The Atari 2600 is a home video game console created by Atari, Inc. It was first released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS). This console helped introduce computer chips and games stored on removable cartridges, a format first used by the Fairchild Channel F in 1976. The VCS came with two joystick controllers, a set of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge—initially Combat and later Pac-Man. Sears sold the system under the name Tele-Games Video Arcade. In November 1982, Atari changed the name to the Atari 2600, at the same time launching the Atari 5200.

During the mid-1970s, Atari was known for making successful arcade games. However, the high cost of developing these games and their short lifespan led CEO Nolan Bushnell to seek a home system that could be programmed. In late 1975, the availability of affordable microprocessors from MOS Technology made this possible. Atari’s subsidiary, Cyan Engineering, developed the console under the code name Stella. Due to a lack of funds, Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications in 1976.

The Atari VCS was released in 1977 with nine games on 2 KB cartridges. Atari adapted many of its arcade games for the system. The VCS versions of Breakout and Night Driver had color graphics, unlike the black-and-white arcade originals. The first major success for the system was the home version of Space Invaders in 1980. Adventure, also released in 1980, was one of the first action-adventure games and included the first widely known hidden message. Starting with the 1980 version of Asteroids, many games used a method called bank switching to support larger cartridges. By 1982–83, games on the VCS had more advanced visuals and gameplay than the system was originally designed for, such as Activision’s Pitfall!. The popularity of the VCS led to the creation of Activision and other third-party game developers, as well as competition from consoles like the Intellivision and ColecoVision.

By 1982, the Atari 2600 was the most popular game system in North America, and the word "Atari" became commonly used to refer to the console and video games in general. However, poor business decisions by Atari’s leadership hurt the system’s and company’s reputation. This included the release of Pac-Man for the 2600, which did not match the original arcade game, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which was rushed to market and poorly received. These games, along with many low-quality third-party titles, contributed to Atari losing its dominance and the North American video game crash of 1983.

In 1984, Warner sold Atari’s consumer electronics division to Jack Tramiel, a former Commodore CEO. In 1986, the new Atari Corporation released a cheaper version of the 2600 and a backward-compatible system called the Atari 7800. However, Nintendo helped revive the industry with the 1985 launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Production of the Atari 2600 ended in 1992, with about 30 million units sold over its lifetime.

History

Atari, Inc. was started in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Its first major product was Pong, released the same year, which became the first successful coin-operated video game. Atari continued to create new arcade games in the years that followed, but Pong led to many competitors entering the arcade game market. This competition, along with other mistakes, caused financial problems for Atari in 1974. However, the company recovered by the end of that year. By 1975, Atari had released a Pong home console to compete with Magnavox, the only other major home console maker at the time. Atari engineers noticed that using custom logic on circuit boards limited the console to only one game. The growing competition increased risks, similar to challenges Atari faced with earlier arcade games and home consoles. Both platforms used separate electronic parts instead of being programmed like a mainframe computer. Developing a console cost at least $100,000 (about $598,000 in 2025) plus time, but the final product had only about three months of usefulness before being replaced by newer models.

In 1974, Atari bought Cyan Engineering, a company founded by Steve Mayer and Larry Emmons, who had previously worked with Bushnell and Dabney at Ampex. Cyan’s engineers, led by Mayer and Ron Milner, had already imagined a home console using new programmable microprocessors that could play Atari’s arcade games. These microprocessors would make consoles simpler and more powerful than single-game units. However, the cost of such chips was too high for the market. Atari began talks with Motorola about using its new 6800 microprocessor.

In September 1975, MOS Technology introduced the 6502 microprocessor for $25 at a trade show in San Francisco. Mayer and Milner met with Chuck Peddle, the chip’s creator, and proposed using the 6502 in a game console. They planned to discuss it further at Cyan’s facilities.

Over two days, MOS and Cyan engineers designed a console based on the 6502 microprocessor. Financial models showed the chip was still too expensive, so Peddle offered a cheaper version called the 6507 and MOS’s RIOT chip for input/output. Cyan and MOS negotiated to buy the 6507 and RIOT chips for $12 each. MOS also introduced Cyan to Microcomputer Associates, who had created tools for testing the 6502. Milner demonstrated a working prototype by adapting an arcade game called Tank for the JOLT computer.

Atari wanted a second source for the chips. Peddle and Paivinen suggested Synertek, whose co-founder, Bob Schreiner, was a friend of Peddle. In October 1975, Atari announced it would use MOS Technology. Motorola’s sales team had already told its management the deal was finalized, and Motorola filed a lawsuit against MOS the next week.

