Atari 2600
Encyclopedia
The Atari 2600 is a video game console
released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc
. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor
-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated
hardware with all games built in. The first game console to use this format was the Fairchild Channel F
; however, the Atari 2600 receives credit for making the plug-in concept popular among the game-playing public.
The console was originally sold as the Atari VCS, for Video Computer System. Following the release of the Atari 5200
, in 1982, the VCS was renamed "Atari 2600", after the unit's Atari part number, CX2600. The 2600 was typically bundled with two joystick
controllers
, a conjoined pair of paddle
controllers, and a cartridge game—initially Combat
and later Pac-Man
.
The Atari 2600 was wildly successful, and during much of the 1980s, "Atari" was a synonym for this model in mainstream media and, by extension
, for video games in general.
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 second greatest video game console of all time by IGN
, who cited its remarkable role as the console 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."
to play a small number of games, Stella's core was a complete CPU
, the famous MOS Technology
6502
in a cost-reduced version, known as the 6507
. It was combined with a RAM-and-I/O
chip, the MOS Technology 6532
, and a display and sound chip of their own design known as the TIA
, for Television Interface Adaptor. Beyond those three, the first two versions of the machine contain just one more chip, a standard CMOS logic buffer IC
, bringing the total chip count to the very low and cost-effective number of four. Some later versions of the console eliminated the buffer chip.
Programs for small computers were generally stored on cassette tape, disk or paper tape. By the early 1970s, Hewlett Packard manufactured desktop computers costing thousands of dollars such as the HP 9830
, which packaged Read Only Memory (ROM) into removable cartridges to add special programming features, and these were being considered for use in games. At first, the design was not going to be cartridge-based, but after seeing a "fake" cartridge system on another machine, they realized they could place the games on cartridges essentially for the price of the connector and packaging.
In August 1976, Fairchild Semiconductor
released their own CPU-based system, the Video Entertainment System. Stella was still not ready for production, but it was clear that it needed to be before there were a number of "me too" products filling up the market—which had happened after they released Pong
. Atari Inc. simply did not have the cash flow to complete the system quickly, given that sales of their own Pong systems were cooling. Nolan Bushnell
eventually turned to Warner Communications
, and sold the company to them in 1976 for US$28 million on the promise that Stella would be produced as soon as possible.
Key to the eventual success of the machine was the hiring of Jay Miner
, a chip designer who managed to squeeze an entire breadboard
of equipment making up the TIA into a single chip. Once that was completed and debugged, the system was ready for shipping. By the time it was released in 1977, the development had cost about US$100 million.
cartridge (eight additional games were available at launch and sold separately). In a move to compete directly with the Channel F
, Atari Inc. named the machine the Video Computer System (or VCS for short), as the Channel F was at that point known as the VES, for Video Entertainment System. The VCS was also rebadged as the Sears Video Arcade and sold through Sears, Roebuck and Company
stores.
When Fairchild learned of Atari Inc.'s naming, they quickly changed the name of their system to become the Channel F. However, both systems were now in the midst of a vicious round of price-cutting: Pong clones that had been made obsolete by these newer and more powerful machines were sold off to discounters for ever-lower prices. Soon many of the clone companies were out of business, and both Fairchild and Atari Inc. were selling to a public that was completely burnt out on Pong. In 1977, Atari Inc. sold only 250,000 VCSs.
For the first year of production, the VCS was manufactured in Sunnyvale, California
. The consoles manufactured there had thick internal RF shielding, and thick plastic molding around the sides and bottom. These added weight to the console, and because all six switches were on the front, these consoles were nicknamed "Heavy Sixers". After this first year, production moved to Hong Kong
, and the consoles manufactured there had thinner plastic molding. In 1978, only 550,000 units from a production run of 800,000 were sold, requiring further financial support from Warner to cover losses. This led directly to the disagreements that caused Atari Inc. founder Nolan Bushnell
to leave the company in 1978.
Once the public realized it was possible to play video games other than Pong, and programmers learned how to push its hardware's capabilities, the VCS gained popularity. By this point, Fairchild had given up, thinking video games were a passing fad, thereby handing the entire quickly growing market to Atari Inc. By 1979, the VCS was the best-selling Christmas
gift (and console), mainly because of its exclusive content, and 1 million units were sold that year.
Atari Inc. then licensed the smash arcade
hit Space Invaders
by Taito
, which greatly increased the unit's popularity when it was released in January 1980, doubling sales again to over 2 million units. The VCS and its cartridges were the main factor behind Atari Inc. grossing more than $2 billion in 1980. Sales then doubled again for the next two years; by 1982, the console had sold 10 million units, while its best-selling game Pac-Man
sold 7 million copies.
In 1980, the VCS was given a minor revision in which the left and right difficulty switches were moved to the back of the console, leaving four switches on the front. Other than this, these four-switch consoles looked nearly identical to the earlier six-switch models. In 1982, another version of the four-switch console was released without woodgrain. They were nicknamed "Darth Vader
" consoles due to their all-black appearance. These were also the first consoles to be officially called "Atari 2600", as the Atari 5200
was released the same year.
During this period, Atari Inc. expanded the 2600 family with two other compatible consoles. They designed the Atari 2700
, a wireless version of the console that was never released because of a design flaw. The company also built a sleeker version of the machine dubbed the Atari 2800
to sell directly to the Japan
ese market in early 1983, but it suffered from competition with the newly released Nintendo
Famicom
.
In a survey mentioned by Jeff Rovin it is reported that more stores reported breakdowns of the Atari 2600 system than any other, and that Atari repair centers seemed to have the most trouble with consoles manufactured in 1980. In one case it is stated that a system was repaired five times before static electricity from a carpet was discovered as having caused the problem. The controllers were also a source of breakage because of the way they could be gripped by a player holding it with their fist, allowing players to get carried away and over control, which was less likely with other systems released at the time, such as the Odyssey 2, which had controllers that were nearly half its size.
Atari Inc. also continued their OEM
relationship with Sears under the latter's Tele-Games brand label, which started in 1975 with the original Pong
. Sears released several versions of the 2600 as the Sears Video Arcade series from 1977 to 1983. These include the Rev. A "Heavy Sixer" model in 1977, the Rev. B "4 switch" model in 1980, and the US version of the Atari 2800 branded as the Sears Video Arcade II in 1983.
Sears also released their own versions of Atari Inc.'s games under the Tele-Games brand — often with different titles — which included the Tele-Games branded variations of text and picture labels. Three games were also produced by Atari Inc. for Sears as exclusive releases under the Tele-Games brand: Steeplechase
, Stellar Track, and Submarine Commander.
Sears' Tele-Games brand was unrelated to the company Telegames
, which also produced cartridges for the Atari 2600 — mostly re-issues of M-Network games.
divisions in Silicon Valley
. However, it spent much of its R&D budget on projects that seemed rather out of place at a video game (or even home computer) company; many of these projects never saw the light of day. Meanwhile, several attempts to bring out newer consoles failed for one reason or another, although Atari Inc.'s home computer
systems, the Atari 8-bit family
, sold reasonably well, if not spectacularly. Warner was more than happy anyway, as it seemed to have no end to the sales of the 2600, and Atari Inc. was responsible for over half of the company's income.
