• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The Atari 2600 is 40 years old

B

Baron_Calamity

Member
No matter how you feel about Atari and its legacy, the fact remains that the Atari 2600 launched the console video game industry as we currently know it. Its 40 years old today

JHVf2Q9.png


Released: September 11, 1977
Discontinued: January 1, 1992
-New in the Box 2600s were still being sold at KB Toy and Hobby and Radio Shack in the US as last as 1999
Units sold: 30 million (With clone units, the number of systems could be high as 100 million

K4VmcnL.jpg
Click to expand...

CPU: 1.19 MHz 6507
Audio + Video processor: TIA
Maximum resolution: 160 x 192 pixels (NTSC).
RAM : 128 bytes
There were 4 major revisions and 16+ minor revisions.

PYuSGhN.png


Game cartridge memory: At launch 2 to 4 kB rom with 64 kB being possible towards the end of its life cycle
Some cartridge added
Number of Games released: 470

Pitfall II is notable as it was the first game to have extra processing power added on the cart. Much like Nintendo's Super FX. It had a Display Processor Chip (Designed by David Crane)
 
J

jeffc919

Member
Got one for x-mas as a kid. Space Invaders, Defender, and several others were the first video games I ever played. I'm old....
 
ResidentDante

ResidentDante

Member
Cool post! I've never played one except trying one at a gaming convention briefly. Such an important piece of hardware for the history of gaming!
 
E

enewtabie

Member
jeffc919 said:
Got one for x-mas as a kid. Space Invaders, Defender, and several others were the first video games I ever played. I'm old....
Click to expand...

Me too. Got a high score in Pitfall. Took a picture to send in for a patch from Activision. Great console. Played Pac man forever and Atlantis.
 
S

Steve McQueen

Member
Besides some fake Pong machine....this was my first real console.Man...I was proud owning this machine. I remember Mouse Trap the first game I ever played on my Atari.


Gawddamn all these memories....a friend of mine and I played all evening when I was a kid at primary school at my place and I almost 47 now. Hard to believe, but time really flies.
 
M

muteki

Member
My first console but it was a hand-me-down. Mine still works great last I checked, but my controllers are not in good shape. Lost all my games forever ago, just a couple pick ups from the flea market now.

After playing it for a couple years as a kid discovering the switch that let you play as jets and bombers in Combat was mind blowing at the time.

Looking forward to the new whatever hardware is coming out of Atari, even if it is missing some of my favorite games.
 
Dr. Zoidberg

Dr. Zoidberg

Member
I remember when my Dad came home one night in 1980 with a 2600 and a bunch of games. I was 5 and completely enthralled. I played the shit out of that console for years, and it set me on the course of video game hobbyist for the rest of my life. My dad and I still play games together today. Thanks, Atari.
 
N

Netherscourge

Banned
Fav games:

-Chopper Command
-Montezuma's Revenge
-Empire Strikes Back
-Raiders of the Lost Ark
-Yar's Revenge

and yes...

-E.T.

I was able to get rescued from that pit. I got all the satellite dish pieces.

Not sure why it bugged out on everyone else though.
 
T

TheMehyawa

Neo Member
Happy Birthday to my first console...
I had many great gaming memories even though my first game on it was... ET *shudders*
 
S

Sophia

Member
The Atari 2600 was past my time, but I still got to enjoy some of the games for it thanks to family members. Centipede and Yar's Revenge. <3
 
K

kswiston

Member
By the time that I started playing games (6?) The Atari was already a decade old. While I played it a few times at friends' houses in the early 90s, most of my experience with the Atari library came from the retro collections beginning in the ps1 era.

Pitfall is probably my favorite Atari 2600 game.
 
T

tuffy

Member
I remember getting one as a "family" Christmas present one year along with games for my siblings and myself. Pretty sure Missile Command and Space Invaders were among them, but Adventure was mine. One of my more obscure memories was actually needing the B&W/Color switch when we hauled it along on vacation one summer, or just trying B&W out for fun to see what everything looked like.

In retrospect, it's amazing what programmers managed to accomplish on a system optimized for playing Pong.
 
F

Fuzzy

I would bang a hot farmer!
The thread title is bothering me because it's not true. The Atari VCS is 40 years old today, it wasn't renamed to the 2600 until years later. /oldmanyellingatclouds
 
P

pettersson

Member
If you want to know how this beast was programmed, take a look at "Racing the Beam". A book diving into the technology of the 2600. It also features case studies of a few games and how they were made. Interesting read and makes you think how far we've come in only 40 years.
 
H

Hayama Akito

Member
For my country this is were all started. No one had money for videogames (only arcade) until the 2600 had the cassette player, so third world piracy was born!

Happy 40th.
 
R

Red Liquorice

Member
2600 was my first console and experience of gaming.

I don't have tons of memories of it, and didn't have many games at that age and could really only game Sunday afternoons as it meant taking over the family TV. I played a lot of Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and E.T. - I probably had Space Invaders too and just rented any other games.
 