By December 1975, Atari hired Joe Decuir, a recent UC Berkeley graduate who had tested the 6502. Decuir began debugging the first prototype, called "Stella" after his bicycle brand. This prototype used a basic design for the graphics interface. A second prototype was completed by March 1976 with help from Jay Miner, who created the Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) chip to send graphics and audio to a television. The second prototype included the TIA, a 6507 microprocessor, and a ROM cartridge slot.

As the TIA was improved, Atari’s game developers tested features. The 6507 and other components had limitations, so programmers optimized games to work around them. The console lacked a framebuffer, requiring games to generate graphics in sync with the electron gun in a cathode ray tube (CRT) as it scanned the screen. Programmers found ways to perform other tasks while the electron gun scanned outside the visible area.

Gene Landrum, a consultant who had worked with Fairchild Camera and Instrument, helped Atari determine consumer needs for the console. He suggested a wood-grain finish and "idiot-proof, child-proof" cartridges to avoid static electricity issues. He also recommended including four to five built-in games, but this idea was not used in the final design. James Asher and Douglas Hardy designed the cartridges. Hardy had previously worked on Fairchild’s Channel F cartridges but left to join Atari in 1976. Their design avoided patent conflicts but borrowed ideas from Channel F to address static electricity concerns.

Atari was still recovering from financial issues in 1974 and needed more money to enter the home console market. Bushnell avoided relying on outside investors. Atari received small investments in 1975 but not enough. By early 1976, Atari considered selling to a larger company. Warner Communications saw potential in the video game industry and negotiated a deal. Atari settled a patent lawsuit with Magnavox over Ralph H. Baer’s patents. In mid-1976, Fairchild announced its Channel F console, beating Atari to the market.

By October 1976, Warner and Atari agreed to a $28 million purchase. Warner provided $120 million to speed up development of the Stella prototype. By 1977, the project was renamed the Atari Video Computer System (VCS), and game development began.

The VCS was shown at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in June 1977, with plans to release it in October. The delay was partly due to a patent lawsuit with Magnavox. Production issues and cartridge testing complicated testing. Newspaper ads for the Atari VCS appeared in August 1977, and the console reached stores soon after. It launched for $199 (about $1,060 in 2025), with two joysticks and a Combat cartridge. Eight additional games were sold separately. Most launch games were based on arcade games made by Atari or its subsidiary Kee Games.

Hardware

The Atari 2600 uses a central processing unit (CPU) called the MOS Technology 6507, which is a version of the 6502 chip. The 6507 runs at 1.19 megahertz (MHz). Although the internal parts of the 6507 and 6502 are the same, the 6507 was cheaper to produce because it had fewer memory-address pins—13 instead of 16. The designers of the Atari 2600 chose a cartridge interface with one fewer address pin than the 6507 allowed. This reduced the maximum memory the system could use from 8 KB (8,192 bytes) to 4 KB (4,096 bytes). This was considered enough for early games like Combat, which used only 2 KB. Later games used a technique called "bank switching" to work around this memory limit.

The console has 128 bytes of RAM, which is used for temporary storage, tracking program steps, and keeping track of the game environment.

The top part of the console originally had six switches: power, TV type selection (color or black-and-white), game selection, left and right player difficulty, and game reset. In later versions, the difficulty switches were moved to the back of the console. The back also included controller ports, TV output, and power input.

The Atari 2600 was designed to work with CRT televisions from the late 1970s and early 1980s, which often lacked auxiliary video inputs. To connect to a TV, the console generated a radio frequency signal that matched regional TV standards (NTSC, PAL, or SECAM). A special switch box was used to act as the TV’s antenna.

Atari created the Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) chip for the VCS to handle graphics and convert them into a TV signal. The TIA uses a single-color, 20-bit background register that covers the left half of the screen (each bit represents 4 adjacent pixels) and is either repeated or reflected on the right side. It supports five single-color sprites: two 8-pixel wide players, two 1-bit missiles (which share the same colors as the players), and a 1-pixel ball (which shares the background color). The 1-bit sprites can be stretched to 1, 2, 4, or 8 pixels.

The system lacked a frame buffer to save on the cost of RAM. The background and sprites apply to a single scan line, and as the display is sent to the TV, the program can change colors, sprite positions, and background settings. Programmers had to carefully time their code to match the screen’s scan lines, a process called "racing the beam." Game logic runs when the TV’s beam is not visible on the screen. Early games used the same visuals for pairs of scan lines to reduce vertical resolution and allow more time to prepare the next row of graphics. Later games, such as Pitfall!, changed visuals for each scan line or extended black areas around the screen to give the game code more processing time.