The programmers of many of Atari Inc.'s biggest hits grew disgruntled with the company for not crediting game developers and many left the company and formed their own independent software companies. The most prominent and longest-lasting of these third-party developers was Activision
, founded in 1980, whose titles quickly became more popular than those of Atari Inc. itself. Atari Inc. attempted to block third-party development for the 2600 in court but failed, and soon other publishers, such as Imagic
and Coleco
, entered the market. Atari Inc. suffered from an image problem when a company named Mystique
produced a number of pornographic
games for the 2600. The most notorious of these, Custer's Revenge
, caused a large number of protests from women's and Native American
groups because it depicts General George Armstrong Custer
raping a bound Native American woman. Atari Inc. sued Mystique in court over the release of the game.
Atari Inc. continued to scoop up licenses during the shelf life of the 2600, the most prominent of which included Pac-Man
and E.T.
Public disappointment with these two titles and the market saturation of poor third-party titles are cited as big reasons for the video game crash of 1983
. Suddenly, Atari Inc.'s growth meant it was losing massive amounts of money during the crash, at one point about $10,000 a day. Warner quickly grew tired of supporting Atari Inc., and started looking for buyers in 1984. Although not formally discontinued, the 2600 was de-emphasized for two years after Warner's 1984 sale of Atari Inc.'s Consumer Division to Commodore Business Machines founder Jack Tramiel
, who wanted to concentrate on home computer
s. He froze all development of console games, including a 2600 Garfield game
and an Atari 5200 port of Super Pac-Man
.
-like appearance. The redesigned 2600 was advertised as a budget gaming system (under $50) that had the ability to run a large collection of classic games. With its introduction came a resurgence in software development both from Atari Corp. and from a few third parties (notably, Activision
, Absolute Entertainment
, Froggo
, Epyx
, and Exus). The Atari 2600 continued to sell in the USA and Europe until 1991, and in Asia until the early 1990s. Its final Atari-licensed release was KLAX in 1990. Over its lifetime, an estimated 40 million units were shipped, and its video game library reportedly numbers more than 900 titles with commercial games released for this system all the way until 1991. In Brazil
, the console became extremely popular in the mid-1980s. The Atari 2600 was officially retired by Atari Corp. on January 1, 1992, making it the longest-lived home video game console (14 years, 2 months) in video game history.
The system was promoted on a United Kingdom
TV ad in 1989 in the run-up to Christmas, in which it claimed The fun is back!, although the games were very much dated compared to the Sega Mega Drive
, Nintendo NES and Sega Master System
which were the main interest at the time. The advertising campaign also used its price of under £50 as a selling point. However, despite this the game system still failed in competition to the more modern systems. The advert was also a re-dubbed version of the early original campaign in the United States
.
, a cut-down version of the 6502
, running at 1.19 MHz in the 2600. The 6507 included fewer memory address pins—13 instead of 16—and no external interrupts to fit into a smaller 28-pin package. Smaller packaging was, and still is, an important factor in overall system cost, and since memory was very expensive at the time, the 6507's small 8 kB
of maximum external memory space was not going to be used up anyway. In fact, memory was so expensive they could not imagine using up even 4 kB
, and when they got a deal on 24-pin connectors for the cartridge socket, they were only too happy to thereby limit the games to 4K. Later games got around this limitation with bank switching
.
The console had only 128 byte
s of RAM
for run-time data that included the call stack
and the state of the game world. There was no frame buffer, as the necessary RAM would have been too expensive. Instead the video device had two bitmap
ped sprites, two one-pixel "missile" sprites, a one-pixel "ball," and a 40-pixel "playfield" that was drawn by writing a bit pattern for each line into a register just before the television scanned that line. As each line was scanned, a game had to identify the non-sprite objects that overlapped the next line, assemble the appropriate bit patterns to draw for those objects, and write the pattern into the register. In a telling reveal of its Pong heritage, by default, the right side of the screen was a mirrored duplicate of the left; to control it separately, the software had to modify the patterns as the scan line was drawn. After the controller scanned the last active line, a more leisurely vertical blanking interval
began, during which the game could process input and update the positions and states of objects in the world. Any mistake in timing produced visual artifacts, a problem programmers called racing the beam.
The video hardware gave the 2600 a reputation as one of the most complex machines in the world to program, but those programmers who understood it realized that such direct control over the video picture was also a source of flexibility. One advantage the 2600 had over more powerful competitors such as the ColecoVision
was that the 2600 had no protection against altering settings in mid-line. For example, although each sprite nominally had only one color, it was possible to color the rows differently by changing the sprite's color as it was drawn. If the two hardware sprites were not enough for a game, a developer could share one sprite among several objects (as with the ghosts in Pac-Man
) or draw software sprites, which was only a little more difficult than drawing a fixed playfield. The Pitfall!
screenshot below demonstrates some of these tricks: the player is a multi-color sprite, one sprite is multiplexed for the logs and the scorpion, and the swinging vine is drawn by shifting the position of the "ball" on each scan line. Despite the hardware limitations, many Atari 2600 games have a lot of action on the screen, creating an engaging experience.
Additionally, the 2600 supported several types of input devices (joysticks, paddles, keyboards, etc.) and third-party peripherals, and many of these peripherals were interchangeable with the MSX
and several other Japanese systems. In some cases, it is possible to use the Atari joysticks with the Sega Master System
and Mega Drive/Genesis
, though functionality may be limited. Conversely, Master System and Genesis controllers work quite well on the 2600.
palette consisted of only 8 colors.
During the console's lifetime, Atari Inc and Atari Corp. published many titles. These games include Adventure
(often credited as starting the action-adventure game
genre—its creator, Warren Robinett
, also introduced the first widely known Easter egg
to the gaming world), Breakout, and Yars' Revenge
. The console's popularity attracted many third-party developers, which led to popular titles such as Activision
's Pitfall!
and Imagic
's Atlantis. However, two Atari published titles, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Pac-Man
, are frequently blamed for contributing to the video game crash of 1983
.
version of the Atari 2600 intended to be released as a cheaper alternative for children in 1982. Although identical in specification to the original 2600, the 2000 included built-in controllers and a different case design. The 2000 was originally intended to be black, but it was later recolored blue to appeal more to children. While Atari never officially stated the reason for not releasing the 2000, experts have cited the poor quality and durability of its built-in joysticks and the greater in-house popularity of the competing 2600jr design as the most likely reasons.
. Atari also cloned the Atari 3200 into the Sears Super Arcade II, but this was never released.
, which emulates
the 2600 console, and includes converted versions of 10 games into a single Atari-brand-look-a-like joystick with composite video
outputs for connecting directly to modern televisions or VCRs. Another is the TV Boy
, which includes 127 games in an enlarged joypad.
The Atari Flashback 2 console, released in 2005, contains 40 games (with four more programs unlockable by a cheat code). The console implements the original 2600 architecture and can be modified to play original 2600 cartridges by adding a cartridge port, and is compatible with original 2600 controllers.
