======================================================================
= Atari_2600 =
======================================================================
Introduction
======================================================================
The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by
Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer
System (Atari VCS), it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and
games stored on swappable ROM cartridges, a format first used with the
Fairchild Channel F in 1976. The VCS was bundled with two joystick
controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game
cartridgeinitially 'Combat' and later 'Pac-Man'. Sears sold the system
as the Tele-Games Video Arcade. Atari rebranded the VCS as the Atari
2600 in November 1982, alongside the release of the Atari 5200.
Atari was successful at creating arcade video games, but their
development cost and limited lifespan drove CEO Nolan Bushnell to seek
a programmable home system. The first inexpensive microprocessors from
MOS Technology in late 1975 made this feasible. The console was
prototyped under the codename Stella by Atari subsidiary Cyan
Engineering. Lacking funding to complete the project, Bushnell sold
Atari to Warner Communications in 1976.
The Atari VCS launched in 1977 with nine games on 2 KB cartridges.
Atari ported many of their arcade games to the system, and the VCS
versions of 'Breakout' and 'Night Driver' are in color while the
arcade originals have monochrome graphics. The system's first killer
application was the home conversion of Taito's 'Space Invaders' in
1980. 'Adventure', also released in 1980, was one of the first
action-adventure video games and contains the first widely recognized
Easter egg. Beginning with the VCS version of 'Asteroids' in 1980,
many games used bank switching to allow 8 KB or larger cartridges. By
the time of the system's peak in 1982-3, games were released with
significantly more advanced visuals and gameplay than the system was
designed for, such as Activision's 'Pitfall!'. The popularity of the
VCS led to the founding of Activision and other third-party game
developers and competition from the Intellivision and, later,
ColecoVision consoles.
By 1982, the 2600 was the dominant game system in North America, and
"Atari" had entered the vernacular as a synonym for the console and
video games in general. However, poor decisions by Atari management
damaged both the system and company's reputation, most notably the
release of two highly anticipated games for the 2600: a port of the
arcade game 'Pac-Man' and 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'. 'Pac-Man'
became the 2600's bestselling game, but was panned for not resembling
the original. 'E.T.' was rushed to market for the holiday shopping
season and was similarly disparaged. Both games, and a glut of
third-party shovelware, were factors in ending Atari's significance in
the console market, contributing to the video game crash of 1983.
Warner sold the assets of Atari's consumer electronics division to
former Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel in 1984. In 1986, the new Atari
Corporation under Tramiel released a revised, low-cost 2600 model, and
the backward-compatible Atari 7800, but it was Nintendo that led the
recovery of the industry with its 1985 launch of the Nintendo
Entertainment System. Production of the Atari 2600 ended in 1992, with
an estimated 30 million units sold across its lifetime.
History
======================================================================
Atari, Inc. was founded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in 1972. Its
first major product was 'Pong', released in 1972, the first successful
coin-operated video game. While Atari continued to develop new arcade
games in following years, 'Pong' gave rise to a number of competitors
to the growing arcade game market. The competition along with other
missteps by Atari led to financial problems in 1974, though recovering
by the end of the year. By 1975, Atari had released a 'Pong' home
console, competing against Magnavox, the only other major producer of
home consoles at the time. Atari engineers recognized, however, the
limitation of custom logic integrated onto the circuit board,
permanently confining the whole console to only one game. The
increasing competition increased the risk, as Atari had found with
past arcade games and again with dedicated home consoles. Both
platforms are built from integrating discrete electro-mechanical
components into circuits, rather than programmed as on a mainframe
computer. Thus, development of a console had cost at least plus time
to complete, but the final product only had about a three-month shelf
life until becoming outdated by competition.
By 1974, Atari had acquired Cyan Engineering, a Grass Valley
electronics company founded by Steve Mayer and Larry Emmons, both
former colleagues of Bushnell and Dabney from Ampex, who helped to
develop new ideas for Atari's arcade games. Even before the release of
the home version of 'Pong', Cyan's engineers, led by Mayer and Ron
Milner, had envisioned a home console powered by new programmable
microprocessors capable of playing Atari's current arcade offerings.
The programmable microprocessors would make a console's design
significantly simpler and more powerful than any dedicated single-game
unit. However, the cost of such chips was far outside the range that
their market would tolerate. Atari had opened negotiations to use
Motorola's new 6800 in future systems.
