The History of
Atari 7800.com

Atari 7800.com's history can be traced back to late 1982, going through many incarnations and crossing the path of many future members of the Atari 7800.com family along the way. Over the past year, there has been some question as to the state of Atari 7800.com, and curiosity surrounding the website's background. We hope to shed some light on the history of Atari 7800.com with this article, and hope that you enjoy the story of how Atari 7800.com came to be.

By 1984, Justin began to really feel the need for his very own home Atari system. As he recalls, "These commercials used to come on for Atari stuff in the mid-80's in the afternoon after I got home from school. I can specifically remember "The Fun Is Back" 2600 commercial being on a lot And all I really remember is being five and having no money and wanting one so extremely bad, but still thinking as I watched the commercials 'gosh those are probably one-hundred dollars! ....those must only be for rich kids' "

On Christmas morning, 1987, Justin ripped off the wrapping paper to his very own Atari 7800 ProSystem, complete with Pole Position II, Ms. PAC-Man, 2600 Asteroids, and a few other titles. His prayers had been answered. "I can remember hooking up the 7800 with my dad on Christmas evening, and seeing Pole Position II pop up on my screen for the very first time. I was five or six, and to me it was like stepping foot on the moon" says Justin about his first Atari experience at home.

For the first few years, Justin's 7800 was actually a neighborhood attraction. None of the other kids on the block had a video game system at that early age, and it wasn't uncommon for other neighborhood children to want to come over to Justin's to try their hand at Ms. PAC-Man, Asteroids, or Pole Position II. However late in 1988 something went severely wrong. Nintendo was taking America by storm, and was soon becoming the hot new attraction. "I never really felt jealous of the 'Nintendo kids' at all... I was just confused for a while, I didn't get why all this new stuff was coming out for the Nintendo, like the power pad, and yet nothing new was really coming out for my Atari. I was like six years old and for my entire life, Atari had always been king of the hill. I hadn't ever even heard of Nintendo before." Justin actually took an interest in Super Mario Brothers after playing it on his friend's Nintendo console. Justin, intent on not having to give up his beloved 7800, went out looking for a copy of Mario Bros. for his Atari, so he could have the hottest new game and not have to defect from his love of the 7800. Justin marched in to Kay-Bee Toys in March of 1988 and asked the clerk if they had Mario Bros. for the Atari 7800. Sure enough, the indeed had Mario Bros. for the Atari 7800, but it was not to be what Justin had expected.

In July of 1989, Justin received a Nintendo as a gift and quickly became sucked into the world of Nintendo. However, Justin's love of games stemmed from the titles he had grown up with his entire life up to that point. Games like Galaga, Ms. PAC-Man, Pole Position, and Asteroids were the games he liked to play. And while everybody enjoyed Super Mario Bros., Zelda, and Excitebike, Justin was disenchanted. He was caught between the modern gaming world of the NES, and the arcade-style games of a previous generation. By 1992, Justin had had enough. While other kids were enjoying Street Fighter on Super Nintendo, Justin longed to have his Atari 7800 back, to sit aside his Turbo Grafx - 16.

In 1992, Justin began hunting for a new Atari 7800, or for that matter, anything Atari related of which he could find in the stores. Although he did have surprising success locating Lynx products, 7800 merchandise was few and far between. During this time Justin began to spend what little savings he had and bought up some titles for the Atari 2600. However one major problem still persisted, he had yet to locate an Atari 7800.

Having grown tired of the chase, Justin, at the age of 12, picked up the phone and called directory assistance. "It was entirely too easy. I couldn't believe why I hadn't thought of that before. I called the operator, told her I wanted the number for Atari Corporation in Sunnyvale, and she patched me right through. A very nice woman by the name of Geraldene answered the phone, and the rest is history. I probably spoke to Geraldene maybe once or twice a week from then on. For one of Jack's employee's, she was really cool." Geraldene sent out a packet to Justin which included a full-color brochure for the Lynx (Push your Mind To The Edge with the Power of Atari Lynx) as well as inventory listings for the 2600 and 7800, (pictured to the right) and order forms for purchasing directly from Atari Corp. Later that month, Justin placed his order for his own brand new Atari 7800, along with twenty-five games, which arrived two weeks later. It was at this point that Justin's interest in Atari really skyrocketed. He had become a die-hard Atari fan pretty late in the game, but he was intent on keeping Atari alive the best he could. The sixth grader

1993 Atari Corp. Direct Game List

set out with twenty dollars and a mission to again rile up interest in Atari and their products. The force behind this 1993 effort would result in what we know today as Atari 7800.com.

