Atari 2600
The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System, it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridges, a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F in 1976. The VCS was bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridgeinitially Combat and later Pac-Man. Sears sold the system as the Tele-Games Video Arcade. Atari rebranded the VCS as the Atari 2600 in November 1982, alongside the release of the Atari 5200.
During the mid-1970s, Atari had been successful at creating arcade video games, but their development cost and limited lifespan drove CEO Nolan Bushnell to seek a programmable home system. The first inexpensive microprocessors from MOS Technology in late 1975 made this feasible. The console was prototyped under the codename Stella by Atari subsidiary Cyan Engineering. Lacking funding to complete the project, Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications in 1976.
The Atari VCS was launched in 1977 with nine games on 2 KB cartridges. Atari ported many of their arcade games to the system, and the VCS versions of Breakout and Night Driver are in color while the arcade originals have monochrome graphics. The system's first killer application was the home conversion of Taito's Space Invaders in 1980. Adventure, also released in 1980, was one of the first action-adventure video games and contains the first widely recognized Easter egg. Beginning with the VCS version of Asteroids in 1980, many games used bank switching to allow 8 KB or larger cartridges. By the time of the system's peak in 1982–83, games were released with significantly more advanced visuals and gameplay than the system was designed for, such as Activision's Pitfall!. The popularity of the VCS led to the founding of Activision and other third-party game developers, as well as competition from the Intellivision and ColecoVision consoles.
By 1982, the 2600 was the dominant game system in North America, and "Atari" had entered the vernacular as a synonym for the console and video games in general. However, poor decisions by Atari management damaged both the system's and the company's reputation, most notably the release of two highly anticipated games for the 2600: a port of the arcade game Pac-Man and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Pac-Man became the 2600's best-selling game, but was panned for not resembling the original; E.T. was rushed to market for the holiday shopping season and was similarly disparaged. Both games, coupled with a glut of third-party shovelware, were factors in ending Atari's dominance of the console market, contributing to the North American video game crash of 1983.
Warner sold the assets of Atari's consumer electronics division to former Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel in 1984. In 1986, the new Atari Corporation under Tramiel released a revised, low-cost 2600 model, and the backward-compatible Atari 7800, but it was Nintendo that led the recovery of the industry with the 1985 North American launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Production of the Atari 2600 ended in 1992, with an estimated 30 million units sold across its lifetime.
History
Atari, Inc. was founded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in 1972. Its first major product was Pong, released in 1972, the first successful coin-operated video game. While Atari continued to develop new arcade games in following years, Pong gave rise to a number of competitors to the growing arcade game market. The competition along with other missteps by Atari led to financial problems in 1974 before the company recovered by the end of the year. By 1975, Atari had released a Pong home console that competed against Magnavox, the only other major producer of home consoles at the time. However, Atari engineers recognized the limitation of custom logic integrated onto the circuit board, permanently confining the whole console to only one game. The increasing competition increased the risk, as Atari had found with past arcade games and again with dedicated home consoles. Both platforms are built from integrating discrete electro-mechanical components into circuits instead of being programmed as on a mainframe computer. Thus, development of a console had cost at least plus time to complete, but the final product only had about a three-month shelf life before becoming outdated by competition.By 1974, Atari had acquired Cyan Engineering, a Grass Valley electronics company founded by Steve Mayer and Larry Emmons, both former colleagues of Bushnell and Dabney from Ampex, who helped to develop new ideas for Atari's arcade games. Even before the release of the home version of Pong, Cyan's engineers, led by Mayer and Ron Milner, had envisioned a home console powered by new programmable microprocessors capable of playing Atari's arcade offerings of the time. The programmable microprocessors would make a console's design significantly simpler and more powerful than any dedicated single-game unit. However, the cost of such chips was far outside the range that their market would tolerate. Atari had opened negotiations to use Motorola's new 6800 in future systems.