MOS Technology 6502/6507
==========================
In September 1975, MOS Technology debuted the 6502 microprocessor for
at the Wescon trade show in San Francisco. Mayer and Milner attended,
and met with the leader of the team that created the chip, Chuck
Peddle. They proposed using the 6502 in a game console, and offered to
discuss it further at Cyan's facilities after the show.
Over two days, MOS and Cyan engineers sketched out a 6502-based
console design by Meyer and Milner's specifications. Financial models
showed that even at , the 6502 would be too expensive, and Peddle
offered them a planned 6507 microprocessor, a cost-reduced version of
the 6502, and MOS's RIOT chip for input/output. Cyan and MOS
negotiated the 6507 and RIOT chips at a pair. MOS also introduced
Cyan to Microcomputer Associates, who had separately developed
debugging software and hardware for MOS, and had developed the JOLT
Computer for testing the 6502, which Peddle suggested would be useful
for Atari and Cyan to use while developing their system. Milner was
able to demonstrate a proof-of-concept for a programmable console by
implementing 'Tank', an arcade game by Atari's subsidiary Kee Games,
on the JOLT.
As part of the deal, Atari wanted a second source of the chipset.
Peddle and Paivinen suggested Synertek whose co-founder, Bob
Schreiner, was a friend of Peddle. In October 1975, Atari informed the
market that it was moving forward with MOS. The Motorola sales team
had already told its management that the Atari deal was finalized, and
Motorola management was livid. They announced a lawsuit against MOS
the next week.
Building the system
=====================
By December 1975, Atari hired Joe Decuir, a recent graduate from
University of California, Berkeley who had been doing his own testing
on the 6502. Decuir began debugging the first prototype designed by
Mayer and Milner, which gained the codename "Stella" after the brand
of Decuir's bicycle. This prototype included a breadboard-level design
of the graphics interface to build upon. A second prototype was
completed by March 1976 with the help of Jay Miner, who created a chip
called the Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) to send graphics and
audio to a television. The second prototype included a TIA, a 6507,
and a ROM cartridge slot and adapter.
As the TIA's design was refined, Al Alcorn brought in Atari's game
developers to provide input on features. There are significant
limitations in the 6507, the TIA, and other components, so the
programmers creatively optimized their games to maximize the console.
The console lacks a framebuffer and requires games to instruct the
system to generate graphics in synchronization with the electron gun
in the cathode-ray tube (CRT) as it scans across rows on the screen.
The programmers found ways to "race the beam" to perform other
functions while the electron gun scans outside of the visible screen.
Alongside the electronics development, Bushnell brought in Gene
Landrum, a consultant who had just prior consulted for Fairchild
Camera and Instrument for its upcoming Channel F, to determine the
consumer requirements for the console. In his final report, Landrum
suggested a living room aesthetic, with a wood grain finish, and the
cartridges must be "idiot proof, child proof and effective in
resisting potential static [electricity] problems in a living room
environment". Landrum recommended it include four to five dedicated
games in addition to the cartridges, but this was dropped in the final
designs. The cartridge design was done by James Asher and Douglas
Hardy. Hardy had been an engineer for Fairchild and helped in the
initial design of the Channel F cartridges, but he quit to join Atari
in 1976. The interior of the cartridge that Asher and Hardy designed
was sufficiently different to avoid patent conflicts, but the exterior
components were directly influenced by the Channel F to help work
around the static electricity concerns.
Atari was still recovering from its 1974 financial woes and needed
additional capital to fully enter the home console market, though
Bushnell was wary of being beholden to outside financial sources.>
Atari obtained smaller investments through 1975, but not at the scale
it needed, and began considering a sale to a larger firm by early
1976. Atari was introduced to Warner Communications, which saw the
potential for the growing video game industry to help offset declining
profits from its film and music divisions. Negotiations took place
during 1976, during which Atari cleared itself of liabilities,
including settling a patent infringement lawsuit with Magnavox over
Ralph H. Baer's patents that were the basis for the Magnavox Odyssey.
In mid-1976, Fairchild announced the Channel F, planned for release
later that year, beating Atari to the market.
By October 1976, Warner and Atari agreed to the purchase of Atari for
. Warner provided an estimated which was enough to fast-track Stella.
By 1977, development had advanced enough to brand it the "Atari Video
Computer System" (VCS) and start developing games.
