Atari 2600

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Atari 2600
Atari 2600 logo.svg
Atari 2600 four-switch "wood veneer" version, dating from 1980-1982
Manufacturer Atari, Inc.
Type Video game console
Generation Second generation
Retail availability
  • NA September 11, 1977
  • EU 1978
Introductory price 199 USD
Discontinued January 1, 1992[1]
Units sold 30 million (as of 2004)[2]
Media ROM cartridge, Tape
CPU MOS 6507 @ 1.19 MHz
Memory 128 bytes RAM, 4 kB ROM
Controller input Joystick
Driving Controller
Online services GameLine
Best-selling game Pac-Man, 7 million (as of September 1, 2006)[3][4]
Predecessor Atari Pong
Successor Atari 5200


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[5] and later Pac-Man.[6]





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.[7] 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[edit]

Produced in 1978, the second 6 switch model was one of many revisions to the 2600
The 2600 Jr.'s connection ports.





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.[10] The console also sold 450,000 units in West Germany by 1984.[11] 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.[12]




Sears Tele-Games 2600s[edit]

Early Atari 2600 that was branded "Tele-Games" and sold by Sears

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.[15]

Sears also released their own versions of Atari Inc.'s games under the Tele-Games brand — often with different titles[16] — 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.[16]

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.[17]

Decline and Remodel[edit]

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,[18][19][20] 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[21] because it depicts General George Armstrong Custer raping a bound Native American woman.[22] Atari Inc. sued Mystique in court over the release of the game.[23]

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.[citation needed]

Atari 2800[edit]

Atari 2800 on display







The Atari 2800's case style was used as the basis for the Atari 7800's case style by Barney Huang.[24]

Atari 2600 Jr.[edit]

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.[25] In Brazil, the console became extremely popular in the mid-1980s. The Atari 2600 was officially retired by Atari Corp. on January 1, 1992,[citation needed] 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.



Standard joystick

The CPU was the MOS Technology 6507, 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.[26] Later games got around this limitation with bank switching.

The console had only 128 bytes 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 bitmapped 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.[27]

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 Commodore 64,Commodore 128 ,Sega Master System and Mega Drive/Genesis, though functionality may be limited. Also, Master System and Mega Drive/Genesis controllers work on the Atari 2600, though only the B button can be used in most games.

Color and graphics[edit]

The Atari 2600 used different color palettes depending on the television signal format used.[28] With the NTSC format, a 128-color palette was available,[29] while in PAL, only 104 colors were available. Additionally, the SECAM palette consisted of only 8 colors.


Pitfall!, one of the most popular third party games for the Atari 2600.

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[30]—its creator, Warren Robinett, also introduced the first widely known Easter egg to the gaming world),[31] Breakout,[32] and Yars' Revenge.[33] The console's popularity attracted many third-party developers, which led to popular titles such as Activision's Pitfall![34] and Imagic's Atlantis. However, two Atari published titles, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial[34] and Pac-Man,[35] are frequently blamed for contributing to the video game crash of 1983.




Atari 2000[edit]

The Atari 2000 (model number CX-2000) is a prototype 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 2600 Jr. design as the most likely reasons.[38]

Atari 3200[edit]

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 rumored based on a 10-bit processor, although design documents shows it was to be based around the 6502 8-bit CPU. 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 5200. Atari also cloned the Atari 3200 into the Sears Super Arcade II, but this was never released.[39]

Clones and reissues[edit]

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 Pacific, which emulates the 2600 console, and includes converted versions of 10 games into a single Atari-brand-lookalike 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.

In music[edit]

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 music. 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, 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.[citation needed] 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".


Atari 2600 emulation is available for most major operating systems 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[40] (aka HARP) allows Atari 2600 users to archive their favorite play sessions of the Atari 2600 system and its games. The javatari emulator has a multiplayer mode that allows two users play as Player1 and Player2, as if they were playing on the same console.

Some well known Atari 2600 emulators today are:


Thomas Jentzsch's Thrust, a homebrew game for the Atari 2600

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 6502 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.


