My Time With Travi
The Atari 7800 Traveler Cartridge
an article by Cousin Vinnie

Travi Arrives:
It wasn’t a new idea, but it still was a good one: Have a 7800 cartridge be shipped all around the world, with fans of the system taking photographs with it at various places like the nerds that we are… attaching crap with it so that after the final destination, it could be sold for charity. Cool. Being the webmaster of the Prosystem’s most unique website, I had to get on the list. I wanted to be a part of 7800 history!

But at what cost?

I was told by the German 7800 hobbyist Gambler 172, who made the 7800 Traveler cartridge (nicknamed Travi), that it was on its way to Knoxville, Tennessee. Yea! Preparations were made… meaning I checked my mail box 70 to 75% percent more often throughout the week. When it finally arrived, I was alone so I couldn’t share the joy with anyone else that it had finally arrived (not that anyone who lived with me would really care anyway). I looked at its smiling face and rummaged through the random knick-knacks from Canada, Utah, Germany, Belgium, etc. I popped the cart in the 7800 to see what the display screens looked like. After a few seconds, I thought I heard someone say “Dirty Bastard”. I stood up, and looked throughout the house for an intruder that was not there. After a few minutes, heart still pounding, I re-entered my office to find that the 7800 system was empty! Somebody stole Travi! Gambler’s gonna kill me!

I ran throughout the house, checking every door and window… everything was locked! What the hell? I then ran to the kitchen… oh my god! Travi? What did you eat????

Within minutes, my time was being consumed by Travi!

Apparently, Travi wasn’t house broken. Yeah, that got to me a little bit, because I didn’t know that Travi exactly had a digestive system and all, but what the hell… at least he did it on the puppy pads I laid down for my puppy when I got home. I was upset at the makers of this game for not warning me, but decided to just relax, because hey… I guess it’s a young cartridge. I’ll take it easy and not send Gambler a nasty email. Time for the gloves and Lysol! Damn! What did they feed you in Utah?

To be honest, my interest in Travi waned after a few moments. I like the 7800… I mean a lot, but it doesn’t get to much playtime anymore. I had a few hours before my house was ran-sacked, so I decided to play some “Super Paper Mario” on the Wii.




After that, my day was pretty quiet, and I went to sleep like normal. But something woke me up at 3:30AM. I rose from the bed, went to the bathroom, and decided to go to the kitchen for a snack. As I passed the living room, I saw a nasty image:

Here's Travi with a modern game

What can I say… I caught it red-handed. What the hell did I get into? I picked up Travi and pointed at it. Screamed at it! What a show of disrespect! Do not ruin my things! What the hell is wrong with you! All of my other 7800 cartridges are nice! Where did I go wrong? What are you? Who programmed you? Are you evil? You are evil! You ARE evil! I…

My wife came in the room and cast me a glaring look… I stared at her back, and then slowly set the video game back on the table. I cast an awkward smile.

“Vinnie, I have to be at work at 8AM,” she said, groggily.

Without a word, I went to bed.

The next morning was Tuesday, and I woke up like normal… late for work. I rushed into the bathroom area for a quick shower, but I heard a strange, meditative noise coming from the living room. I entered and saw something I could not believe…

My kids loved Travi from the get-go!

I asked the kids, “What the hell are you doing? Hey! HEY! Stop doing that! What are you doing?”

Gretchen replied, “It told us to obey it, daddy.”

“What?”

Rebecca added, “It is our God!”

In a short 12 hours, I had had enough, I took Travi and put him in the box he came in, put him in a shoebox, put that box in another shipping box, put that one in an orange crate, “poked some air holes, because, what the hell, I’m a nice guy” and put him outside. When I came home from work, I reopened the box and he and I had a heart to heart. It stated it was very sorry. Well, he did in so many words… kind of like telepathy. Well… let’s not get into that. I just knew it was gonna be better now. So I offered to take him on a trip with me and my band Flipside Runner as we played the roof of Graham Central Station in Nashville, Tennessee on the 4th of July. He said (in my mind) that it would be OK and that he would behave. I believed him… it.

In the beginning, it was pretty standard rock band fare for the Independence Day show. A long drive to Nashville. Boring, sweat inducing load-ins. Sound check. Free, bad food. Constant questions like, “What the hell is that? An Atari game? Why do you have an Atari game?”

At around 9:30PM, the fireworks began and I took Travi from his box. I think he smiled innocently at me. I held him up and took a picture with the fireworks exploding behind him. What a good time we were having!

Travi makes celebrations come alive!

I set him down on my amp, the fireworks ended, and we started the first set with “Jungle Love”. An hour or so later, I turned to see if Travi was having a good time… but he was gone. OH #$#$!!! Gambler is gonna kill me!

I knew where he was, though… the third floor, where all the hootchie mama dancing was going on. I only had ten minutes before the next set. I ran to the dance floor, literally shoving people left and right, yelling “Travi! You Bastard! Where are you?” but it was no use, the hip-hop rhythms were drowning me out, not that he would have answered me anyways. I stopped in front of a door. Something wasn't right. A voice in my mind said “Get way from the door, if you value your life." I looked at the office door in front of me and busted into the room to see…

It's amazing the interaction young folks can have with Travi!

There was an awkward silence. There was no need to ask “What are you doing?” I knew what was up. I just thanked the good Lord in the sky I was in time. He resisted by bouncing around the room, but I finally captured him and put him back into his box. The show would go on, but Travi would not see another Tennessee image... he was locked in his box.

The drive home was quiet. The next morning I went to the post office, whispered swear words and phrases that included terms like “gypsy curse”, “voodoo a-hole”, and “my taint” into the box that I will not repeat and shipped this cartridge to the Midwest Gaming Classic. God bless you, you poor, poor fools. I hope you have better luck than I did… but you won’t.





I would like to thank Shawn Sr and the Gambler 172 for all the work that went into Travi!