Launch and success
====================
The unit was showcased on June 4, 1977, at the Summer Consumer
Electronics Show with plans for retail release in October. The
announcement was purportedly delayed to wait out the terms of the
Magnavox patent lawsuit settlement, which would have given Magnavox
all technical information on any of Atari's products announced between
June 1, 1976, and June 1, 1977. However, Atari encountered production
problems during its first batch, and its testing was complicated by
the use of cartridges.
The Atari VCS was launched in September 1977 at , with two joysticks
and a 'Combat' cartridge; eight additional games were sold separately.
Most of the launch games were based on arcade games developed by Atari
or its subsidiary Kee Games: for example, 'Combat' was based on Kee's
'Tank' (1974) and Atari's 'Jet Fighter' (1975). Atari sold between
350,000 and 400,000 Atari VCS units during 1977, attributed to the
delay in shipping the units and consumers' unfamiliarity with a
swappable-cartridge console that is not dedicated to only one game.
In 1978, Atari sold only 550,000 of the 800,000 systems manufactured.
This required further financial support from Warner to cover losses.
Bushnell pushed the Warner Board of Directors to start working on
"Stella 2", as he grew concerned that rising competition and aging
tech specs of the VCS would render the console obsolete. However, the
board stayed committed to the VCS and ignored Bushnell's advice,
leading to his departure from Atari in 1979. Atari sold about 600,000
VCS systems in 1979, bringing the installed base to a little over 1.3
million.
Atari obtained a license from Taito to develop a VCS conversion of its
1978 arcade hit 'Space Invaders'. This is the first officially
licensed arcade conversion for a home console. Atari sold 1.25 million
'Space Invaders' cartridges and over 1 million VCS systems in 1980,
nearly doubling the install base to over 2 million, and then an
estimated 3.1 million VCS systems in 1981. By 1982, 10 million
consoles had been sold in the United States, while its best-selling
game was 'Pac-Man' at over copies sold by
1990.{{efn|name=PacMan|7,271,844 in 1982. 684,569 in 1983. in 1986.
61,685 in 1987. 3,885 in 1988. 34,374 in 1989. 2,166 in 1990.}}
'Pac-Man' propelled worldwide Atari VCS sales to units during 1982,
according to a November 1983 article in 'InfoWorld' magazine. An
August 1984 'InfoWorld' magazine article says more than Atari 2600
machines were sold by 1982. A March 1983 article in 'IEEE Spectrum'
magazine has about 3 million VCS sales in 1981, about 5.5 million in
1982, as well as a total of over 12 million VCS systems and an
estimated 120 million cartridges sold.
In Europe, the Atari VCS sold 125,000 units in the United Kingdom
during 1980, and 450,000 in West Germany by 1984. In France, where the
VCS released in 1982, the system sold 600,000 units by 1989. The
console was distributed by Epoch Co. in Japan in 1979 under the name
"Cassette TV Game", but did not sell as well as Epoch's own Cassette
Vision system in 1981.
In 1982, Atari launched its second programmable console, the Atari
5200. To standardize naming, the VCS was renamed to the "Atari 2600
Video Computer System", or "Atari 2600", derived from the manufacture
part number CX2600. By 1982, the 2600 cost Atari about to make and
was sold for an average of . The company spent .50 to to manufacture
each cartridge, plus to for advertising, wholesaling for .
Third-party development
=========================
Activision, formed by Crane, Whitehead, and Miller in 1979, started
developing third-party VCS games using their knowledge of VCS design
and programming tricks and began releasing games in 1980. 'Kaboom!'
(1981) and 'Pitfall!' (1982) are among the most successful with at
least one and four million copies sold, respectively. In 1980, Atari
attempted to block the sale of the Activision cartridges, accusing the
four of intellectual property infringement. The two companies settled
out of court, with Activision agreeing to pay Atari a licensing fee
for their games. This made Activision the first third-party video game
developer and established the licensing model that continues to be
used by console manufacturers for game development.
Activision's success led to the establishment of other third-party VCS
game developers following Activision's model in the early 1980s,
including U.S. Games, Telesys, Games by Apollo, Data Age, Zimag,
Mystique, and CommaVid. The founding of Imagic included ex-Atari
programmers. Mattel and Coleco, each already producing its own more
advanced console, created simplified versions of their existing games
for the 2600. Mattel used the M Network brand name for its cartridges.
Third-party games accounted for half of VCS game sales by 1982.
