The History of the Atari 2600 - Its Games, Videogame Crash and Hardware

A little bit of the history of the Atari 2600, telling a little bit of the company's history, its legacy in arcades, its launch, its hardware, the success of arcades on the console, the crash of video games with the game ET and its games.

Atari 2600

The Atari company was founded in 1972, entering the arcades that same year. Its first game was the famous Pong, inspired by the ping-pong game on the Odyssey 100 console, becoming an expression to refer to first-generation games made for arcades and home consoles. The Atari 2600 began to be developed three years later, in 1975, under the name Stella. It was released in 1977 as the Atari VCS (Video Computer System), to compete with its competitor, the VES (Video Entertainment System), the first second-generation console, later known as the Fairchild Channel F. Its sales boom was at Christmas in 1979, when it was the most purchased gift in the USA. In 1976, before the VCS was released, Atari was sold to Warner Communications, heir to the film and TV productions of Warner Bros. Its hardware had a 1.19 MHz MOS 6507 CPU, a cheap version of the 6502 used in Commodore, Apple and even Atari computers, and later used in the Famicom. The sound chip (released exclusively by the company for the console) was the Television Interface Adapter, known as TIA (it was based on the TIASound audio emulation library, created by Ron Fries, which helped several Atari console emulators). The TIA was also used for video, converting it to a television signal, with support for 128 colors, and 16 simultaneously. And finally, it had 128 bytes of RAM.

In 1982, it reigned supreme in the American market, having surpassed its competitors Intellivision and ColecoVision. Also in 1982, with the launch of the Atari 5200, also a second-generation Atari VCS, the Atari VCS was renamed the Atari 2600, to standardize the nomenclature. The excess of games, combined with clones and poorly made games, especially those produced in large quantities, as was the case with the game ET, led to the famous video game crash of 1983, known in Japan as the Atari crash, as the main culprit was the company's console. The market only returned to normal in 1985, with a new version of the Famicom released in Japan and the following year in the USA. In 1984, Warner sold Atari, creating the Atari Corporation, continuing its work in the world of consoles, portables, arcades and computers.

The console had, perhaps, the most popular games in the world, or at least in the West, which are still remembered, continued or cloned, which came from arcade versions and other consoles, such as ColecoVision and Intellivision. Among them are the shmups, such as Space Invaders, Asteroids, Megamania, River Raid, Atlantis, Crackpots, Defender, Demon Attack, Moon Patrol, Battlezone, Galaxian, Chopper Command, Sequest, Missile Command, Spider Fighter, Air-Sea Battle, Phoenix and Combat. Classic platform games, such as Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Popeye and Joust. Platform games, such as Pitfall!, HERO, Jungle Hunt, Keystone Kapers, Spider-Man, Smurfs, Halloween, Snoopy, Superman and Sneak'N Peek (the famous Hide and Seek). Adventure/mission games in the same environment, such as Frostbite, Frogger, Freeway, Pressure Cooker and Custer's Revenge. Sports games, such as California Games, Ice Hockey, Boxing, Tennis and Fishing Derby. Racing games, such as Enduro, Motocross, Grand Prix and Pole Position. Maze games, such as Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and Dig Dug. And puzzle games, such as Breakout and Q*bert. The main games were shmups, the famous spaceship games, followed by adventure, racing and sports games. The console had more than 500 games released, second only to the Famicom at the time. The Atari 2600 was discontinued in 1992, totaling 27.64 million units sold worldwide.