This is a partial list of Atari 2600 programmers:

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Patterson, Shane; Brett Elston. "Consoles of the '80s". GamesRadar. Retrieved 1 April 2011. 
  2. ^ "Atari VCS (Atari 2600)". A Brief History of Game Console Warfare. BusinessWeek. Retrieved 2008-01-31. 
  3. ^ Jeremy Reimer (2006-09-01). "EA's Madden 2007 sells briskly, but are games gaining on movies?". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on 23 February 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-31. 
  4. ^ Kent, Steven (2001). The Ultimate History of Video Games. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0-7615-3643-4. 
  5. ^ Weesner, Jason (2007-01-11). "On Game Design: A History of Video Games". Archived from the original on 24 November 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-13. 
  6. ^ Image of box with Pac-Man sticker
  7. ^
  8. ^ Forster, Winnie (2005). The encyclopedia of consoles, handhelds & home computers 1972 - 2005. GAMEPLAN. p. 27. ISBN 3-00-015359-4. 
  9. ^ Steve Fulton, "Atari: The Golden Years -- A History, 1978-1981", Gamasutra, 21 August 2008, pg. 6
  10. ^ "Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2008", Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition (Guinness World Records), 2008: 24, ISBN 1-904994-21-0, retrieved 2011-04-11, "10 million - number of Atari 2600 consoles sold by 1982. 7 million - estimated number of copies of Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 sold." 
  11. ^ "EG Goes Continental: Europe Joins the Game World". Electronic Games 2 (23): 46–7. January 1984. Retrieved 5 February 2012. 
  12. ^ Hubner, John; Kistner, William F. Jr. (1983-11-28). "What went wrong at Atari?". InfoWorld. San Jose Mercury News. p. 151. Retrieved March 5, 2012. 
  13. ^ Vendel, Curt. "Atari 2700 Wireless VCS". Atari Museum. Retrieved 2009-07-06. 
  14. ^ "The Complete Guide to Conquering Video Games" by Jeff Rovin, Collier Books, 1982 pages 7, 9, 11
  15. ^ Yarusso, Albert. "AtariAge - 2600 Consoles and Clones". AtariAge. Archived from the original on 6 October 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-07. 
  16. ^ a b Yarusso, Albert. "Atari 2600 - Sears — Picture Label Variation". AtariAge. Retrieved 2007-10-07. 
  17. ^ Yarusso, Albert. "Catalog: Telegames". AtariAge. Retrieved 2010-08-31. 
  18. ^ [1]
  19. ^ [2]
  20. ^ [3]
  21. ^ "AGH - Third Party Profile: Mystique". Retrieved 2009-07-06. 
  22. ^ Fragmaster. "Custer's Revenge". Classic Gaming. Retrieved 2009-07-06. 
  23. ^ Gonzalez, Lauren. "When Two Tribes Go to War: A History of Video Game Controversy". GameSpot. p. 3. Retrieved 2009-07-06. 
  24. ^ a b c The Atari 2800 System
  25. ^ Salon-Friday,Nov.9,2007-Toy Hall Of Fame
  27. ^ Bogost, Ian; Montfort, Nick (2009). Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-01257-X. 
  28. ^ Atari 2600 "TIA color chart".
  29. ^ "What is RGB colour?". Retrieved 2014-03-12. 
  30. ^ Robinett, Warren. "Adventure for the Atari 2600 Video Game Console". Archived from the original on 25 October 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-11. 
  31. ^ Gouskos, Carrie. "The Greatest Easter Eggs in Gaming". Retrieved 2008-01-30. 
  32. ^ MobyGames. "Breakout for Atari 2600," (retrieved on March 2nd, 2009).
  33. ^ Rittmeyer, Brian C. "The Essential 2600 Games". The Atari Times. Archived from the original on 29 October 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-08. 
  34. ^ a b Parish, Jeremy. "Classic 1UP.Com's Essential 50". 1UP.Com. Retrieved 2007-11-08. 
  35. ^ Vendel, Curt. "The Atari 2600 Video Computer System". Atari Museum. Retrieved 2007-11-13. 
  36. ^ Edgers, Geoff (2009-03-08). "Atari and the deep history of video games". Boston Globe. Archived from the original on 16 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-13. 
  37. ^ "Atari 2600 is number 2". IGN. Retrieved 2011-09-22. 
  38. ^ Curt Vendel. "The Atari CX-2000 Prototype". Atari Museum. Retrieved 2009-07-06. 
  39. ^ "The Atari 3200: Super-Stella/Sylvia". Atari Museum. Retrieved 2009-07-06. 
  40. ^ Home Action Replay Page
  41. ^ "Jay Miner".  090420



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