Regional versions of the Atari 2600 used modified TIA chips to match each region’s TV formats. This required games to be developed and published separately for each region. All modes are 160 pixels wide. NTSC mode provides 192 visible lines per screen, displayed at 60 Hz, with 16 colors, each at 8 brightness levels. PAL mode provides 228 visible lines per screen, displayed at 50 Hz, with 13 colors. SECAM mode, also a 50 Hz format, has 8 colors, each with only one brightness level.

The first VCS bundle included two types of controllers: a joystick (CX10) and a pair of rotary paddle controllers (CX30). Driving controllers, similar to paddle controllers but with continuous rotation, were included with the Indy 500 launch game. After less than a year, the CX10 joystick was replaced with the CX40 model designed by James C. Asher. The Atari joystick port and CX40 became industry standards, allowing 2600 joysticks and some peripherals to work with later systems, including the MSX, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari 8-bit computers, and Atari ST. The CX40 joystick can be used with the Master System and Sega Genesis but does not provide all the buttons of a native controller. Third-party controllers, such as Wico’s Command Control joystick, were also available. Later, the CX42 Remote Control Joysticks, which used wireless technology, were released with a receiver that could be plugged into the controller jacks.

Atari introduced the CX50 Keyboard Controller in June 1978 with two games that required it: Codebreaker and Hunt & Score. A simpler version, the CX23 Kid’s Controller, was later released for younger audiences. The CX22 Trak-Ball controller was announced in January 1983 and is compatible with Atari 8-bit computers.

There were two attempts to turn the Atari 2600 into a keyboard-equipped home computer: Atari’s unreleased CX3000 "Graduate" keyboard and the CompuMate keyboard by Spectravideo, which was released in 1983.

Console models

The first production of the VCS took place in Sunnyvale in 1977. The casing was made from thick polystyrene plastic to make the console look heavier, even though the inside was mostly empty. The early Sunnyvale models had parts on the casing that could hold internal speakers, but the speakers were too expensive to use. Instead, sound was sent from the TIA chip to the connected television. All six console switches were placed on the front panel. Production moved to Taiwan in 1978, where thinner plastic and less thick metal shielding were used, making the system lighter. These two versions are often called "Heavy Sixers" and "Light Sixers," named after the six switches on the front.

In 1980, the difficulty switches were moved to the back of the console, leaving four switches on the front. The labels on the switches changed from all lowercase letters to fully capitalized words. These four-switch models look very similar to the earlier six-switch models. In 1982, to match the release of the Atari 5200, the console was renamed the "Atari 2600." This name first appeared on a version of the four-switch model without woodgrain, which had an all-black design. This black model is often called the "Vader" model because it resembles the Star Wars character of the same name.

Atari kept its partnership with Sears, which began in 1975 with the original Pong. This is different from the company Telegames, which later made 2600 cartridges. Sears released several VCS models as part of the Sears Video Arcade series starting in 1977. The last Sears-specific model was the Video Arcade II, released in the fall of 1982.

Sears released versions of Atari’s games with Tele-Games branding, often with different names. Three games were made exclusively for Sears: Steeplechase, Stellar Track, and Submarine Commander.

The Atari 2800 was the Japanese version of the 2600, released in October 1983. It was the first Japan-specific 2600 model, though companies like Epoch had sold the 2600 in Japan earlier. The 2800 came out shortly after Nintendo’s Family Computer, which became the main console in Japan. The 2800 did not gain much popularity. Sears had previously sold the 2800 in the U.S. in late 1982 as the Sears Video Arcade II, which included two controllers and Space Invaders. The system launched in May 1983 with 25 specially branded games. About 35 games were made for the 2800.

Engineer Joe Tilly designed the 2800, which has four controller ports instead of the two on the 2600. The controllers combine an 8-direction digital joystick and a 270-degree paddle, designed by John Amber. The 2800’s case has a wedge shape with switches that do not stick out, unlike the 2600. This design influenced the Atari 7800, which was redesigned by Barney Huang.

A cost-reduced version of the 2600, released in 1986, is sometimes called the "2600 Jr." It has a smaller size and looks similar to the Atari 7800. It was marketed as an affordable system (under $50) that could play many games. Released after the 1983 video game crash and after the Nintendo Entertainment System launched in North America, the 2600 continued to get new games and ads promoting "The fun is back!" Atari made several design changes, including the "large rainbow," "short rainbow," and an all-black version sold only in Ireland. Later European models included a joypad.

The Atari 2700 was a version of the 2600 with wireless controllers.

The CX2000, which had built-in joysticks, was redesigned based on human factor analysis by Henry Dreyfuss Associates.

The Atari 3200, released around 1982, was a newer version of the 2600 that could run older games. It had more memory, better graphics, and improved sound.