In 1993, Justin was set on doing more than just playing Atari games, he wanted to share the excitement with everyone. With a little help from his longtime friend Jon Michael Dyer, Justin started up HYPER Game Services at the age of twelve. "HYPER was supposed to be a business I guess. I'm not really sure what I was thinking. I know that when we set out to do it, it wasn't just some moneymaking scheme. That wasn't really the point of it. Jon and I were just trying to convince people that we knew who still had Atari's that they were still worth playing. The only way we saw to do that was to make games and accessories readily available to them. So that's exactly what we did." says Justin, reflecting on the early years at HYPER Game Services. Justin was obviously really into Atari, but Jon's original love was the Sega MasterSystem, so HYPER Game Services offered products via special order and Sega service on a limited basis. However HYPER's support for Atari was just getting underway.

A young Justin Scott and Jon Dyer promoting the LYNX in 1994

1994 proved to be a landmark year for Justin and Jon. Justin began printing off flyers, ordering forms, and small brochures for HYPER clientele. Justin also went down to the local toy stores and bought up their remaining stock of Atari 7800 and Lynx items. "Gosh, Justin was like twelve or thirteen and he was negotiating with managers at Toys 'R' Us and stuff. I remember once he dickered the guy down like eighty percent or something it was hilarious. At first they didn't take him seriously but once he got into it with them they always caved. We thought that was pretty cool back then" says Jon Michael Dyer about their middle-school operation.

The culture at HYPER Game Services is one that carries on to this day at Atari 7800.com. Even though HYPER was such a small operation, it wasn't always a disadvantage. The attitude they took on customer service was on a personal level, and a lot of care was put into each and every order. What's more, Jon and Justin grew to be best friends during the HYPER years, a friendship that would last for years to come.

One one of the things that evolved from this friendship in terms of HYPER Game Services was the 1993-1994 project "J.J.'s Game Guide for the Atari 7800 & 2600 Systems." Justin and Jon spent the greater part of a year playing games on the 7800, and then writing out reviews, which

they could then copy, place in folders, and give away to their clients, friends, and family. "We made the game guide before I ever really had a computer, so everything was handwritten, and then we would just Xerox them. It was a decent effort, but by our standards today it's laughable" says Jon Dyer about the game guide. The "J.J.'s" in "J.J.'s Game Guide" stands for Justin and Jon.

Truth being told, HYPER was never really anything big. It was a humble effort by two dedicated middle schoolers to get involved in Atari, and make a difference the best way they knew how. In the three years HYPER was in operation, the only clientele. They had was from their friends and family, placing orders in to Atari direct for new games and accessories for their friends who needed them, refurbishing old systems for people with dusty old systems, and doing a lot of free promotion for Atari.

1993 JJ's Game Guide from HYPER

By the beginning of 1996, HYPER Game Services was not much more than Justin and Jon talking to people about Atari all the time, like lobbyists for the 7800 and Lynx. Even Atari was not supporting the 7800, or HYPER as they had in the past. But by this point in time, even Atari gamers weren't focused on the 7800 any more but the Jaguar instead. "Now don't get me wrong, I was a huge Jaguar fan as well. My biggest claim to fame as far as the Jaguar goes is being the first person in my state to ever get one. I even made it in my yearbook for that somehow. But as far as HYPER goes, there wasn't much for us to do with the Jaguar at that time. HYPER, with the 7800, was really the only local source for 7800 and 2600 services, but with the Jaguar, people could just go down to Wal-Mart and get what they needed and it wasn't really much of a big deal at all." Says Justin about the end of HYPER Game Services. By Christmas 1996, HYPER was over. Justin was more focused on his own gaming experience at that point, and Jon was beginning to forget about Atari completely and move into new systems such as PlayStation and 3DO.

In October 1996, Justin was sitting in his highschool Science class and struck up a conversation with his Science partner. The two realized they had some common interests, but had no idea just how much in common they really had. One day while sitting in the library, they got on the topic of video games. Scott Mills recalls, "Justin hadn't really gotten a chance to mention Atari when I said something like 'Actually, you might find this strange but I'm really into Atari' and that was really what started it all." Once Justin and Scott realized their common interest in Atari, they were both re-energized in their Atari gaming hobby.