Decline and redesign
======================
In addition to third-party game development, Atari also received the
first major threat to its hardware dominance from the ColecoVision.
Coleco had a license from Nintendo to develop a version of the arcade
game 'Donkey Kong' (1981), which was bundled with every ColecoVision
console. Coleco gained about 17% of the hardware market in 1982
compared to Atari's 58%. With third parties competing for market
share, Atari worked to maintain dominance in the market by acquiring
licenses for popular arcade games and other properties to make games
from. 'Pac-Man' has numerous technical and aesthetic flaws, but
nevertheless more than 7 million copies were sold. Heading into the
1982 holiday shopping season, Atari had placed high sales expectations
on 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial', a game programmed in about six weeks.
Atari produced an estimated four million cartridges, but the game was
poorly reviewed, and only about 1.5 million units were sold.
Warner Communications issued revised earnings guidance in December
1982 to its shareholders, having expected a 50% year-to-year growth
but now only expecting 10-15% due to declining sales at Atari. Coupled
with the oversaturated home game market, Atari's weakened position led
investors to start pulling funds out of video games, beginning a
cascade of disastrous effects known as the video game crash of 1983.
Many of the third-party developers formed prior to 1983 were closed,
and Mattel and Coleco left the video game market by 1985.
In September 1983, Atari sent 14 truckloads of unsold Atari 2600
cartridges and other equipment to a landfill in the New Mexico desert,
later labeled the Atari video game burial. Long considered an urban
legend that claimed the burial contained millions of unsold
cartridges, the site was excavated in 2014, confirming reports from
former Atari executives that only about 700,000 cartridges had
actually been buried. Atari reported a loss for 1983 as a whole, and
continued to lose money into 1984, with a loss reported in the second
quarter. By mid-1984, software development for the 2600 had
essentially stopped except that of Atari and Activision.
Warner, wary of supporting its failing Atari division, started looking
for buyers in 1984. Warner sold most of the assets of Atari's
counsumer electronics and home computer divisions to Jack Tramiel, the
founder of Commodore International, in July 1984 in a deal valued at ,
though Warner retained Atari's arcade business. Tramiel was a
proponent of personal computers, and halted all new 2600 game
development soon after the sale.
The North American video game market did not recover until about 1986,
after Nintendo's 1985 launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System in
North America. Atari Corporation released a redesigned model of the
2600 in 1986, supported by an ad campaign touting a price of "under 50
bucks". With a large library of cartridges and a low price point, the
2600 continued to sell into the late 1980s. Atari released the last
batch of games in 1989-90 including 'Secret Quest' and 'Fatal Run'. By
1986, over Atari VCS units had been sold worldwide. The final
Atari-licensed release is the PAL-only version of the arcade game
'KLAX' in 1990.
After more than 14 years on the market, 2600 production ended in 1992,
along with the Atari 7800 and Atari 8-bit computers. Despite this
fact, Atari continued sales in Europe for years to come. It cost less
than £39.99 and was mainly distributed through mail order chains. In
1991, 200,000 units were sold on the continent and in it was a
bestseller at Littlewoods stores in UK. After the fall of communism,
Atari attempted to legally introduce the Atari 2600 and 7800 to the
former Eastern Bloc countries, with small price being main advantage
of the system, but Atari was defeated by even more cheaper and easily
available clones called "Rambo TV Game 2600" (advertised with the 1982
movie character Rambo played by Sylvester Stallone), containing up to
several hundred built-in games. In Western Europe, last stocks of the
2600 and 7800 were sold until Summer/Fall of 1995.
Hardware
======================================================================
The Atari 2600's CPU is the MOS Technology 6507, a version of the
6502, running at 1.19 MHz in the 2600. Though their internal silicon
was identical, the 6507 was cheaper than the 6502 because its package
included fewer memory-address pins--13 instead of 16. The designers of
the Atari 2600 selected an inexpensive cartridge interface that has
one fewer address pins than the 13 allowed by the 6507, further
reducing the already limited addressable memory from 8 KB (213 =
8,192) to 4 KB (212 = 4,096). This was believed to be sufficient as
'Combat' was only 2 KB. Later games circumvented this limitation with
bank switching.
The console has 128 bytes of RAM for scratch space, the call stack,
and the state of the game environment.
The top bezel of the console originally had six switches: power, TV
type selection (color or black-and-white), game selection, left and
right player difficulty, and game reset. The difficulty switches were
moved to the back of the bezel in later versions of the console. The
back bezel also included the controller ports, TV output, and power
input.