Additionally, Benjamin Heckendorn
has created several different versions of a portable 2600, created by cutting apart full-sized vintage units, adding screens and putting them into new enclosures.
. In 2002, Dallas
musician and visual artist Paul Slocum developed a cartridge called Synthcart for the Atari 2600, which allows the user to turn an Atari 2600 into a two-voice synthesizer and drum machine. Adapters have also been developed by amateurs enabling the Atari 2600's use with MIDI devices. A number of bands, such as 8 Bit Weapon
, MIKE BISON, Bud Melvin, TEMPHUiBIS, Black Moth Super Rainbow
and The Squigs, as well as Slocum's own band Tree Wave, use Synthcart to make modern music on the Atari 2600. Some effects units like the MXR Blue Box are often cited for their ability to produce an Atari-like sound. Phonte from the hip-hop group Little Brother, along with fellow lyricist Eccentric, formed a mock-group named Unheralded Symmetrics, and recorded a tribute to the system, entitled "Atari 2600".
s and is now very accurate. Despite the relative simplicity of the 2600 system, it is not an easy system to emulate. While it does not require a lot of computational power to emulate the 2600, it is hard to accurately do so. For example, because of the lack of a frame buffer, 2600 emulators
must not only emulate the console, but the television as well. Due to the longevity of the system, many 2600 games used undocumented features, and even exploited bugs in the hardware
to squeeze the most out of the system, doing things even the original designers would deem impossible (a notable example is the starfield of the game Cosmic Ark
). It took some time for the emulator programmers to mature their software to properly emulate the undocumented features, bugs and quirks of the system.
The MESS
emulator supports recording and playing back of Atari 2600 emulation sessions. The Home Action Replay Page (aka HARP) allows Atari 2600 users to archive their favorite play sessions of the Atari 2600 system and its games.
Some well known Atari 2600 emulators today are:
assembly language
but a BASIC
-like language compiler named batari Basic (or "bB") and visual environment called Visual batari Basic are also available.
Games created for the Atari can be executed using either an emulator or copied directly to a blank cartridge making use of either a PROM
or EPROM
chip. This allows the construction of homebrew cartridges that will run on an original Atari 2600.
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc
Atari, Inc
Atari, Inc. was an American video game and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Primarily responsible for the formation of the video arcade and modern video game industries, the company was closed and its assets split in 1984 as a direct result of the North...
. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated
Dedicated console
A dedicated console is a video game console that is dedicated to a built in game or games, and is not equipped for additional games, via cartridges or other media.- History :...
hardware with all games built in. The first game console to use this format was the Fairchild Channel F
Fairchild Channel F
The Fairchild Channel F is a game console released by Fairchild Semiconductor in August 1976 at the retail price of $169.95. It has the distinction of being the first programmable ROM cartridge-based video game console...
; however, the Atari 2600 receives credit for making the plug-in concept popular among the game-playing public.
The console was originally sold as the Atari VCS, for Video Computer System. Following the release of the Atari 5200
Atari 5200
The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, commonly known as the Atari 5200, is a video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari Inc. as a higher end complementary console for the popular Atari 2600...
, in 1982, the VCS was renamed "Atari 2600", after the unit's Atari part number, CX2600. The 2600 was typically bundled with two joystick
Joystick
A joystick is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Joysticks, also known as 'control columns', are the principal control in the cockpit of many civilian and military aircraft, either as a center stick or...
controllers
Game controller
A game controller is a device used with games or entertainment systems used to control a playable character or object, or otherwise provide input in a computer game. A controller is typically connected to a game console or computer by means of a wire, cord or nowadays, by means of wireless connection...
, a conjoined pair of paddle
Paddle (game controller)
A paddle is a game controller with a round wheel and one or more fire buttons, where the wheel is typically used to control movement of the player object along one axis of the video screen...
controllers, and a cartridge game—initially Combat
Combat (video game)
Combat is an early video game by Atari for the Atari 2600. It was released as one of the nine launch titles for the system in October 1977, and was included in the box with the system from its introduction until 1982...
and later Pac-Man
Pac-Man (Atari 2600)
In 1982, Atari Inc. released a port of Namco's hit arcade game Pac-Man for its Atari 2600 video game console. Like the original arcade version, the player controls the titular character with a joystick...
.
The Atari 2600 was wildly successful, and during much of the 1980s, "Atari" was a synonym for this model in mainstream media and, by extension
Metonymy
Metonymy is a figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept...
, for video games in general.
The Atari 2600 was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame
National Toy Hall of Fame
The National Toy Hall of Fame is an American hall of fame that recognizes the contributions of toys and games that have sustained their popularity for many years...
at The Strong
The Strong
The Strong is an interactive, collections-based educational institution in Rochester, New York, USA, devoted to the study and exploration of play...
in Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
in 2007. In 2009, the Atari 2600 was named the second greatest video game console of all time by IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
, who cited its remarkable role as the console 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."
History
Atari Inc. had purchased an engineering think tank in 1973 called Cyan Engineering to research next-generation video game systems, and had been working on a prototype known as "Stella" (named after one of the engineers' bicycles) for some time. Unlike prior generations of machines that used custom logicLogic programming
Logic programming is, in its broadest sense, the use of mathematical logic for computer programming. In this view of logic programming, which can be traced at least as far back as John McCarthy's [1958] advice-taker proposal, logic is used as a purely declarative representation language, and a...
to play a small number of games, Stella's core was a complete CPU
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
, the famous MOS Technology
MOS Technology
MOS Technology, Inc., also known as CSG , was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Norristown, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is most famous for its 6502 microprocessor, and various designs for Commodore International's range of home computers.-History:MOS Technology, Inc...
6502
MOS Technology 6502
The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of...
in a cost-reduced version, known as the 6507
MOS Technology 6507
The 6507 is an 8-bit microprocessor from MOS Technology, Inc.It is essentially a 6502 chip in a smaller, cheaper 28-pin package. To do this, A15 to A13 and some other signals such as the interrupt lines are not accessible...
. It was combined with a RAM-and-I/O
I/O
I/O may refer to:* Input/output, a system of communication for information processing systems* Input-output model, an economic model of flow prediction between sectors...
chip, the MOS Technology 6532
MOS Technology 6532
The 6532 RAM-I/O-Timer was an integrated circuit made by MOS Technology, as well as second sources such as Rockwell. It incorporated 128 bytes of static RAM, two bidirectional 8-bit digital I/O ports, and a programmable timer. This high degree of integration made it quite popular in the late 1970s...
, and a display and sound chip of their own design known as the TIA
Television Interface Adapter
The Television Interface Adaptor is the custom computer chip that is the heart of the Atari 2600 game console, generating the screen display, sound effects, and reading input controllers. Its design was widely affected by an attempt to reduce the amount of RAM needed to operate the display...
, for Television Interface Adaptor. Beyond those three, the first two versions of the machine contain just one more chip, a standard CMOS logic buffer IC
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
, bringing the total chip count to the very low and cost-effective number of four. Some later versions of the console eliminated the buffer chip.
