Oh Atari 2600, you look so lovely with your wood veneer.

The Atari 2600 is one of the earliest well known consoles. It was released on October 14, 1977 in North America. At release it was known as the Atari VCS (Video Computer System) but was later changed to Atari 2600 (the 2600 came from a part number) following the release of the Atari 5200. Atari’s masterpiece of a console popularized microprocessor based hardware. The system used a cartridge system which it would read the code and compile it to display and run a game.

At launch, the console was priced at $199.99 and included two joysticks and a cartridge of the game Combat. It was at one point rebadged as the Sears Video Arcade which was sold in Sears stores and it was manufactured by Dimerco Electronics.

Atari was competing with the Fairchild Channel F, which is an earlier Pong console. During the time of the Atari 2600’s release, it started killing off other Pong consoles due to the fact that people were just getting bored of them. Since that happened, Atari only sold 250,000 consoles in 1977.

Once everyone started to realize that it was possible to play games other than Pong, programmers started learning how to push out new possibilities. Space Invaders was developed then licensed by Atari. That caused sales to more than double to 2 million units in January of 1980.

There was two versions of the console that was never to see the light of day. They were known as the Atari 2700 and 2800. The 2700 was only a wireless version of the original 2600. It had been never been released due to a design flaw. The 2800 was a nice sleeker version of it that was meant to be sold in the Japanese market. Due to the release of the Nintendo Famicom, it did not sell well at all.

The Atari 2600 has always been in the hearts of gamers. It launched the revolution in gaming technology and is still played to this day. They are known to have the longest life span than any other console to date. As time goes on, younger generations will soon have no idea what an Atari, ColecoVision, or even an Intellivision was. It’s our job to make sure that the Atari legacy lives on. We must teach the young gamers of this system. To this day, I will sit in the dark, and just play a game on my Atari. Enjoying the simplicity and beauty, that is known as the Atari 2600.