Atari 2600

Released in 1977, the Atari 2600 can lay claim to being the system that truly popularised home video gaming. The system was the first popular machine to utilise microprocessor hardware and game cartridges.

Atari 2600 Related Articles

System Overview

Released in 1977, the Atari 2600 can lay claim to being the system that truly popularised home video gaming.

The system was the first popular machine to utilise microprocessor hardware and game cartridges. This approach is something that continued to be utilised right up until the N64 in 1996,

Originally known as the Atari VCS, Atari rebranded the machine as the ‘2600’ in 1982 to coincide with the release of the Atari 5200.

Atari 2600
The Atari 2600

Utilising a MOS 6507 CPU and 128 bytes of RAM, this is tiny when compared even to systems a few years later. So the technical achievements of many of the games for the Atari 2600 cannot be underestimated.

This system is often attributed to being the machine that both created the video game boom and crash of the 1980s. This was predominantly in the US though. Computing and gaming in other regions, primarily Europe, still boomed beyond the US crash of 1983.

Still popular to this day, the system has had many clones and reissues produced. Its form factor and classic design joysticks remain iconic.