Programs for small computers were generally stored on cassette tape, disk or paper tape. By the early 1970s, Hewlett Packard manufactured desktop computers costing thousands of dollars such as the HP 9830
HP 9830
The HP 9800 was a family of what were initially called programmable calculators and later desktop computers made by Hewlett-Packard, replacing their first HP 9100 calculator...
, which packaged Read Only Memory (ROM) into removable cartridges to add special programming features, and these were being considered for use in games. At first, the design was not going to be cartridge-based, but after seeing a "fake" cartridge system on another machine, they realized they could place the games on cartridges essentially for the price of the connector and packaging.
In August 1976, Fairchild Semiconductor
Fairchild Semiconductor
Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. is an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957, it was a pioneer in transistor and integrated circuit manufacturing...
released their own CPU-based system, the Video Entertainment System. Stella was still not ready for production, but it was clear that it needed to be before there were a number of "me too" products filling up the market—which had happened after they released Pong
Pong
Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity...
. Atari Inc. simply did not have the cash flow to complete the system quickly, given that sales of their own Pong systems were cooling. Nolan Bushnell
Nolan Bushnell
Nolan K. Bushnell is an American engineer and entrepreneur who founded both Atari, Inc and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters chain...
eventually turned to Warner Communications
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
, and sold the company to them in 1976 for US$28 million on the promise that Stella would be produced as soon as possible.
Key to the eventual success of the machine was the hiring of Jay Miner
Jay Miner
Jay Glenn Miner , was a famous integrated circuit designer, known primarily for his work in multimedia chips and as the "father of the Amiga"...
, a chip designer who managed to squeeze an entire breadboard
Breadboard
A breadboard is a construction base for prototyping of electronics. The term is commonly used to refer to solderless breadboard ....
of equipment making up the TIA into a single chip. Once that was completed and debugged, the system was ready for shipping. By the time it was released in 1977, the development had cost about US$100 million.
Launch and success
The unit was originally priced at US$199, and shipped with two joysticks and a CombatCombat (video game)
Combat is an early video game by Atari for the Atari 2600. It was released as one of the nine launch titles for the system in October 1977, and was included in the box with the system from its introduction until 1982...
cartridge (eight additional games were available at launch and sold separately). In a move to compete directly with the Channel F
Fairchild Channel F
The Fairchild Channel F is a game console released by Fairchild Semiconductor in August 1976 at the retail price of $169.95. It has the distinction of being the first programmable ROM cartridge-based video game console...
, Atari Inc. named the machine the Video Computer System (or VCS for short), as the Channel F was at that point known as the VES, for Video Entertainment System. The VCS was also rebadged as the Sears Video Arcade and sold through Sears, Roebuck and Company
Sears, Roebuck and Company
Sears, officially named Sears, Roebuck and Co., is an American chain of department stores which was founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck in the late 19th century...
stores.
When Fairchild learned of Atari Inc.'s naming, they quickly changed the name of their system to become the Channel F. However, both systems were now in the midst of a vicious round of price-cutting: Pong clones that had been made obsolete by these newer and more powerful machines were sold off to discounters for ever-lower prices. Soon many of the clone companies were out of business, and both Fairchild and Atari Inc. were selling to a public that was completely burnt out on Pong. In 1977, Atari Inc. sold only 250,000 VCSs.
For the first year of production, the VCS was manufactured in Sunnyvale, California
Sunnyvale, California
Sunnyvale is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is one of the major cities that make up the Silicon Valley located in the San Francisco Bay Area...
. The consoles manufactured there had thick internal RF shielding, and thick plastic molding around the sides and bottom. These added weight to the console, and because all six switches were on the front, these consoles were nicknamed "Heavy Sixers". After this first year, production moved to Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, and the consoles manufactured there had thinner plastic molding. In 1978, only 550,000 units from a production run of 800,000 were sold, requiring further financial support from Warner to cover losses. This led directly to the disagreements that caused Atari Inc. founder Nolan Bushnell
Nolan Bushnell
Nolan K. Bushnell is an American engineer and entrepreneur who founded both Atari, Inc and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters chain...
to leave the company in 1978.
Once the public realized it was possible to play video games other than Pong, and programmers learned how to push its hardware's capabilities, the VCS gained popularity. By this point, Fairchild had given up, thinking video games were a passing fad, thereby handing the entire quickly growing market to Atari Inc. By 1979, the VCS was the best-selling Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
gift (and console), mainly because of its exclusive content, and 1 million units were sold that year.
Atari Inc. then licensed the smash arcade
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
hit Space Invaders
Space Invaders
is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to...
by Taito
Taito Corporation
The is a Japanese publisher of video game software and arcade hardware wholly owned by publisher Square Enix. Taito has their headquarters in the Shinjuku Bunka Quint Building in Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo, sharing the facility with its parent company....
, which greatly increased the unit's popularity when it was released in January 1980, doubling sales again to over 2 million units. The VCS and its cartridges were the main factor behind Atari Inc. grossing more than $2 billion in 1980. Sales then doubled again for the next two years; by 1982, the console had sold 10 million units, while its best-selling game Pac-Man
Pac-Man (Atari 2600)
In 1982, Atari Inc. released a port of Namco's hit arcade game Pac-Man for its Atari 2600 video game console. Like the original arcade version, the player controls the titular character with a joystick...
sold 7 million copies.
In 1980, the VCS was given a minor revision in which the left and right difficulty switches were moved to the back of the console, leaving four switches on the front. Other than this, these four-switch consoles looked nearly identical to the earlier six-switch models. In 1982, another version of the four-switch console was released without woodgrain. They were nicknamed "Darth Vader
Darth Vader
Darth Vader is a central character in the Star Wars saga, appearing as one of the main antagonists in the original trilogy and as the main protagonist in the prequel trilogy....
" consoles due to their all-black appearance. These were also the first consoles to be officially called "Atari 2600", as the Atari 5200
Atari 5200
The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, commonly known as the Atari 5200, is a video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari Inc. as a higher end complementary console for the popular Atari 2600...
was released the same year.
During this period, Atari Inc. expanded the 2600 family with two other compatible consoles. They designed the Atari 2700
Atari 2700
The Atari 2700 was an unreleased console by Atari, Inc.. Intended for release in 1981, its main standout features were wireless controllers that featured a combination of a joystick and paddle. The fire button was touch-sensitive, as were the buttons on the console...
, a wireless version of the console that was never released because of a design flaw. The company also built a sleeker version of the machine dubbed the Atari 2800
Atari 2800
The Atari 2800 is the Japanese version of the Atari 2600, released in 1983. It was the first release of a 2600 designed specifically for the Japanese market, despite companies like Epoch distributing the 2600 in Japan previously....
to sell directly to the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese market in early 1983, but it suffered from competition with the newly released Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
Famicom
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
.
