (the original owner of this ‘goose) bought a lot of the same stickers I did. My favorite has got to be the FASTER YOU FOOL sticker. It’s like, as if someone is actually gonna turn around to read that and go, “Oh shit, I should speed up!” I especially like how it doesn’t have any punctuation at the end. This open-endedness makes it sound even more sinister. Of course, who can forget the “BMX RULES” sticker…it totally did. Then there’s the Playboy bunny sticker which was some kind of daring, rebellious move to slap onto your bike…like you actually looked at one at such an early, innocent age…lol…

Equally impressive is the interior side of the number plate, decorated with even more great stickies. The Damn I’m Good! sticker is totally reminiscent of my youth, as well as the BMX Go For It one, with the rider in a crossed-up tabletop, which was pretty much the coup de grace of the day, if you could even find a jump which could launch you high enough!

I’m gonna have to dig through Ebay to find some replacement parts, such as the front reflector whose mount you see above. I’ll keep you posted on the progress…until then, enjoy…and share your own ’80s BMX pics with me if you have any. Thanks!