Soon, Scott and Justin began to get back into Atari, with a lot of shared interest. Many times after school, the duo would be on the phone and synchronize their 7800s to power up at the same time, and play games such as Pole Position and Asteroids and then compare scores over the phone. Soon they were even doing that with California Games on the Lynx as well.

With this enthusiasm, the two had considered starting HYPER Game Services back up, but realized that there wouldn't be any demand for services outside of their own. Then they came up with an entirely new idea. Scott and Justin decided that they wanted to create an Atari organization or museum that would purchase one of everything for the Atari 7800, and place it away in mint condition to preserve it for the future. "Our goal was to get one copy of every game, one 7800 system, and some prototypes and things and get them put away in some sort of museum" says Scott Mills about his 1996 operation. After saving up some money to begin purchasing games from VIDEO61, the two began work on their project, which was given up in 1997 after the highschoolers could not come up with enough money to fund the project. Little did they know about the mission Curt Vendel was on in New York City, which would have dwarfed Scott and Justin's best efforts.

Scott Mills recalls the whole experience in his own words: "I remember first meeting Justin back in highschool. We quickly became friends, and I found out he was into Atari. In fact, it was kind of surprising, he was the biggest Atari fan I had ever met. Now here was someone I could relate to about this stuff. We quickly made plans for a fundraising effort in order to buy stockpiles of the quickly-disappearing mint Atari 7800 systems and carts. We had even considered purchasing Atari 7800.com as our museum website, way back in 1996, but we had no idea how to even do that. Looking back, it seems like only yesterday we were thinking up ways to mow lawns or collect cans to get startup cash. Now Justin has this whole Atari 7800 operation underway, we could have only dreamed of this back in the 90's. I'm telling ya, this is big and it's gonna get bigger."

Scott and Justin had always loved Atari, and they continued to be good friends throughout the years, however there never was any further public effort by the two, to promote the Atari 7800 and other Atari systems. HYPER Game Services was a thing of the past, and the 7800 museum idea was long dead. However, this was not the end of Scott Mills' Atari involvement.

The place holder for the original Atari 7800.com, from September 2000

In 2000, the first Atari 7800.com got started completely by accident. Justin had made friends with Charles Goddeeris after moving to another state and finishing out the rest of his highschool career. "At this point in my life, Atari wasn't as high of a priority in my life as it had been in the past" said Justin. Charles and Justin worked together on a few projects and web pages from 1998 until their 2000 graduation. Charles and Justin were good friends, however Charles had never even played Atari, and Justin wasn't talking about the 7800 all the time as he did in the past. Although the two were friends, Atari had nothing to do with their friendship. That is until September of 2000. The whole thing came about by chance. Charles and Justin had been toying around with web pages and CD creation, and had talked about creating their own major website. Charles was well aware by this point of Justin's continuing interest in Atari, and had stumbled upon something for sale on eBay... the domain name of Atari 7800.com. Charles informed Justin of his find, and

recommended that they purchase the domain name as the address to their new web page. Justin agreed, but later that day began thinking. He had been surfing around on line and had been looking at Curt Vendel's Atari Historical Society web page, and was feeling very inspired. Justin was recalling the days of HYPER, the days of being a little kid in Chuck-E-Cheese's and all the fun he had had. Justin called Charles back with an idea to launch an Atari-based website that would offer sales, service and support for the Atari 7800. Charles had found the website, and Justin had come up with the idea. Now the two of them had to work together to come up with their new creation.

Charles, never having played an Atari before had a lot to learn and a short time to do it, while Justin, never having really created a web page before, also had a lot to learn and a short time to do it. The two rushed out their website, and by October 7th, 2000 the site was ready to launch. However there were some major problems. First of all, the web page was extremely graphic intense, and took quite a while for some people to load. Another more important problem plaguing the two was that they were not friends who saw each other in school every day any longer. They now lived in different states, and had college careers to focus on. While the two had come up with a decent website, communication was at an all-time low, and it was extremely difficult to operate so far apart, with Charles in charge of taking orders, and Justin in charge of refurbishing the systems.

Justin recalls the early days of Atari 7800.com: "The site was really Charlie's. He was making the final decisions on everything and he was signing the checks. It wasn't like Jon and I had just started HYPER Game Services on line. This was something completely different. But it was fun. Charlie and I would work together on the site sometimes for hours over the Internet. It was a very interesting experience."