In a survey mentioned by Jeff Rovin it is reported that more stores reported breakdowns of the Atari 2600 system than any other, and that Atari repair centers seemed to have the most trouble with consoles manufactured in 1980. In one case it is stated that a system was repaired five times before static electricity from a carpet was discovered as having caused the problem. The controllers were also a source of breakage because of the way they could be gripped by a player holding it with their fist, allowing players to get carried away and over control, which was less likely with other systems released at the time, such as the Odyssey 2, which had controllers that were nearly half its size.
Sears Tele-Games 2600s
Original Equipment Manufacturer
An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a...
relationship with Sears under the latter's Tele-Games brand label, which started in 1975 with the original Pong
Pong
Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity...
. Sears released several versions of the 2600 as the Sears Video Arcade series from 1977 to 1983. These include the Rev. A "Heavy Sixer" model in 1977, the Rev. B "4 switch" model in 1980, and the US version of the Atari 2800 branded as the Sears Video Arcade II in 1983.
Sears also released their own versions of Atari Inc.'s games under the Tele-Games brand — often with different titles — which included the Tele-Games branded variations of text and picture labels. Three games were also produced by Atari Inc. for Sears as exclusive releases under the Tele-Games brand: Steeplechase
Steeplechase (arcade game)
Steeplechase is a 6-player arcade game by Atari Inc., originally released in 1975. Developed by Atari subsidiary Kee Games, it simulates a steeplechase-style horse race.-Technology:...
, Stellar Track, and Submarine Commander.
Sears' Tele-Games brand was unrelated to the company Telegames
Telegames
Telegames, Inc. is a North American video game company based in Gun Barrel City, Texas, with a sister operation based in England.Telegames was well known for supporting not just modern game systems but also classic game systems, after they've been abandoned by its manufacturer. Effective September...
, which also produced cartridges for the Atari 2600 — mostly re-issues of M-Network games.
Decline
During this period, Atari Inc. continued to grow until it had one of the largest R&DResearch and development
The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
divisions in Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
. However, it spent much of its R&D budget on projects that seemed rather out of place at a video game (or even home computer) company; many of these projects never saw the light of day. Meanwhile, several attempts to bring out newer consoles failed for one reason or another, although Atari Inc.'s home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
systems, the Atari 8-bit family
Atari 8-bit family
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured from 1979 to 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips...
, sold reasonably well, if not spectacularly. Warner was more than happy anyway, as it seemed to have no end to the sales of the 2600, and Atari Inc. was responsible for over half of the company's income.
The programmers of many of Atari Inc.'s biggest hits grew disgruntled with the company for not crediting game developers and many left the company and formed their own independent software companies. The most prominent and longest-lasting of these third-party developers was Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
, founded in 1980, whose titles quickly became more popular than those of Atari Inc. itself. Atari Inc. attempted to block third-party development for the 2600 in court but failed, and soon other publishers, such as Imagic
Imagic
Imagic was a short-lived American video game developer and publisher that developed games for the Atari 2600, Intellivision and other video game consoles in the early 1980s...
and Coleco
Coleco
Coleco is an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as "Connecticut Leather Company". It became a highly successful toy company in the 1980s, known for its mass-produced version of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game consoles, the Coleco Telstar and...
, entered the market. Atari Inc. suffered from an image problem when a company named Mystique
Mystique (company)
Mystique was the name of a company that produced a number of pornographic video games for the Atari 2600, such as Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em, Bachelor Party and Custer's Revenge. It was one of several video game companies that tried to use sex to sell its games...
produced a number of pornographic
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
games for the 2600. The most notorious of these, Custer's Revenge
Custer's Revenge
Custer's Revenge is a controversial video game made for the Atari 2600 by Mystique, a company that produced a number of adult video game titles for the system...
, caused a large number of protests from women's and Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
groups because it depicts General George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Raised in Michigan and Ohio, Custer was admitted to West Point in 1858, where he graduated last in his class...
raping a bound Native American woman. Atari Inc. sued Mystique in court over the release of the game.
Atari Inc. continued to scoop up licenses during the shelf life of the 2600, the most prominent of which included Pac-Man
Pac-Man (Atari 2600)
In 1982, Atari Inc. released a port of Namco's hit arcade game Pac-Man for its Atari 2600 video game console. Like the original arcade version, the player controls the titular character with a joystick...
and E.T.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Atari 2600)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 adventure video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari 2600 video game console. It is based on the film of the same name, and was designed by Howard Scott Warshaw...
Public disappointment with these two titles and the market saturation of poor third-party titles are cited as big reasons for the video game crash of 1983
Video game crash of 1983
The North American video game crash was a serious event that brought an abrupt end to what is considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America. Beginning in 1983, the crash almost destroyed the then-fledgling industry and led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing...
. Suddenly, Atari Inc.'s growth meant it was losing massive amounts of money during the crash, at one point about $10,000 a day. Warner quickly grew tired of supporting Atari Inc., and started looking for buyers in 1984. Although not formally discontinued, the 2600 was de-emphasized for two years after Warner's 1984 sale of Atari Inc.'s Consumer Division to Commodore Business Machines founder Jack Tramiel
Jack Tramiel
Jack Tramiel is an American businessman, best known for founding Commodore International - manufacturer of the Commodore PET, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, Commodore Amiga, and other Commodore models of home computers.-Biography:...
, who wanted to concentrate on home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
s. He froze all development of console games, including a 2600 Garfield game
Garfield (Atari 2600)
Garfield is an Atari 2600 game that Atari planned, but cancelled because of the videogame crash of 1983.In the game, players help Garfield get around the neighborhood, eating hamburgers, catching Nermal, and avoiding Odie and flying flowerpots. According to the Atari Protos website, the game...
and an Atari 5200 port of Super Pac-Man
Super Pac-Man
, released in 1982 is the third installment of the Pac-Man series of arcade games and the second starring Pac-Man himself. It is also the second game to be created by series originator Namco, as Ms...
.
Atari 2600 Jr.
In 1985, a new version of the 2600 was released (although it was planned for release two years earlier). The new redesigned version of the 2600, unofficially referred to as the 2600 Jr., featured a smaller cost-reduced form factor with a modernized Atari 7800Atari 7800
The Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800, is a video game console re-released by Atari Corporation in January 1986. The original release had occurred two years earlier under Atari Inc. The 7800 had originally been designed to replace Atari Inc.'s Atari 5200 in 1984, but was temporarily...
-like appearance. The redesigned 2600 was advertised as a budget gaming system (under $50) that had the ability to run a large collection of classic games. With its introduction came a resurgence in software development both from Atari Corp. and from a few third parties (notably, Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
, Absolute Entertainment
Absolute Entertainment
Absolute Entertainment was a video game publisher based in Glen Rock, New Jersey and later in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Through its development house Imagineering, Absolute Entertainment produced titles for the Amiga, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Sega Game Gear, Sega Mega Drive, Mega-CD, Game Boy,...
, Froggo
Froggo
Froggo Games was a video game company that produced several games for the Atari 2600 and Atari 7800 game systems, long after the release of the Nintendo NES and other systems. The games were particularly notable for their poor ratings, and is often considered the worst game company on the 2600...
, Epyx
Epyx
Epyx, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. The company was founded as Automated Simulations by Jim Connelley and Jon Freeman, originally using Epyx as a brand name for action-oriented games before renaming the company to match in 1983...
