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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 logic to play a small number of games, its 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 known as the Television Interface Adapter, (TIA). The first two versions of the machine contain a fourth chip, a standard CMOS logic buffer IC, making Stella cost-effective. 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 wire wrap 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 Combat 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 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. The console also sold 450,000 units in West Germany by 1984. By 1982 the 2600 console cost Atari about $40 to make and was sold for an average of $125. The company spent $4.50 to $6 to manufacture each cartridge and $1 to $2 for advertising, and sold it for $18.95 wholesale.

 

The all black "Darth Vader" 4-switch model from 1982-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 Japanese 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.

 

Sears Tele-Games 2600s

 

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.

 

Decline and Remodel

 

During this period, Atari Inc. continued to grow until it had one of the largest R&D 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 major contributors to 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 computers. He froze all development of console games, including a 2600 Garfield game and an Atari 5200 port of Super Pac-Man.Due to a large library and a low price point, the 2600 and its smaller cousin, the 2600jr, continued to sell well in the late 1980s and was not discontinued until 1992, outdoing all other hardware that Atari released trying to replicate its success.

 

Atari 2800

 

The Atari 2800 is the Japanese version of the Atari 2600, released in October 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.The 2800 never captured a large market in Japan. It was released a short time after the Nintendo Famicom, which became the dominant console in the Japanese video game market of the time.Codenamed "Cindy", and designed by Atari engineer Joe Tilly, the Atari 2800 had four controller ports instead of the standard two on the Atari 2600's. 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 standard 2600 format, using a wedge shape with non-protruding switches.Around 30 specially branded games were released for the 2800. Their boxes are in Japanese and have a silver/red color scheme similar to the packaging of Atari's 2600 branded games of the time. The ROM cartridges themselves had identical labels as their 2600 branded counterparts.Sears liked the design of the Atari 2800 so much, they opted to sell a version under their Tele-Games label. It was released in the US in 1983 as the Sears Video Arcade II, and was packaged with 2 controllers and Space Invaders.The Atari 2800's case style was used as the basis for the Atari 7800's case style by Barney Huang.

 

Atari 2600 Jr.

 

The Atari 2600 in its 1984 cost-reduced version, also known as the "2600 Jr."In 1984, a new version of the 2600 was released. 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 7800-like appearance. The redesigned 2600 was advertised as a budget gaming system (under US$50) that had the ability to run a large collection of classic games.

 

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. In 2007 the Atari 2600 was inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame, selling 40 million units in its lifetime, and the youngest toy to be inducted. 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, at the time, the longest-lived home video game console (14 years, 4 months) in video game history. It was later surpassed by the Sega Master System, a console which never formally ended production in Brazil.

 

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!". The advertising campaign used its price of under £50 as a selling point. The advert was a re-dubbed version of the early original campaign in the United States. Also, the 2600 Jr. was originally to be packaged with a Pro-Line joystick (the same one used on the Atari 7800), but when released, it instead included the original CX-40 Joystick. Later European versions of the 2600 Jr. included a joypad, which was also featured with the European 7800.

HISTORY

Manufacturer: Atari, Inc.

Type: Video game console

Generation: Second generation

Retail availability:

                   NA September 11, 1977

                   EU 1978

                   JP October 1983 (Atari 2800)Introductory price: 199 USD

Discontinued: January 1, 1992

Units sold: 30 million (as of 2004)

Media: ROM cartridge, Tape

CPU: MOS 6507 @ 1.19 MHz

Memory: 128 bytes RAM, 4 kB ROM

Controller input: Joystick Paddles Driving Controller Trak-Ball Keypad

Online services: GameLine

Best-selling game: Pac-Man, 7 million (as of September 1, 2006)

Predecessor: Atari Pong

Successor: Atari 5200

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