While at Atari 7800.com, Justin had been having fun with some of his ideas on the web site. He had written "The Toys 'R' Us Affair," and the ever-popular "Raiders of the Lost Carts" while creating faux 2600 and 7800 cartridges that had never been released, such as "Mr. T Vs Mr. Belvedere: A-Team Action, Butler Fun!" But what ended up catching the spotlight was not Justin's articles, but his renderings of Atari 7800 advertisements. Justin referred to these as "counterfeit Atari ad's" which he had created after feeling the lack of Tramiel support for the system. "Growing up, I had always seen really cool advertisements for the Atari 2600 and 5200 and at times even the Lynx and Jaguar, but never once had I ever seen one for the 7800. So I set about to create some advertisements that would look and feel as if they had been created during the early days of the Atari 7800, in 1984-1986. I even wrote in the corner "Copyright 1984 Atari Inc." etc. I thought they were really neat" says Justin, recalling the advertisements.

Pictured below: Justin's three faux Atari advertisement creations, often mistaken for the real deal

However, maybe it's possible that Justin had made these advertisements just a little to realistic? Justin was in for a big surprise on the Fourth of July, 2001. "It was the Fourth of July afternoon, I had just had lunch and I was flipping through Electronic Gaming Monthly (June 2001 issue) and I came to a page on the 7800. I was excited enough as it was, but then I realized that they had actually printed one of my phony Atari ad's, crediting it as authentic. I couldn't believe it. At first I was mad because they used my work and Curt Vendel's work as well without crediting us, but then I got a real kick out of realizing how dooped over these guys at EGM really were. It was hilarious" said Justin.

Page 40, June 2001 print of EGM

However, the fun was over at Atari 7800.com. At this point, Charles was in charge of Atari 7800.com as he owned the website, and things were not going well for the Atari historian. Charles had begun to consolidate Atari 7800.com by redesigning it into a smaller Atari 7800 fan page. Charles had gotten about a month or two into the redesign, when the one-year domain registration ran out, and Charles had to make the decision whether to fork over more money for continued ownership of the domain. Charles had decided he had had enough of the Atari 7800.com effort, and offered to sell it to Justin. It was his for the taking. Justin did not want to see the website die, so he took ownership immediately, however he had no idea what he was about to do with a dead Atari website.

In September 2001, Justin took ownership of the Atari 7800.com domain name. Now the question he was facing was what to do next. Justin considered making simply making it his homepage, or keeping it as a small page dedicated to Atari. However Justin still wanted to make a mark. He began working with ideas to see exactly what he could do on his own with the website. Justin started getting the idea to create a website that would do what he had always done in the past, promote Atari 7800 gaming through information and quality sales. In October 2001, Justin had laid out the groundwork for what would become the website we know today. Justin came up with some basic principals which would be the road map for the new organization. The website was to be sharp, clean cut, and informative. History was to be extensive, accurate, and enjoyable to read while keeping the spirit of Atari alive. Atari sales would be available but would always take a back seat to Atari history in aspects of the website. Sales would only be of the highest-quality. When it came to sales, he had hoped to be the Rolls-Royce of 7800 sales.

Jon and Justin today

gun down. It was great." stated Jon. Justin also brought aboard newcomers to Atari, including Jon's wife Cecilia Dyer, as well as Benjamin "BJ" Roberts, another longtime friend of Justin who would be web assistant to Atari 7800.com However probably the most flamboyant and well-known addition to Atari 7800.com would have to be their mail room operator. Joseph S. Rivera, better known as "Atari Joe" to some retrogamers, works in the mail room of Atari 7800.com and is paid with webspace for his own personal website. "Atari" Joe Rivera is known for his truly odd view of Atari history and his absurd claims to fame, not to mention his creepy uncles. Joe and his friends have their own Atari club called the "Atari Super Gang," with the members referred to as "The Atari All-Stars" at least by Joseph. The website Joe has created with the web space we have given to him truly is unique to say the least. We have incorporated it somewhat into the rest of the Atari 7800.com website, as we feel that some of our visitors to our site may find it interesting, if not funny. However, the ideas and opinions expressed on "Atari Joe's Atari Page" are not that of Atari 7800.com...at all. Joe's claims of fame have truly yet to be supported as far as we can tell, but who are we to tell Jospeh what to believe?

So now Atari 7800.com is back up and operating. We hope to be here for quite a while, offering resources for Atari 7800 gaming to all gamers interested in the system. "What's next for Atari 7800.com?" asks Scott Mills. "Well, as my good friend Sancho says, 'You'll find out down the road.' "