Knock on wood, but just not too hard on this groovy Atari 2600 portable.
Atari is long dead, well until more recently officially so due to its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, but its numerous ardent fans growing up playing Breakout and Pitfall proudly live on and do so by making the most awesome creations in its legendary namesake, i.e. a portable Atari 2600 that has quite the unique casing.
The outer shell to this spiffy mod – the Atari 2600 VCS Portable – from hacker alias retro_mood is constructed out of “yacht varnished” wood – ooo, fancy. Sounds like the sort of gaming handheld the rich kid in middle school would own.
And at the eBay selling price $1,240 USD, you’d really need deep pockets to afford it. You will get “bang for your buck” value though, as this 2600 portable features a 3.5″ TFT screen, composite video and mono audio outputs, two player controls – player 1 controls cajoled from an actual PlayStation DualShock analog stick – and a pause function.
Heck, you don’t get a pause button on your bog standard 2600, making this piece of hardware a clear winner! Oh, but not a winner? The built-in 700mAh battery only lasts up to 3 hours per charge, but seeing how its fine wood materials could easily be damaged or burned to a cinder if near an open flame, I doubt this thing was made with portability in mind.
If you’re still interested in this beautiful hardware, and who am I to judge your spending habits, visit retro_mood’s eBay listing for this Atari 2600 portable and spread the news around the Internet of its fine existence. And if you’ve got the time the spare, spread the news about other neat console mods, the hottest buzz about Apple’s potential iWatch, and all manner of geek-itude from Walyou.
