This month, I bought a retro Atari gaming console for $39.99 at a Bed Bath & Beyond in suburban New Jersey. It was a few feet from a set of Calphalon pots and pans and a display of oven mitts 11 rows deep. So that tells you something about the intended audience.

“I can’t believe they still sell these,” the cashier, Vanessa, said.

Somehow, Atari never dies. The console, known as the Flashback, was one of the best-selling items in early November at Dollar General, one of the nation’s largest chains. Considering that Atari is down to a mere 18 employees, perhaps no company is squeezing more nostalgia out of an old product this holiday shopping season.

Atari once employed Steve Jobs as a technician and became an icon of the early home computing age, but then the company had a succession of near-death experiences.

Started in 1972, Atari was named by one of its founders, Nolan Bushnell, for a move in the ancient Asian game of Go. “Atari was what you said to your opponent if you put their stones in jeopardy, kind of like check in chess,” Mr. Bushnell explained in an interview. “I just thought it was a cool word and a cool name.”