The Atari 7800, announced in 1984 and released in 1986, was the official successor to the Atari 2600. It could play all 2600 cartridges.

Since the original Atari 2600 stopped being produced, several retro-style and microconsoles have been released:

• The TV Boy includes 127 games with an enlarged joypad.
• The Atari Classics 10-in-1 TV Game, made by Jakks Pacific, emulates the 2600 with ten games inside an Atari-style joystick and composite-video output.
• The Atari Flashback 2 (2005) has 40 games and can be modified to play original 2600 cartridges. It uses recreated hardware from the original 2600 and works with original controllers.
• In 2017, Hyperkin released the RetroN 77, a clone of the 2600 that plays original cartridges.
• The Atari VCS (2021) can download and emulate 2600 games through an online store.
• The Atari Flashback 12 Gold (2023) includes 130 built-in games.
• The Atari 2600+ (2023) is a smaller replica of the 2600 and supports original 2600 and 7800 cartridges.
• The Atari 7800+ (2024) is a smaller replica of the Atari 7800. It has features similar to the 2600+ but its design honors the original 7800.

Games

In 1977, nine games were released on cartridges to accompany the launch of the console: Air-Sea Battle, Basic Math, Blackjack, Combat, Indy 500, Star Ship, Street Racer, Surround, and Video Olympics. Indy 500 included special "driving controllers," which are similar to paddles but can rotate freely. Street Racer and Video Olympics used standard paddle controllers. Atari, Inc. was the only game developer for the first few years, creating dozens of games.

Atari decided that box art showing only game descriptions and screenshots was not enough to sell games in stores, because many games were based on abstract ideas and screenshots did not clearly explain gameplay. Atari hired Cliff Spohn to design box art. Spohn created visually interesting artwork that suggested movement and helped players imagine the game, while still matching the actual gameplay. Spohn's style became a standard for Atari, and he trained assistant artists such as Susan Jaekel, Rick Guidice, John Enright, and Steve Hendricks. Spohn and Hendricks created most of the cover art for the Atari 2600 library. Ralph McQuarrie, a concept artist known for the Star Wars series, designed one cover for the arcade game Vanguard. These artists usually talked to the programmers to learn about the game before drawing the art.

An Atari VCS version of the Breakout arcade game was released in 1978. The original game had black and white colors with a colored overlay, while the home version used full color. In 1980, Atari released Adventure, the first action-adventure game and the first home game with a hidden Easter egg.

Rick Maurer's version of Taito's Space Invaders, released in 1980, was the first VCS game to sell a million copies. It sold over 6 million cartridges by 1983 and became a major reason for increasing console sales. Atari's versions of the arcade games Asteroids and Missile Command, released in 1981, were also very popular.

Launch games used 2K ROMs. Later, 4K became standard for games like Space Invaders. The VCS version of Asteroids (1981) was the first game to use 8K of memory by switching between two 4K segments. Some games, including Atari's versions of Dig Dug and Crystal Castles, used 16K cartridges. One of the last games, Fatal Run (1990), used 32K.

Many early VCS games could display in both black and white and full color using the "TV type" switch on the console. This allowed the games to work on both monochrome and color televisions. However, after Atari changed the name from "VCS" to "2600," support for black and white display modes decreased. Most games from this time only used color, and the TV type switch no longer worked. Later games, such as Secret Quest, used the TV type switch for gameplay functions, like pausing the game.

Two Atari-published games, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Pac-Man, were released in 1982 during the system's peak. These games were rushed to market and are often cited as contributing to the video game crash of 1983.

A company called American Multiple Industries made several adult-themed games for the 2600 under the Mystique Presents Swedish Erotica label. The most controversial game, Custer's Revenge, was protested by women's and Native American groups because it depicted General George Armstrong Custer attacking a bound Native American woman. Atari took legal action against American Multiple Industries over the release of the game.

Legacy

The Atari 2600 was so popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s that the word "Atari" became a common term for the console and for video games in general. Jay Miner led the development of the next versions of the 2600's TIA chip—CTIA and ANTIC—which were important parts of the Atari 8-bit computers released in 1979 and later the Atari 5200 console.

In 2007, the Atari 2600 was added to the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, New York. In 2009, IGN named the Atari 2600 the second-best console of all time. IGN noted its important role in both the first video game boom and the video game crash of 1983, and called it "the console that our entire industry is built upon."

In November 2021, the current version of Atari announced three new 2600 games to be released under the "Atari XP" label: Yars' Return, Aquaventure, and Saboteur. These games were previously included in Atari Flashback consoles.

In 2022, Lego released a model of the Atari 2600. The set includes three games: Asteroids, Centipede, and Adventure. It also includes a minifigure with a bedroom design inspired by the 1980s.