MOS Technology 6502/6507
In September 1975, MOS Technology debuted the 6502 microprocessor for at the Wescon trade show in San Francisco. Mayer and Milner attended, and met with Chuck Peddle, the leader of the team that created the chip. They proposed using the 6502 in a game console, and offered to discuss it further at Cyan's facilities after the show.Over two days, MOS and Cyan engineers sketched out a 6502-based console design by Meyer and Milner's specifications. Financial models showed that even at, the 6502 would be too expensive, and Peddle offered them a planned 6507 microprocessor, a cost-reduced version of the 6502, and MOS's RIOT chip for input/output. Cyan and MOS negotiated the 6507 and RIOT chips at a pair. MOS also introduced Cyan to Microcomputer Associates, who had separately developed debugging software and hardware for MOS, and had developed the JOLT Computer for testing the 6502, which Peddle suggested would be useful for Atari and Cyan to use while developing their system. Milner was able to demonstrate a proof-of-concept for a programmable console by implementing Tank, an arcade game by Atari subsidiary Kee Games, on the JOLT.
As part of the deal, Atari wanted a second source of the chipset. Peddle and Paivinen suggested Synertek, whose co-founder, Bob Schreiner, was a friend of Peddle. In October 1975, Atari informed the market that it was moving forward with MOS. The Motorola sales team had already told its management that the Atari deal was finalized, and Motorola management was livid. They announced a lawsuit against MOS the next week.
Building the system
By December 1975, Atari hired Joe Decuir, a recent graduate from University of California, Berkeley who had been doing his own testing on the 6502. Decuir began debugging the first prototype designed by Mayer and Milner, which gained the codename "Stella" after the brand of Decuir's bicycle. This prototype included a breadboard-level design of the graphics interface to build upon. A second prototype was completed by March 1976 with the help of Jay Miner, who created a chip called the Television Interface Adaptor to send graphics and audio to a television. The second prototype included a TIA, a 6507, and a ROM cartridge slot and adapter.As the TIA's design was refined, Al Alcorn brought in Atari's game developers to provide input on features. There were significant limitations in the 6507, the TIA, and other components, so the programmers creatively optimized their games to maximize the console. The console lacks a framebuffer and requires games to instruct the system to generate graphics in synchronization with the electron gun in the cathode ray tube as it scans across rows on the screen. The programmers found ways to "race the beam" to perform other functions while the electron gun scans outside of the visible screen.
Alongside the electronics development, Bushnell brought in Gene Landrum, a consultant who had already consulted for Fairchild Camera and Instrument for its upcoming Channel F, to determine the consumer requirements for the console. In his final report, Landrum suggested a living room aesthetic, with a wood grain finish, and for the cartridges to be "idiot proof, child proof and effective in resisting potential static problems in a living room environment". Landrum recommended it include four to five dedicated games in addition to the cartridges, but this was dropped in the final designs. The cartridge design was done by James Asher and Douglas Hardy. Hardy had been an engineer for Fairchild and helped in the initial design of the Channel F cartridges, but he quit to join Atari in 1976. The interior of the cartridge that Asher and Hardy designed was sufficiently different to avoid patent conflicts, but the exterior components were directly influenced by the Channel F to help work around the static electricity concerns.
Atari was still recovering from its 1974 financial woes, and needed additional capital to fully enter the home console market; however, Bushnell was wary of being beholden to outside financial sources. Atari obtained smaller investments through 1975, but not at the scale it needed, and began considering a sale to a larger firm by early 1976. Atari was introduced to Warner Communications, which saw the potential for the growing video game industry to help offset declining profits from its film and music divisions. Negotiations took place during 1976, during which Atari cleared itself of liabilities, including settling a patent infringement lawsuit with Magnavox over Ralph H. Baer's patents that were the basis for the Magnavox Odyssey. In mid-1976, Fairchild announced the Channel F, planned for release later that year, beating Atari to the market.
By October 1976, Warner and Atari agreed to the purchase of Atari for. Warner provided an estimated, which was enough to fast-track Stella. By 1977, development had advanced enough to brand it the Atari Video Computer System and start developing games.