Graphics
==========
The Atari 2600 was designed to be compatible with the cathode-ray tube
television sets produced in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which
commonly lack auxiliary video inputs to receive audio and video from
another device. Therefore, to connect to a TV, the console generates a
radio frequency signal compatible with the regional television
standards (NTSC, PAL, or SECAM), using a special switch box to act as
the television's antenna.
Atari developed the Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) chip in the VCS
to handle the graphics and conversion to a television signal. It
provides a single-color, 20-bit background register that covers the
left half of the screen (each bit represents 4 adjacent pixels) and is
either repeated or reflected on the right side. There are 5
single-color sprites: two 8-pixel wide 'players'; two 1 bit
'missiles', which share the same colors as the players; and a 1-pixel
'ball', which shares the background color. The 1-bit sprites all can
be controlled to stretch to 1, 2, 4, or 8 pixels.
The system was designed without a frame buffer to avoid the cost of
the associated RAM. The background and sprites apply to a single scan
line, and as the display is output to the television, the program can
change colors, sprite positions, and background settings. The careful
timing required to sync the code to the screen on the part of the
programmer was labeled "racing the beam"; the actual game logic runs
when the television beam is outside of the visible area of the screen.
Early games for the system use the same visuals for pairs of scan
lines, giving a lower vertical resolution, to allow more time for the
next row of graphics to be prepared. Later games, such as 'Pitfall!',
change the visuals for each scan line or extend the black areas around
the screen to extend the game code's processing time.
Regional releases of the Atari 2600 use modified TIA chips for each
region's television formats, which require games to be developed and
published separately for each region. All modes are 160 pixels wide.
NTSC mode provides 192 visible lines per screen, drawn at 60 Hz, with
16 colors, each at 8 levels of brightness. PAL mode provides more
vertical scanlines, with 228 visible lines per screen, but drawn at 50
Hz and only 13 colors. SECAM mode, also a 50 Hz format, is limited to
8 colors, each with only a single brightness level.
Controllers
=============
The first VCS bundle has two types of controllers: a joystick (part
number CX10) and pair of rotary paddle controllers (CX30). Driving
controllers, which are similar to paddle controllers but can be
continuously rotated, shipped with the 'Indy 500' launch game. After
less than a year, the CX10 joystick was replaced with the CX40 model
designed by James C. Asher. Because the Atari joystick port and CX40
joystick became industry standards, 2600 joysticks and some other
peripherals work with later systems, including the MSX, Commodore 64,
Amiga, Atari 8-bit computers, and Atari ST. The CX40 joystick can be
used with the Master System and Sega Genesis, but does not provide all
the buttons of a native controller. Third-party controllers include
Wico's Command Control joystick. Later, the CX42 Remote Control
Joysticks, similar in appearance but using wireless technology, were
released, together with a receiver whose wires could be inserted in
the controller jacks.
Atari introduced the CX50 Keyboard Controller in June 1978 along with
two games that require it: 'Codebreaker' and 'Hunt & Score'. The
similar, but simpler, CX23 Kid's Controller was released later for a
series of games aimed at a younger audience. The CX22 Trak-Ball
controller was announced in January 1983 and is compatible with the
Atari 8-bit computers.
There were two attempts to turn the Atari 2600 into a
keyboard-equipped home computer: Atari's never-released CX3000
"Graduate" keyboard, and the CompuMate keyboard by Spectravideo which
was released in 1983.
Minor revisions
=================
The initial production of the VCS was made in Sunnyvale during 1977,
using thick polystyrene plastic for the casing as to give the
impression of weight from what was mostly an empty shell inside. The
initial Sunnyvale batch had also included potential mounts for an
internal speaker system on the casing, though the speakers were found
to be too expensive to include; instead sound was routed through the
TIA to the connected television. All six console switches were mounted
on the front panel. Production of the unit was moved to Taiwan in
1978, where a less thick internal metal shielding was used and thinner
plastic was used for the casing, reducing the system's weight. These
two versions are commonly referred to as "Heavy Sixers" and "Light
Sixers" respectively, referencing the six front switches.
In 1980, the difficulty switches were moved to the back of the
console, leaving four switches on the front and replacing the previous
all lowercase font for the switch labels to fully capitalized wording.