, and Exus). The Atari 2600 continued to sell in the USA and Europe until 1991, and in Asia until the early 1990s. Its final Atari-licensed release was KLAX in 1990. Over its lifetime, an estimated 40 million units were shipped, and its video game library reportedly numbers more than 900 titles with commercial games released for this system all the way until 1991. In Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, the console became extremely popular in the mid-1980s. The Atari 2600 was officially retired by Atari Corp. on January 1, 1992, making it the longest-lived home video game console (14 years, 2 months) in video game history.
The system was promoted on a United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
TV ad in 1989 in the run-up to Christmas, in which it claimed The fun is back!, although the games were very much dated compared to the Sega Mega Drive
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis is a fourth-generation video game console developed and produced by Sega. It was originally released in Japan in 1988 as , then in North America in 1989 as Sega Genesis, and in Europe, Australia and other PAL regions in 1990 as Mega Drive. The reason for the two names is that...
, Nintendo NES and Sega Master System
Sega Master System
The is a third-generation video game console that was manufactured and released by Sega in 1985 in Japan , 1986 in North America and 1987 in Europe....
which were the main interest at the time. The advertising campaign also used its price of under £50 as a selling point. However, despite this the game system still failed in competition to the more modern systems. The advert was also a re-dubbed version of the early original campaign in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Hardware
The CPU was the MOS Technology 6507MOS Technology 6507
The 6507 is an 8-bit microprocessor from MOS Technology, Inc.It is essentially a 6502 chip in a smaller, cheaper 28-pin package. To do this, A15 to A13 and some other signals such as the interrupt lines are not accessible...
, a cut-down version of the 6502
MOS Technology 6502
The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of...
, running at 1.19 MHz in the 2600. The 6507 included fewer memory address pins—13 instead of 16—and no external interrupts to fit into a smaller 28-pin package. Smaller packaging was, and still is, an important factor in overall system cost, and since memory was very expensive at the time, the 6507's small 8 kB
Kilobyte
The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information...
of maximum external memory space was not going to be used up anyway. In fact, memory was so expensive they could not imagine using up even 4 kB
Kilobyte
The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information...
, and when they got a deal on 24-pin connectors for the cartridge socket, they were only too happy to thereby limit the games to 4K. Later games got around this limitation with bank switching
Bank switching
Bank switching is a technique to increase the amount of usable memory beyond the amount directly addressable by the processor. It can be used to configure a system differently at different times; for example, a ROM required to start a system from diskette could be switched out when no longer...
.
The console had only 128 byte
Byte
The byte is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, a byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the basic addressable element in many computer...
s of RAM
Random-access memory
Random access memory is a form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow stored data to be accessed in any order with a worst case performance of constant time. Strictly speaking, modern types of DRAM are therefore not random access, as data is read in...
for run-time data that included the call stack
Call stack
In computer science, a call stack is a stack data structure that stores information about the active subroutines of a computer program. This kind of stack is also known as an execution stack, control stack, run-time stack, or machine stack, and is often shortened to just "the stack"...
and the state of the game world. There was no frame buffer, as the necessary RAM would have been too expensive. Instead the video device had two bitmap
Bitmap
In computer graphics, a bitmap or pixmap is a type of memory organization or image file format used to store digital images. The term bitmap comes from the computer programming terminology, meaning just a map of bits, a spatially mapped array of bits. Now, along with pixmap, it commonly refers to...
ped sprites, two one-pixel "missile" sprites, a one-pixel "ball," and a 40-pixel "playfield" that was drawn by writing a bit pattern for each line into a register just before the television scanned that line. As each line was scanned, a game had to identify the non-sprite objects that overlapped the next line, assemble the appropriate bit patterns to draw for those objects, and write the pattern into the register. In a telling reveal of its Pong heritage, by default, the right side of the screen was a mirrored duplicate of the left; to control it separately, the software had to modify the patterns as the scan line was drawn. After the controller scanned the last active line, a more leisurely vertical blanking interval
Vertical blanking interval
The vertical blanking interval , also known as the vertical interval or VBLANK, is the time difference between the last line of one frame or field of a raster display, and the beginning of the first line of the next frame. It is present in analog television, VGA, DVI and other signals. During the...
began, during which the game could process input and update the positions and states of objects in the world. Any mistake in timing produced visual artifacts, a problem programmers called racing the beam.
The video hardware gave the 2600 a reputation as one of the most complex machines in the world to program, but those programmers who understood it realized that such direct control over the video picture was also a source of flexibility. One advantage the 2600 had over more powerful competitors such as the ColecoVision
ColecoVision
The ColecoVision is Coleco Industries' second generation home video game console which was released in August 1982. The ColecoVision offered arcade-quality graphics and gaming style, and the means to expand the system's basic hardware...
was that the 2600 had no protection against altering settings in mid-line. For example, although each sprite nominally had only one color, it was possible to color the rows differently by changing the sprite's color as it was drawn. If the two hardware sprites were not enough for a game, a developer could share one sprite among several objects (as with the ghosts in Pac-Man
Pac-Man (Atari 2600)
In 1982, Atari Inc. released a port of Namco's hit arcade game Pac-Man for its Atari 2600 video game console. Like the original arcade version, the player controls the titular character with a joystick...
) or draw software sprites, which was only a little more difficult than drawing a fixed playfield. The Pitfall!
Pitfall!
Pitfall! is a video game released by Activision for the Atari 2600 in 1982. It is the second best selling game made for the Atari 2600, with over 4 million copies sold.-Gameplay:...
screenshot below demonstrates some of these tricks: the player is a multi-color sprite, one sprite is multiplexed for the logs and the scorpion, and the swinging vine is drawn by shifting the position of the "ball" on each scan line. Despite the hardware limitations, many Atari 2600 games have a lot of action on the screen, creating an engaging experience.
Additionally, the 2600 supported several types of input devices (joysticks, paddles, keyboards, etc.) and third-party peripherals, and many of these peripherals were interchangeable with the MSX
MSX
MSX was the name of a standardized home computer architecture in the 1980s conceived by Kazuhiko Nishi, then Vice-president at Microsoft Japan and Director at ASCII Corporation...
and several other Japanese systems. In some cases, it is possible to use the Atari joysticks with the Sega Master System
Sega Master System
The is a third-generation video game console that was manufactured and released by Sega in 1985 in Japan , 1986 in North America and 1987 in Europe....
and Mega Drive/Genesis
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis is a fourth-generation video game console developed and produced by Sega. It was originally released in Japan in 1988 as , then in North America in 1989 as Sega Genesis, and in Europe, Australia and other PAL regions in 1990 as Mega Drive. The reason for the two names is that...
, though functionality may be limited. Conversely, Master System and Genesis controllers work quite well on the 2600.
Color and graphics
The Atari 2600 used different color palettes depending on the television signal format used. With the NTSC format, a 128-color palette was available, while in PAL, only 104 colors were available. Additionally, the SECAMSECAM
SECAM, also written SÉCAM , is an analog color television system first used in France....
palette consisted of only 8 colors.
