In a bit of news from yesterday that, out of respect for the date I waited until today to share, the Atari Video Computer System (better known as the Atari 2600) was released 40 years ago yesterday, September 11th.
The Atari 2600 is one of the most historic consoles in gaming, to be sure. Not only was it in production, in some form, from 1977 to 1991 (14 years, I do believe that is still the record for a dedicated game console to be produced) but it was the first popular home video game console.
The irony is that it was really built to last just a year or two, and only play a few “TANK” and “PONG” style games.
The Atari 2600 is an incredibly limited system, using a MOS 6507 CPU (a stripped-down version of the legendary 6502 processor), a whole 128 bits (yes, bits, not bytes) of RAM, and that’s about it. One last chip, known as the Television Interface Adapter, or TIA, did the grunt work of drawing the images on the screen, reading controller inputs, and giving the 6507 info on what’s happening on screen so that it can do the calculations for the next event in game. Oh, and it also did the sound for the system as if it wasn’t doing much already.
Quite a different machine than anything we have now, eh?
Many companies we know of today got their start on the Atari 2600. Activision, for example, was founded by Atari employees who got sick of not getting proper credit for their work. They went off and formed their own company which yep, still exists today.
I, for one, love the Atari 2600. For many it may be a beyond outdated joke of a console, but to me, it’s a wonderful little machine built to be cost effective back in the days when 1 megabyte of ram cost thousands of dollars. The games are fun for quick, 5 minute blasts, are mostly arcade-style experiences, and have a charm and sometimes unique gameplay that you just don’t find today. Incredibly fun for me.
I’ll go into more detail on the VCS in the future. I plan on discussing how various game consoles work in the future, but for now, I’ll leave you with the wikipedia article on the 2600. Enjoy.