40th Anniversary of Atari Poem

2600

Atari! It means "I attack you!"
A battle cry from a game named Gomaku
I'm coming to hack you
That's why I'm called Vorhees
Friday the 13th
You'll be down on your knees
My active vision means a demon attack
The man from Atlantis
And you know I ain't goin' back
Constant adventure
From my megalomania
Perpetual combat
Straight to Terebithia
Like General Grevous
I'm devious like Xevious
Bonghits and pong
My controllers are the greasiest
I'm riding the joyboard
Spinning potentiometers
Worshipping the woodgrain
I am the VG chronicler
Now the switches I flip
Means I'm changing banks
From 2k to 4k, ascending the high score ranks
Commanding the missiles full stop like a psy-op
Secret messages, I stay hidden like Rob Fulop
26, 52, and 7800
The 4 and the 8 and even the Falcon

2600 - the tone
You know I give megahertz
Phone phreakin', I'm tweakin
Rhyming in bursts and spurts
I pack a punch like your mom packs a bag lunch
Blowing the whistle
Communicating with Captain Crunch
Like Whifield Diffie, never iffy on the flow
Or Rawston Stovall
You gotta write what you know
Information exchange
But wait for the handshake
Logic trees
And so many branches to take
2400 - the baud rate
But don't laugh at my speed
Rappers I crush - centipede or millipede
A snowcrasher, in this cryptonomicon
A relic iconic
Mainstay like Comicon
Object-oriented
By my functions are private
In a virtual prison
For all the warez that I pirate
Turning tables - go look up
I'm trigonometric
I am the cursor recursive
My Kool-aid be electric
I mix case in white space as bugs get erased
You can't decrypt my source?
Shouldn't have tried in the first place...

2600 - I'm goin back to the future
Mind, body & soul stuck together like sutures
I also kick it in B.C., smuggling the new tek
Getting netcopped, for all the timelines I wreck
I beg, steal and borrow the past through tomorrow
Robbing emotions
The harvester of sorrow
Time bandit, I planned
In the course of my travels
I spin tales and weave sails
From the threads that I unravel
No lie, I'm McFly, I Fargo like H.G. Wells
Unstuck in time, Slaughterhouse Five
This is the bard's tale
Yankee clipper from hell
I'm Jack Tripper
Chronometers spin
In my hunt for the ripper
Future historian
With time enough for love
The powermonger
I game with hawk and dove
Archon 3D
I am the light and the dark
Cosmic commuter
Beamriding the spark
In this videodrome
My BFG's the looker
I'm outta here
Time for some caveman hookers