Otherwise, these four-switch consoles look nearly identical to the
earlier six-switch models. In 1982, to coincide with the release of
the Atari 5200, Atari rebranded the console as the "Atari 2600", a
name first used on a version of the four-switch model without
woodgrain, giving it an all-black appearance. This all-black model is
commonly referred to by fans as the "Vader" model, due to its
resemblance to the 'Star Wars' character of the same name.
Sears Video Arcade {{anchor|sears}}
=====================================
Atari continued its OEM relationship with Sears under the latter's
Tele-Games brand, which started in 1975 with the original 'Pong'. This
is unrelated to the company Telegames, which later produced 2600
cartridges. Sears released several models of the VCS as the Sears
Video Arcade series starting in 1977. The final Sears-specific model
was the Video Arcade II, released during the fall of 1982.
Sears released versions of Atari's games with Tele-Games branding,
usually with different titles. Three games were produced by Atari for
Sears as exclusive releases: 'Steeplechase', 'Stellar Track', and
'Submarine Commander'.
Atari 2800 {{anchor|2800}}
============================
The Atari 2800 is the Japanese version of the 2600 released in October
1983. It is the first Japan-specific release of a 2600, though
companies like Epoch had distributed the 2600 in Japan previously. The
2800 was released a short time after Nintendo's Family Computer (which
became the dominant console in Japan), and it did not gain a
significant share of the market. Sears previously released the 2800 in
the US during late 1982 as the Sears Video Arcade II, which came
packaged with two controllers and 'Space Invaders'. Around 30
specially branded games were released for the 2800.
Designed by engineer Joe Tilly, the 2800 has four controller ports
instead of the two of the 2600. The controllers are an all-in one
design using a combination of an 8-direction digital joystick and a
270-degree paddle, designed by John Amber. The 2800's case design
departed from the 2600, using a wedge shape with non-protruding
switches. The case style is the basis for the Atari 7800, which was
redesigned for the 7800 by Barney Huang.
1986 model
============
The cost-reduced 1986 model, sometimes referred to as the "2600 Jr.",
has a smaller form factor with an Atari 7800-like appearance. It was
advertised as a budget gaming system (under ) with the ability to run
a large collection of games. Released after the video game crash of
1983, and after the North American launch of the Nintendo
Entertainment System, the 2600 was supported with new games and
television commercials promoting "The fun is back!". Atari released
several minor stylistic variations: the "large rainbow" (shown),
"short rainbow", and an all-black version sold only in Ireland. Later
European versions include a joypad.
Unreleased prototypes
=======================
The Atari 2700 was a version of the 2600 with wireless controllers.
The CX2000, with integrated joystick controllers, was a redesign based
on human factor analysis by Henry Dreyfuss Associates.
The circa-1982 Atari 3200 was a backwards compatible 2600 successor
with "more memory, higher resolution graphics and improved sound".
Related hardware and recreations
==================================
The Atari 7800, announced in 1984 and released in 1986, is the
official successor to the Atari 2600 and is backward compatible with
2600 cartridges.
Multiple retro-style consoles and microconsoles have been released
since the lifespan of the original Atari 2600:
*The TV Boy includes 127 games in an enlarged joypad.
*The Atari Classics 10-in-1 TV Game, manufactured by Jakks Pacific,
emulates the 2600 with ten games inside an Atari-style joystick with
composite-video output.
*The Atari Flashback 2 (2005) contains 40 games, with four additional
programs unlocked by a cheat code. It uses a recreated chip based on
original 2600 hardware, and is compatible with original 2600
controllers. It can be modified to play original 2600 cartridges.
*In 2017, Hyperkin announced the RetroN 77, a clone of the Atari 2600
that plays original cartridges instead of preinstalled games.
*The Atari VCS (2021 console) can download and emulate 2600 games via
an online store.
*The Atari Flashback 12 Gold (2023) contains 130 games built-in.
*The Atari 2600+ (2023) is a replica of the 2600 and is 20% smaller.
The 2600+ includes support for original Atari 2600 and 7800
cartridges.
*The Atari 7800+ (2024) is a smaller replica of the Atari 7800. It has
similar features to the Atari 2600+, but its exterior encasing design
pays homage to the Atari 7800.
