What Made The Atari 2600 Great
Atari is not really a household name anymore, but dedicated nerds know what Atari was. Long before the X-Box and PS4, the two big contenders were Sony and Nintendo. Before that, Sega was in the fray as well. And before all three of those, all the way back in the late 1970s, there was Atari. Even if you’ve never heard of Atari, you’ve probably heard of Pong. Pong was the world’s first coin-operated arcade game, and it was a huge success. Pong made a big splash. In fact, one of the first mass-produced consoles was a console that did nothing but play Pong. Both the Pong arcade game and the Pong console were created by Atari.
But Atari’s big contribution was the Atari 2600. What was the Atari 2600? Simply put, it was one of the first mass-produced consoles that worked off of ROM cartridges. ROM stands for Read Only Memory, meaning memory that is only read and never altered. The game cartridges that were common to the NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, and Sega Genesis were all ROM cartridges. Many such cartridges also had a small amount of static RAM in them, which made it possible to save your game. Static RAM, or Random Access Memory, is similar to the RAM in your computer, except it doesn’t clear when you turn the system off, unlike your computer’s RAM. While the Pong system was confined to only one game, the Atari 2600 allowed for removable carts. Given the fact that the Atari 2600 cost $200 (more than $800 in today’s money), it stands to reason that it needed the capacity to play multiple games. Few people would want to pay $800 just to play a single game!
an atari video game shirt
The Atari 2600 was great because it brought arcade gaming into the home. That was ultimately the trick: instead of having to go out and pop coins into an arcade machine to play a game, you could have that entertainment in your living room. And indeed, the “homeliness” of the Atari 2600 was intentional and reflected in its design. The original console had a wood grain finish. The point of giving it a wood grain finish was to make it fit with the decor of the average person’s living room. The “now you can play at home” vibe was completely intended by Atari.
Of course, there is plenty of history since the late 1970s in the gaming world. The NES was yet to come. Sega would still make its mark. And Atari itself was comparatively short-lived because of all the competition. Following the release of Pong, several competitors in the arcade market immediately sprang up. The same thing happened after Atari switched to at-home consoles. This meant that Atari quickly fell into financial trouble because it couldn’t move enough units, and the Atari 2600 itself cost nearly half a million in 1970s dollars to develop. So while Atari was not a terribly long-lived brand, it still left a significant mark with the Atari 2600. This is why you can still see the Atari logo on video game shirts.
