Difference between revisions of "Atari 2600"

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===Documentation===
 
===Documentation===
 
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Atari 2600 - Field Service Manual - Rev2.pdf|Atari VCS Field Service Manual, revision 2.
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Atari 2600 - Owner's Manual - Rev1.pdf|Owner's Manual, revision 1.
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Atari 2600 - Field Service Manual - Rev2.pdf|Field Service Manual, revision 2.
 
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Revision as of 09:13, 10 July 2020

A wood panel 4-switch model.

The Atari 2600, originally called the Video Computer System, is a second generation video game console created by Atari and first released on 1977-09-11. It is powered by a MOS 6502 microprocessor.

Personal

This was the very first home video game console I ever played, somewhere around 1985. My parents bought a used system with a bunch of games, and I played it a lot. Our set included two wireless joysticks, two regular joysticks, two paddle controllers, and one of the 4-switch models (I think the all-black one). A friend of mine in 1988 had a later Atari Jr. model.

Games

See all Atari 2600 Games.

These are the Atari 2600 games that are important to me:

Hardware

Review

Good

  • Compared to its competitors, this platform had the best game library of the day.
  • The joysticks were very solid and could take a lot of abuse, many of them are still working today. Atari also used the standard 9-pin D-connector rather than invent a proprietary plug which was nice for 3rd party designers.
  • For a system designed to be able to play Pong and not much else, it did amazingly well.

Bad

  • Having only one button on the joystick made it pretty much impossible to make a complex game. Several developers tried with only limited success.
  • The vast majority of the games released on the platform are terrible.
  • The system's audio capabilities are very primitive.
  • The controller ports are stupidly placed on the back on the console.

Ugly

  • Nothing.

Media

Documentation

Books

Videos

Atari developers.
Computerphile.

See Also

Links

Link-Wikipedia.png  Link-MobyGames.png  Link-VGMPF.png