INSIDE THE ATARI 2600
This groundbreaking console spawned a new era of home entertainment
WORDS MARK SMITH
I t’s hard to imagine now, but this little black box was a trailblazing piece of technology, giving rise to the games consoles we know and play today. Atari, founded in 1972, was among the first video game companies, and produce Pong, the first successful arcade game. In the early 1970s, video games had become popular in amusement arcades, but the idea of having them at home was pretty unusual. But that was about to change. Fairchild Camera and Instrument introduced the Channel F system, the first cartridge-based home video game system, in 1976, and in 1977 Atari launched the Video Computer System (VCS), which would later be renamed the 2600.