Profile Atarian: Ed Castle

I'm not going to pretend to be old. I'm not old. I'm sprightly and young. So, unsurprisingly, the first Atari product I ever owned was an ST. It's not that I wasn't around in the days of the 2600/7800, it's just I didn't know that I wanted one.

I only really started to become interested in computers when I was around 6, and me and my dad used to slug away at some old Amstrad games for hours. There was a Batman game in the style of Head Over Heals, Sorcery + (Oh, how I loved that game!), and lots of other classics. It was later in life that I got my ST. I was old enough to understand it, to not need help to load games, and to enjoy it on a level I never had before. I spent hours and hours playing Skweek, and a game (Captain Blood?) where you chose a planet to visit, maneuvered your way through masses of terrain, and if you were lucky, get to chat to an alien.

We had to sell the ST when my family hit money problems, but it was not long before I got a Lynx. The Lynx became a major part of my life, and when I connected to the internet, I managed to build a name for myself and become a person people relied on. I am building up my games collection, and hope to complete it before I turn 25.

I went on to get a Jaguar about a year after it's release, but it never captured my heart in the same way the Lynx did. While I think Atari could use the help of an entrepreneur like myself, I still think it's a great company, that's produced some great machines.