Games
======================================================================
In 1977, nine games were released on cartridge to accompany the launch
of the console: 'Air-Sea Battle', 'Basic Math', 'Blackjack', 'Combat',
'Indy 500', 'Star Ship', 'Street Racer', 'Surround', and 'Video
Olympics'. 'Indy 500' shipped with special "driving controllers",
which are like paddles but rotate freely. 'Street Racer' and 'Video
Olympics' use the standard paddle controllers. Atari, Inc. was the
only developer for the first few years, releasing dozens of games.
Atari determined that box art featuring only descriptions of the game
and screenshots would not be sufficient to sell games in retail
stores, since most games were based on abstract principles and
screenshots give little information. Atari outsourced box art to Cliff
Spohn, who created visually interesting artwork with implications of
dynamic movement intended to engage the player's imagination while
staying true to the gameplay. Spohn's style became a standard for
Atari when bringing in assistant artists, including Susan Jaekel, Rick
Guidice, John Enright, and Steve Hendricks. Spohn and Hendricks were
the largest contributors to the covers in the Atari 2600 library.
Ralph McQuarrie, a concept artist on the 'Star Wars' series, was
commissioned for one cover, the arcade conversion of 'Vanguard'. These
artists generally conferred with the programmer to learn about the
game before drawing the art.
An Atari VCS port of the 'Breakout' arcade game appeared in 1978. The
original is in black and white with a colored overlay, and the home
version is in color. In 1980, Atari released 'Adventure', the first
action-adventure game, and the first home game with a hidden Easter
egg.
Rick Maurer's port of Taito's 'Space Invaders', released in 1980, was
the first VCS game to sell a million copies--eventually doubling that
within a year and totaling more than cartridges by 1983. It became
the killer app to drive console sales. Versions of Atari's own
'Asteroids' and 'Missile Command' arcade games, released in 1981, were
also major hits.
Launch games use 2K ROMs. 4K eventually became standard with games
such as 'Space Invaders'. The VCS port of 'Asteroids' (1981) was the
first game for the system to use 8K via a bank switching technique
between two 4K segments. Some games, including Atari's ports of 'Dig
Dug' and 'Crystal Castles', are 16K cartridges. One of the final
games, 'Fatal Run' (1990), doubled this to 32K.
Many early VCS titles were able to display in both monochrome (black
and white) and full color through the use of the "TV type" switch on
the console. This allowed the VCS games to function on both monochrome
and color televisions. However, beginning around the rebranding from
"VCS" to "2600", support for black and white display modes diminished
greatly, with most releases during this period only displaying in
color and the TV type switch serving no function. Late releases such
as 'Secret Quest', began using the TV type switch for gameplay
functions, such as pausing.
Two Atari-published games, both from the system's peak in 1982, 'E.T.
the Extra-Terrestrial' and 'Pac-Man', were rushed to market and are
cited as factors in the video game crash of 1983.
A company named American Multiple Industries produced a number of
pornographic games for the 2600 under the 'Mystique Presents Swedish
Erotica' label. The most notorious, 'Custer's Revenge', was protested
by women's and Native American groups because it depicted General
George Armstrong Custer raping a bound Native American woman. Atari
sued American Multiple Industries in court over the release of the
game.
Legacy
======================================================================
The 2600 was so successful in the late 1970s and early 1980s that
"Atari" was a synonym for the console in mainstream media and for
video games in general. Jay Miner directed the creation of the
successors to the 2600's TIA chip--CTIA and ANTIC--which are central
to the Atari 8-bit computers released in 1979 and later the Atari 5200
console.
The Atari 2600 was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The
Strong in Rochester, New York, in 2007. In 2009, the Atari 2600 was
named the number two console of all time by IGN, which cited its
remarkable role behind both the first video game boom and the video
game crash of 1983, and called it "the console that our entire
industry is built upon".
In November 2021, the current incarnation of Atari announced three
2600 games to be published under "Atari XP" label: 'Yars' Return',
'Aquaventure', and 'Saboteur'. These were previously included in Atari
Flashback consoles.
A model of the Atari 2600 was released by Lego in 2022. Included are
the three games 'Asteroid', 'Centipede', and 'Adventure'. Included is
a minifigure with a bedroom designed from the 1980s.
External links
======================================================================
* [
http://thedoteaters.com/?bitstory=console/vcs2600 A history of the
Atari VCS/2600]
* [
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Inside-the-Atari-2600/
Inside the Atari 2600]
*
[
http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/2600menu/2600menu.htm
Hardware and prototypes] at the Atari Museum
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_2600