Notable games
During the console's lifetime, Atari Inc and Atari Corp. published many titles. These games include Adventure
Adventure (Atari 2600)
Adventure is a video game for the Atari 2600 video game console and is considered the first action-adventure game. Its creator, Warren Robinett, also introduced the first widely-known Easter egg to the gaming world.-History and design:...
(often credited as starting the action-adventure game
Action-adventure game
An action-adventure game is a video game that combines elements of the adventure game genre with various action game elements. It is perhaps the broadest and most diverse genre in gaming, and can include many games which might better be categorized under narrow genres...
genre—its creator, Warren Robinett
Warren Robinett
Joseph Warren Robinett, Jr. is a designer of interactive computer graphics software, notable as the developer of the Atari 2600's Adventure — the first graphical adventure video game — and as a founder of The Learning Company, where he designed Rocky's Boots and Robot Odyssey...
, also introduced the first widely known Easter egg
Easter egg (media)
Image:Carl Oswald Rostosky - Zwei Kaninchen und ein Igel 1861.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Example of Easter egg hidden within imagerect 467 383 539 434 desc none...
to the gaming world), Breakout, and Yars' Revenge
Yars' Revenge
Yars' Revenge is a video game developed for the Atari 2600 in 1981. It was created by Howard Scott Warshaw, who also wrote the 2600 titles Raiders of the Lost Ark and the much-derided E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial...
. The console's popularity attracted many third-party developers, which led to popular titles such as Activision
Activision
Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles...
's Pitfall!
Pitfall!
Pitfall! is a video game released by Activision for the Atari 2600 in 1982. It is the second best selling game made for the Atari 2600, with over 4 million copies sold.-Gameplay:...
and Imagic
Imagic
Imagic was a short-lived American video game developer and publisher that developed games for the Atari 2600, Intellivision and other video game consoles in the early 1980s...
's Atlantis. However, two Atari published titles, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Pac-Man
Pac-Man (Atari 2600)
In 1982, Atari Inc. released a port of Namco's hit arcade game Pac-Man for its Atari 2600 video game console. Like the original arcade version, the player controls the titular character with a joystick...
, are frequently blamed for contributing to the video game crash of 1983
Video game crash of 1983
The North American video game crash was a serious event that brought an abrupt end to what is considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America. Beginning in 1983, the crash almost destroyed the then-fledgling industry and led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing...
.
Atari 2000
The Atari 2000 (model number CX-2000) is a prototypePrototype
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
version of the Atari 2600 intended to be released as a cheaper alternative for children in 1982. Although identical in specification to the original 2600, the 2000 included built-in controllers and a different case design. The 2000 was originally intended to be black, but it was later recolored blue to appeal more to children. While Atari never officially stated the reason for not releasing the 2000, experts have cited the poor quality and durability of its built-in joysticks and the greater in-house popularity of the competing 2600jr design as the most likely reasons.
Atari 3200
Atari started work on a replacement to the 2600, called the Atari 3200, with codenames including Super Stella, Sylvia, and PAM (a note attached reads "Super Stella: Multipurpose"). The system was to have compatibility with Atari 2600 cartridges, and was based on a 10-bit processor. It was still unfinished when preliminary game programmers discovered that it was difficult to program. The project was cancelled, and Atari went with the second "System X" also titled PAM, that would later become the Atari 5200Atari 5200
The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, commonly known as the Atari 5200, is a video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari Inc. as a higher end complementary console for the popular Atari 2600...
. Atari also cloned the Atari 3200 into the Sears Super Arcade II, but this was never released.
Clones and reissues
The console and its old and new games are very popular with collectors because of its significant impact on video game and consumer electronics history and also due to its nostalgic value for many people, along with a number of games that are still considered highly playable. In addition, modern Atari 2600 clones remain on the market. One example is the Atari Classics 10-in-1 TV Game, manufactured by Jakks PacificJakks Pacific
JAKKS Pacific, Inc. is a designer and marketer of toys and consumer products, with a range of products that feature numerous children's toy licenses...
, which emulates
Video game console emulator
A video game console emulator is a program that allows a computer or modern console to emulate a different video game console's behavior. Emulators are most often used to play older video games on personal computers and modern video game consoles, but they are also used to play games translated...
the 2600 console, and includes converted versions of 10 games into a single Atari-brand-look-a-like joystick with composite video
Composite video
Composite video is the format of an analog television signal before it is combined with a sound signal and modulated onto an RF carrier. In contrast to component video it contains all required video information, including colors in a single line-level signal...
outputs for connecting directly to modern televisions or VCRs. Another is the TV Boy
TV Boy
The TV Boy and its successors TV Boy 2 and Super TV Boy are 1990s video game consoles produced by many different companies, including Systema, Akor, and NICS, based upon an unlicensed clone of Atari 2600 hardware. They were widely available across Europe. In the UK they were most visibly available...
, which includes 127 games in an enlarged joypad.
The Atari Flashback 2 console, released in 2005, contains 40 games (with four more programs unlockable by a cheat code). The console implements the original 2600 architecture and can be modified to play original 2600 cartridges by adding a cartridge port, and is compatible with original 2600 controllers.
Additionally, Benjamin Heckendorn
Benjamin Heckendorn
Benjamin J. Heckendorn is a console modder and Internet Celebrity. He is better known as "Ben Heck" on the Internet. Heckendorn is also an independent film maker....
has created several different versions of a portable 2600, created by cutting apart full-sized vintage units, adding screens and putting them into new enclosures.
In music
Many games for the Atari 2600 have detailed and easily identifiable music, and its distinctive sound makes it ideal for use in modern lo-fi and industrial musicIndustrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
. In 2002, Dallas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
musician and visual artist Paul Slocum developed a cartridge called Synthcart for the Atari 2600, which allows the user to turn an Atari 2600 into a two-voice synthesizer and drum machine. Adapters have also been developed by amateurs enabling the Atari 2600's use with MIDI devices. A number of bands, such as 8 Bit Weapon
8 Bit Weapon
8 Bit Weapon is a chiptune music band created by Seth Sternberger. The instrument set of 8 Bit Weapon consists primarily of old 8-bit and 16-bit computers such as the Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, Commodore Amiga 500, and the Apple II, as well as game consoles such as the Nintendo...
, MIKE BISON, Bud Melvin, TEMPHUiBIS, Black Moth Super Rainbow
Black Moth Super Rainbow
Black Moth Super Rainbow is an American experimental band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Their music contains elements of psychedelia, folk, electronica, and pop...
and The Squigs, as well as Slocum's own band Tree Wave, use Synthcart to make modern music on the Atari 2600. Some effects units like the MXR Blue Box are often cited for their ability to produce an Atari-like sound. Phonte from the hip-hop group Little Brother, along with fellow lyricist Eccentric, formed a mock-group named Unheralded Symmetrics, and recorded a tribute to the system, entitled "Atari 2600".
