Atari 2600 turns 44!

[Nitro]

Welcome, Atari 2600

September 11, 1977
Atari pressed play on a new sales strategy 44 years ago today, debuting a console that revolutionized home video gaming. The Atari Video Computer System — later rebranded Atari 2600 — began selling at Sears for $199. Each box contained two joysticks and paddle controllers, as well as “Combat,” a cartridge stocked with various tank and plane games. (“Combat” was not the company’s first home video game, however; that honor belongs to 1975’s “Home Pong.”)

Atari 2600 featured better games, sharper sound, and more vivid graphics than its competitors. In the late 70s, Atari was able to separate further from the pack thanks to funding from its parent company, Warner Communications, which allowed for the development and licensing of more exciting fare. Atari’s revenues skyrocketed in 1980 with the release of a home version of “Space Invaders,” the hit Japanese import — many fans purchased an Atari 2600 specifically so they could save the world in that game. The console remained in production for 15 years, ultimately selling more than 30 million units and earning a place in the National Toy Hall of Fame.

 

[Misery]

Ooh yes, I'm a huge fan of this thing. I play these all the time.

Though I dont just focus on the usual ones... I have a lot of obscure favorites as well.

Some examples:

Bank Heist

Big Bird's Egg Catch

Bobby Is Going Home

Buck Rogers: Planet of the Oversized Screenshot. Okay, "Planet of Zoom" actually. I dont know why this screenshot is so huge.

Congo Bongo

Fantastic Voyage

Mountain King

Reactor

River Patrol

SpiderDroid



The Big Bird one sticks out in my memory mostly for being hilarious.

Normally when you catch an egg, it gives you this happy little jingle, like doo-do-de-do-doodle-do

If you miss one though, it's more like do-de-doo-doo-HONK-HONK *fart noise*

As a kid it was the funniest blasted thing in the world.


Buck Rogers also gets a shoutout for having the weirdest sound effect ever, which happens when the boss ship crashes into you.

 

[unperson]

Nice pics there, looks good. Big Bird does look like the pick of the bunch, but Fantastic Voyage stands out for the irony of the image vs the name.

I only knew Pong, some friends had it.

 

[Misery]

but Fantastic Voyage stands out for the irony of the image vs the name.

That one makes more sense in motion.

The walls of the blood vessel your ship is in expand and contract depending on the area, and there's all sorts of cells and floaty things in there. Some you gotta shoot, others you gotta NOT shoot because it'll harm the patient if you do, and the thing at the bottom is a heart monitor. Shoot too many of the wrong things or get hit too many times and it's over for the patient. And then at the end of each area, you gotta destroy the blood clot and its on to the next patient, and what a surprise, the next guy also has a life-threatening blood clot, what are the odds?

 

[unperson]

riiiight, interesting, reminds me of this, I wondered where they got the idea.

 

[Raggamuffin]

I never tried any of the early consoles of the 70's or 80's. I started out on BBC Micro myself at school.

I loved their logo:

At school they had an educational adventure game called Granny's Garden:

Also got to use old Acorn computers and Amstrads. Console wise I started on the Master System II with this game built in.

I personally fell in love with video games more when I played my first open world game - Link to the Past:

Searched many a shop to buy it after my friend showcased his copy. Last shop of the day and I asked if they could check the back for another copy. Lo and behold they had one - I was over the moon.

Ed

 

[Misery]

riiiight, interesting, reminds me of this, I wondered where they got the idea.

Ah yes, THAT sort of level.

TVTropes explains it thusly: Womb Level - TV Tropes

Though I always just called them "organic zones".

It was really popular back in the 8 and 16 bit era for some reason, often having entire games themed around the concept. Like this one:

"Abadox", played this one a lot as a kid. There was also Life Force, which was the one everyone knew better (and it made way less sense).

Still seeing some games do this even in recent times.

Seeing it in an old JRPG though is somehow extra funny. It just seems somehow out of place in that genre.

Console wise I started on the Master System II with this game built in.

I remember seeing screenshots of the Alex Kidd series all the time in magazines, always wanted it, never got it. Which was just as well, games for that thing just werent really sold in my area (it was all Nintendo all day in the stores around here, once the Atari stopped selling).

 

[Judge]

Nice memories. My brother and I sure had fun competing against each other with this system.

 

[Nitro]

I never played any home Atari stuff because I was never really a gamer, but in the early 80s, I got good enough at the Atari Pole Position arcade game that I used to travel the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania area in search of them just to put my name in the #1 slot.

At first, after getting my extended plays with lap times that varied from machine to machine, I could only see the finish line and would fall short by one or two seconds.
Then I learned some cornering techniques, how to make clean passes and could take the pole in each race.
That alone gained you extra points to add to the points added up for fast lap times gained from the number of cars passed, no crashes, no runs thru water spots, no off the pavement travel and limited poor cornering.
The game was patterned after Formula 1 racing and used the layout of an actual track in Japan.

I'll never forget my first actual win where I thought the car slowed down prematurely as it approached the finish line.
It was only slowing down because it had finished the race!

The practice sessions to get there probably cost me a ton of quarters, but in the end, that's what it took to see my initials in the #1 slots all over the city

 

[FreeDiver]

Here's an interesting video about doing software development on the Atari 2600.

 

[WildCat]

Though I barely remember it, my late grandmother had a 2600 along with an Atari Pong console. No HDMI cord here, you had to hook both of those up via RF input the same way you would an antenna and set the TV to a certain channel (either 3 or 4, I think, whichever wasn't being used). There was also an NES console, the original model and not the updated one. Same deal with it, but keeping to the topic of this thread...

Back then, games like Centipede were state of the art, triple-A quality and all the cool kids got together at somebody's house and played that along with anything else lying around. I think that's how the story went, not sure, but here's what state of the art looked like about 4 decades ago: