Book excerpt: The early 80s was a pioneering time for home video games. Consoles from Atari, Mattel, Coleco, and others dominated many American living rooms. This guide takes an in-depth look at the classic consoles, games, accessories, and related merchandise manufactured between the introduction of the Atari VCS in 1977 and the great video game crash of 1984. The great consoles from Atari--the 2600 VCS, 5200 SuperSystem, and 7800 ProSystem are all covered in depth, as well as the amazing Coleco Vision, Intellivision, Odyssey-2-, and Vectrex gaming systems. More than 2,000 full-color photographs complement detailed listings for loose and boxed items. Consoles, cartridges, manuals, accessories, and related merchandise are listed and priced in an easy-to-use, checklist format. Products are listed by console and manufacturer for easy reference. See Donkey Kong, Frogger, Asteroids, Centipede, Pac-Man, and many other famous stars from the 1980s systems in this must-have title on classic video games. 2008 values.