Atari 2600 VCS Legacy
Gaming | March 12th, 2008
The Atari Video Computer System (VCS) was introduced to the American public in 1977 and was a phenomenal success for Atari and it’s parent company Warner Communications. What this innovative product did was to spawn a new hobby for young and old alike. This cartridge-based video game system could be hooked up to any standard television (either color or monochrome) and easy enough for kids to play and use. Atari even produced the system for Sears as the ‘Telegame Video Arcade.’ In 1982, the income generated by the VCS and related products generated two-thirds of Warner’s profits! The popularity of this game system shouldn’t be under-estimated. The VCS was so wildly embraced by families everywhere that many referred to it as the ‘third television network’ by many at that time. It remained the game system to own for many years and is still sought out by gamers and collectors alike. While this system was released to a market that knew Atari’s previous successful products, the VCS introduced this new hobby called video gaming to a huge new segment of that had never experienced it before! The VCS (developed by Atari’s founder Nolan Bushnell-the father of video game industry) laid the foundation for video gaming that Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft enjoy now.
Programs for small computers were generally stored on cassette tape, disk, or paper tape. By the early 1970s, Hewlett Packard manufactured desktop computers costing thousands of dollars such as the HP 9830 which packaged ROM memory into removeable cartridges to add special programming features, and these were being considered for use in games. At first, the design was not going to be cartridge-based, but after seeing a “fake” cartridge system on another machine, they realized they could place the games on cartridges essentially for the price of the connector and packaging.
The crash of the video game market had red ink was gushing from all the video game system hardware manufacturers and software developers. Mattel bailed out of the video game market completely with the sale of its Mattel Electronics Division to employees. Coleco was headed for bankruptcy after a disastrous flirtation with home computers with a system called the ADAM. Most of the third party suppliers and software developers eventually went out of business. Even Atari was not immune to the crash and was totally unprepared to take measures . Faced with out-of-control expenses, Warner Communications sold its Atari Computer/Video Game Division to Jack Tramiel of Commodore 64 fame. His main concern was making Atari profitable by focusing on computers where he had knowledge of the market - coming straight from the success of the Commodore 64.