Emulation
Atari 2600 emulation is available for most major operating systemOperating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s and is now very accurate. Despite the relative simplicity of the 2600 system, it is not an easy system to emulate. While it does not require a lot of computational power to emulate the 2600, it is hard to accurately do so. For example, because of the lack of a frame buffer, 2600 emulators
Video game console emulator
A video game console emulator is a program that allows a computer or modern console to emulate a different video game console's behavior. Emulators are most often used to play older video games on personal computers and modern video game consoles, but they are also used to play games translated...
must not only emulate the console, but the television as well. Due to the longevity of the system, many 2600 games used undocumented features, and even exploited bugs in the hardware
Computer hardware
Personal computer hardware are component devices which are typically installed into or peripheral to a computer case to create a personal computer upon which system software is installed including a firmware interface such as a BIOS and an operating system which supports application software that...
to squeeze the most out of the system, doing things even the original designers would deem impossible (a notable example is the starfield of the game Cosmic Ark
Cosmic Ark
Cosmic Ark is a 1982 Atari 2600 video game, developed and published by Imagic as the sequel to Atlantis. It is believed to be the first-ever console game sequel...
). It took some time for the emulator programmers to mature their software to properly emulate the undocumented features, bugs and quirks of the system.
The MESS
MESS
Multi Emulator Super System is an emulator for many game consoles and computer systems, based on the MAME core.The primary purpose of MESS is to preserve decades of computer and console history...
emulator supports recording and playing back of Atari 2600 emulation sessions. The Home Action Replay Page (aka HARP) allows Atari 2600 users to archive their favorite play sessions of the Atari 2600 system and its games.
Some well known Atari 2600 emulators today are:
- StellaStella (emulator)Stella is an emulator for the Atari 2600 game console, and takes its name from the console's codename. It is open source, and runs on most major modern platforms including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Windows CE/Mobile, Dreamcast, GP2X, Nintendo DS, and Wii. Stella was originally written in 1996 by...
- An open sourceOpen sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
, multiplatform emulator (WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Mac OS XMac OS XMac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, LinuxLinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, Dreamcast, Nintendo DSNintendo DSThe is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
, WiiWiiThe Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
, GP2XGP2XThe GP2X is an open-source, Linux-based handheld video game console and portable media player developed by South Korean company GamePark Holdings. It was released on November 10, 2005, in South Korea only....
). - z26 – Another open source, multiplatform customizable emulator (Windows, MS-DOSMS-DOSMS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
, Linux) - PC Atari EmulatorPC Atari EmulatorPC Atari Emulator is a software emulator for running Atari 2600 videogame console programs in Microsoft Windows or in MS-DOS. The latest versions of PC Atari Emulator released were 2.5 and 2.6 . PC Atari Emulator was originally written by John Dullea in 1996...
– Easy to use, very fast emulator (Windows, MS-DOS). Handles the Cosmic Ark starfield effect correctly. - MESSMESSMulti Emulator Super System is an emulator for many game consoles and computer systems, based on the MAME core.The primary purpose of MESS is to preserve decades of computer and console history...
– the multi system emulator that supports all old Atari console systems - The Pocket VCS – PPC – Easy to use, very fast and emulator (Windows Mobile).
- GP2X-2600 – An emulator for the GP2XGP2XThe GP2X is an open-source, Linux-based handheld video game console and portable media player developed by South Korean company GamePark Holdings. It was released on November 10, 2005, in South Korea only....
handheld console
Homebrews
After 30 years since the launch of the Atari 2600, new homebrew games for the system are still made and sold by hobbyists with several new titles available each year. Most of the development on the platform is still done in 6502MOS Technology 6502
The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of...
assembly language
Assembly language
An assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...
but a BASIC
BASIC
BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
-like language compiler named batari Basic (or "bB") and visual environment called Visual batari Basic are also available.
Games created for the Atari can be executed using either an emulator or copied directly to a blank cartridge making use of either a PROM
Programmable read-only memory
A programmable read-only memory or field programmable read-only memory or one-time programmable non-volatile memory is a form of digital memory where the setting of each bit is locked by a fuse or antifuse. Such PROMs are used to store programs permanently...
or EPROM
EPROM
An EPROM , or erasable programmable read only memory, is a type of memory chip that retains its data when its power supply is switched off. In other words, it is non-volatile. It is an array of floating-gate transistors individually programmed by an electronic device that supplies higher voltages...
chip. This allows the construction of homebrew cartridges that will run on an original Atari 2600.
Programmers
This is a partial list of Atari 2600 programmers:- David CraneDavid Crane (programmer)David Crane is a video game designer and programmer.Crane started his programming career at Atari, making games for the Atari 2600. After meeting co-worker Alan Miller in a tennis game, Miller told Crane about a plan he had to leave Atari and found a company that would give game designers more...
- Tod FryeTod FryeTod R. Frye is a computer programmer once employed by Atari, and is most notable for being charged with the home adaptation of Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 video computer system. Pac-Man proved to be a stunning financial coup for Atari, who secured the exclusive Namco home license...
- Rob FulopRob FulopRob Fulop is a writer and game programmer who was chiefly responsible for some of the Atari 2600's biggest hits, such as 1982's enormously successful Demon Attack. He also worked on the Atari 2600 ports of Night Driver , Space Invaders , and Missile Command .Rob Fulop is the co-founder of Imagic...
- Larry KaplanLarry KaplanLarry Kaplan is an American video game designer and programmer. He initially worked at Atari and was responsible for a lot of their sales. Due to the lack of recognition for his work, he left Atari and became one of the five co-founders of Activision....
was one of the top programmers on the Atari 2600. - Alan Miller
- Warren RobinettWarren RobinettJoseph Warren Robinett, Jr. is a designer of interactive computer graphics software, notable as the developer of the Atari 2600's Adventure — the first graphical adventure video game — and as a founder of The Learning Company, where he designed Rocky's Boots and Robot Odyssey...
- Carol ShawCarol Shaw (video game designer)Originally an Atari employee, Carol Shaw is said to be the first female video game designer . Later she joined Activision, where she programmed her best known game, River Raid...
- Howard Scott WarshawHoward Scott WarshawHoward Scott Warshaw is an American former game designer who worked for Atari in the early 1980s, where he designed and programmed the games Yars' Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and infamously, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial...
- Bob WhiteheadBob WhiteheadBob Whitehead is a game designer and programmer. He is a renowned pioneer and entrepreneur of the video game industry, having been instrumental in forming two video game developers. One, Activision, was the first third-party video game developer.-Career:...
- Tom Reuterdahl
See also
- List of Atari 2600 games
- Coleco GeminiColeco GeminiThe Coleco Gemini was an Atari 2600 clone manufactured by Coleco.-Technical specifications:* Processor: 8-bit 6507* CPU speed: 1.19 MHz* RAM: 128 bytes* Resolution: 160x200, 128 Colors -History:...
- TV Games
- TV BoyTV BoyThe TV Boy and its successors TV Boy 2 and Super TV Boy are 1990s video game consoles produced by many different companies, including Systema, Akor, and NICS, based upon an unlicensed clone of Atari 2600 hardware. They were widely available across Europe. In the UK they were most visibly available...