I had to pull up a chair when I heard this news…iconic video game maker Atari had it’s 40th anniversary.

Atari put joysticks in the hands of pre-teens and made the term “video game” a household name (and later “childhood obesity”). Wow — how time flies!

I still recall that Christmas Morning when I scrambled down the stairs in my pajamas and looked under the tree to find this weird wood-paneled cabinet. That was the apex of my youth to that point.

My best friend Brad also got an Atari for Christmas that year — we thought we were on top of the world. No more feeding the quarter and token-guzzling machines in the mall arcade; no more waiting in line while the older kid who is supposed to be handing out change ignores you while he played your favourite game. Brad and I were hip and cool…

Now I’m over 40 and not even my daughter thinks I’m cool (even though I know as much about Justin Beiber as she does) and I miss the days of hanging out at the mall arcade with my friends.

I don’t visit arcades much anymore and I never became a tech guru like some of the eventIQ team, but the world didn’t completely pass me by either. I use web-based software regularly and know what it means to “work in the cloud.”

And last week I downloaded an app on my iPhone — classic Atari games.