It was the very early eighties, the exact date is lost to the dark recesses of my memory store but I do remember this. It was Christmas. Christmas was good because Santa brought you stuff, oh and so did your Mum and Dad. I liked Christmas. That Christmas was a turning point for me though.

I'm not going to claim poverty or espouse the varied merits of sticks and hoops but I did have a bagatelle board on which I liked to string elastic bands behind the pins and watch the marbles bounce off of them, or even better was lining up toy soldiers to knock down with marbles. Marbles were good, versatile, toys.

And so it was that I ripped into my presents as if my life depended on it. One of the boxes was heavy, well ,heavy for an eleven year old, and as shards of paper fell around me I saw the face of Kevin Keegan giving me the thumbs up, obviously for my parents having made such an astute purchase. There, in my very hands, was a Grandstand video game console (Kevin continued to seem pleased). It was a few, utterly frustrating, minutes until my Dad had made the mass of wires and cables yield to his will and we powered it up.

There it was. 10 games on one cartridge and I had two of them. The hours of fun could be endless, I thought, as I settled into my first Pong and Breakout styled games. I was pleased. Ok, I had wanted an Atari console because that's what all the cool kids had, but I still had this marvel of technology that allowed me to move stuff on my TV screen. It was great. I played games against my brothers and my Dad and I ruled over them all. This was something I was good at.

The inevitable return to school and discussions of yuletide gifts led me to a dark place. Apparently, according to the cool kids, my console was rubbish, and so I spoke of it no more. I still played with it almost incessantly for 2 years but technology was leaving me behind. Sure I didnt need to knock down toy soldiers with marbles any more, and all of the ball bouncing bagetelle fun was now consigned to my past - or at least to the times when someone wanted to watch TV - but there were better things in the arcades and I wanted them at home. It was frustrating, but little did I know what was waiting just around the corner.

Full list of carts follows

PC.501: Sports / Supersportic * i had this
PC.502: Motor Cycle
PC.503: Tank Battle
PC.504: Racing Cars / Grand Prix / Race Car GP
PC.505: Submarine
PC.506: Superb Wipeout *and this
PC.507: Shooting Gallery
PC.508: Fundamental

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