Versions of a Burial: The Atari Landfill Excavation in Museums, Part 2

by Raiford Guins | Jun 22, 2026 | 1970s, 1980s, Atari

What Museums Do: Versions The certificate, in other words, answers the wrong question — but it isn’t alone in that. Every museum holding these materials has to decide what question it’s trying to answer, and that’s where Latour and Lowe become most useful. They build...

Atari 7800: What Went Wrong?

by Marcus Albers | Jun 20, 2026 | 1980s, 1990s, Atari, Console/Handheld, Gaming

During the early days of home consoles, Atari absolutely dominated the market, with its popular Atari 2600 VCS and a slew of games. Five years after the 2600’s release, Atari tried to mirror that success with its next-generation console, the 5200. Unfortunately,...

Versions of a Burial: The Atari Landfill Excavation in Museums, Part 1

by Raiford Guins | Jun 18, 2026 | 1970s, 1980s, Atari

There is something quietly vertiginous about walking through an exhibition and finding yourself already inside it. Not a self you remember putting there, but a self distributed across objects, images, words; a self that arrived in the museum before you did, and which...

Review – Wee Ninja for the Atari Lynx

by Marcus Albers | Jun 14, 2026 | 2020s, Atari, Console/Handheld, Reviews

It is impossible to deny the impact Super Mario Bros had on the gaming landscape when it was released on the original NES, especially on scrolling platform games. For gamers, it set a standard to expect from new platforming games released afterward. For gaming...

Life Before the Plumbers – Platform Games Before Super Mario Bros

by Marcus Albers | May 24, 2026 | 1980s, Arcade, Atari, C64 Vic20, Console/Handheld

Super Mario Bros. This game single-handedly changed how platform games were approached after it stormed onto the scene in 1985. It established so many conventions that people now expect in side-scrolling platform games. When you approach a new platformer, what is the...

One Game, Five Systems – Choplifter

by Marcus Albers | May 19, 2026 | 1980s, Apple 2, Arcade, Atari, C64 Vic20, Console/Handheld

Most popular video games eventually end up on platforms other than the one for which they were initially created. Obviously, there are exceptions. You wouldn’t have seen a Super Mario Bros title on a Sega console, just like you weren’t going to see the...