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Reminiscing -- The first video game system my brother and I had was the Odyssey² by Magnavox. We got it soon after Atari came out with their pathetic version of Pac-Man. The O2's answer was K.C. Munchkin. With it's smooth animation and bold colors, you just couldn't even compare the two. Best of all, the ghosts didn't flicker!

The joysticks were better than Atari's, too. Even though they are bigger and klunkier, they fit better in your hand. The only down side was that the joysticks weren't detachable, so when the controllers died, you had to get creative.

On our system, the cables from the controllers to the system were the first to go, so my dad ran an extra wire from the stick to the console. Then, the actual sticks started to short out, so he got really creative. He went to Radio Shack (of course) and got 2 blue project boxes and 10 buttons and built 2 push-button controllers from scratch. I'll give him credit for the fact that they worked, but he skimped on the buttons and got the cheap ones. You had to press really hard for the buttons to work and after a game or two, you had to stop from the pain. Your fingers would be swollen with indentations on the tips.

Thinking about it now, all we had to do was get 2 female joystick connectors and we could have used Atari joysticks. Duh.

We were the only kids that had an Odyssey², so there was something different when friends came over to play. I don't think any of the kids new our names, but it was nice to feel like we had friends.

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