I was born in 1976, but I think I still was able to really enjoy the golden age of arcades as a kid.
You know, Nintendo and the internet keeps telling me that Game & Watch was super huge back than, but honestly, I didn't see a Game & Watch system until after the NES came out. And even then, I only saw a few: Super Mario Bros., Zelda, a Mickey Mouse one, Mario Bros., and that's pretty much it.
My first video game was Pac-Man of course. I was watching the news with my dad and saw on TV people building a big yellow box with lights. I thought it was a soda machine. Then a while later, my mom and I went to Kroger and I saw the exact same machine at the checkout. I asked my mom if I could go see it. She said yes and when she was done checking out, she came over and gave me a quarter. Turns out that machine I saw was a Pac-Man machine and I played it and I was amazed and talked about it all the way home.
I realy didn't have a home console until the 5200, but I did have an Apple II+ and that's where I did most of my gaming before the NES days.