B

Blackpuppy

Member
This 2600 is basically THE gaming console for those who NEED 60 fps on all games. The machine has to display all of its games at that framerate... Or it will just throw up garbage on the screen.
 
Setzer

Setzer

Member
TheMehyawa said:
Happy Birthday to my first console...
I had many great gaming memories even though my first game on it was... ET *shudders*
Click to expand...

Was mine as well. Received it as a birthday gift back in 1980. Great memories and many hours spent playing games like Pac-Man, River Raid, Kaboom!, Pitfall and Laser Blast.

Happy Birthday, 2600!
 
Megatron

Megatron

Member
enewtabie said:
Me too. Got a high score in Pitfall. Took a picture to send in for a patch from Activision. Great console. Played Pac man forever and Atlantis.
Click to expand...


Lol, funny how Activision is still making patches for their games, but it means something completely different now.
 
K

kswiston

Member
The Atari 2600 launched at $199 back in 1977. With inflation, that would be around $800 today.

Yet we still wanted the Switch to launch at $200!
 
N

NullPointer

Member
Jesus.

Took a flat second for the weight of time to land on my head like an anvil. I feel so old right now.

Still, I have some great memories of me and my brothers and dad all sitting in front of the TV taking turns playing Defender on our old 2600. One of my earliest memories really.
 
H

HeySeuss

Member
Blackpuppy said:
This 2600 is basically THE gaming console for those who NEED 60 fps on all games. The machine has to display all of its games at that framerate... Or it will just throw up garbage on the screen.
Click to expand...

Interesting I never realized this. Now that I think back it does bring to mind the "smoothness" that all Atari games seemed to have.

Pretty cool that it was single handedly the reason that Nintendo getting involved was such a risk because Atari almost destroyed the future of gaming before it even started. Pumping out crap games and it was seen as a novelty that wouldn't catch on.
 
K

Klortch

Neo Member
I have so many great memories of the 2600! I remember playing Combat with my siblings as a kid and thinking "This is amazing! We don't have to go to the arcade!" :)
 
T

Tempy

don't ask me for codes
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

(Not even my first console though, that'd be the Pong Ultra Doubles)

I wonder if there will be some announcements today. AtariBox?

Still have a couple of Atari 2600s and 157 games.
 
petran79

petran79

Banned
Our dad bought the console out of a sudden 30 years ago. Unforgettable games experience,though in retrospect I'd have preferred an Atari computer instead. Ideally an AtariST.

I'd have traded our 2600,NES and Gameboy for it.
 
S

Skytylz

Banned
My dad had one, so this was the first console I played. We had a ton of games which was pretty cool. Went from this to an N64. Was quite the jump.
 
MrCunningham

MrCunningham

Member
My parents never had the original wood grain unit, but they did have an Atari 2600 Jr when I was a kid...

c6936950b19d8164911007de70d23e22.jpg


I always liked the look of this system, and my dad did also have the paddle controllers as well. The games I remember the most playing were Missile Command, Star Raiders with the funky number pad, Pole Position, Super Breakout, Defender, Mario Bros, Adventure, Asteroids and a few others.

My dad even owned the awful Pac-Man port as well as ET: Extra Terrestrial/ I never understood how to play ET back then, because I had no manual for it. But I did like Pac-Man despite it being one of the worst ports of the game ever made. I was so young back then, that I didn't realize it was a bad port until my dad bought the Tengen version of Pac-Man for the NES.
 
S

SillyEskimo

Member
We had a wood grain and our family loved it. Asteroids, Missile Command, Combat, and so many more. I could play through Adventure with my eyes closed.
 
T

Trago

Member
Nearly twice my age!

I'd love see Gaffers who gamed from that era post their thoughts. I'm interested in their perspective on how things changed over the years for console gaming.

Also, day wood panel!
 
T

Tater

Member
My first console as well, I think I got mine when I was 6 or 7, some time after it came out. I didn't have much money as a kid, but I ended up getting a ton of games when the video game market crashed - all my relatives ended up buying the cheap games for me.

Impressive for what it did, but so many of those games don't really hold up any more. As a software engineer, I am still in awe of what those engineers did on such limited hardware.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Activision becoming a 3rd party sparked the Video Game Crash of 1983
Business 2 3
101
7K
MarkMe2525 replied
The best selling consoles of all time in the US, UK, and Japan as of 2022 (LTD sales numbers)
2
67
6K
ReBurn replied
Full Q&A English Summary of Nintendo's Financial Results Briefing for Fiscal Year Ended March 2024
Business
0
330
Thick Thighs Save Lives replied
BugPEMu - New Atari Jaguar emulator has achieved 100% compatibility
2
61
7K
stranno replied
The Atari 7800 is a criminally underrated system filled with fun games and hidden gems.
2 3
149
20K
n0razi replied
Top Bottom