The Atari 2600 is a home video game console made by Atari, Inc. It was first released around September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS). This system helped popularize the use of small 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 pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge—initially Combat and later Pac-Man. Sears sold the system as the Tele-Games Video Arcade. In November 1982, Atari changed the name to the Atari 2600, at the same time introducing the Atari 5200.

In the mid-1970s, Atari was successful in creating arcade games, but the high cost of developing them and their short lifespan led CEO Nolan Bushnell to search for a programmable home system. In late 1975, inexpensive microprocessors from MOS Technology made this possible. The console was first tested under the name Stella by Atari’s subsidiary, Cyan Engineering. Due to a lack of funding, 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, while the original arcade versions had black-and-white graphics. The system’s most successful game 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, or "Easter egg." Starting with the VCS version of Asteroids in 1980, 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 a common term for video games. However, poor decisions by Atari’s leaders hurt the system’s and the company’s reputation. This included the release of Pac-Man for the 2600, which did not match the original arcade version, 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 the collapse of the console market in 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 revived 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. Their first big product was Pong, a coin-operated video game released the same year. Pong became the first successful game of its kind. Although Atari made more arcade games later, Pong helped other companies enter the arcade game market. This competition, along with other problems, caused financial trouble for Atari in 1974. By the end of that year, the company recovered. In 1975, Atari released a home version of Pong to compete with Magnavox, the only other major home console maker at the time. However, Atari’s engineers noticed that the home console used special parts that could only play one game. As competition grew, the risk of failure increased, similar to problems Atari faced with arcade games. Both arcade and home consoles used separate parts instead of being programmed like a mainframe computer. This made development expensive, costing at least $100,000 (about $598,000 in 2025) and taking time. However, the final product only stayed popular for about three months before being replaced by newer games.

In 1974, Atari bought Cyan Engineering, a company started by Steve Mayer and Larry Emmons. Mayer and Emmons had worked with Bushnell and Dabney before at Ampex. Cyan’s engineers, led by Mayer and Ron Milner, wanted to create a home console using new microprocessors that could play multiple games. These microprocessors would make consoles easier and more powerful than single-game units. However, the cost of these chips was too high for most buyers. Atari tried to use Motorola’s 6800 microprocessor in future systems.

In September 1975, MOS Technology introduced the 6502 microprocessor for $25 at a trade show. Mayer and Milner met with Chuck Peddle, the chip’s creator, and suggested using it in a game console. They agreed to discuss it further at Cyan’s offices. Over two days, MOS and Cyan engineers designed a console using the 6502. Financial models showed the chip was still too expensive, so Peddle offered a cheaper version called the 6507 and a chip called RIOT for input/output. Cyan and MOS negotiated to buy the 6507 and RIOT chips for $12 each. MOS also connected Cyan with Microcomputer Associates, who had tools to test the 6502. Milner used these tools to create a working example of a programmable console by playing an arcade game called Tank.

Atari wanted another company to make the chips, so Peddle and Paivinen suggested Synertek, a company with a friend of Peddle. In October 1975, Atari announced it would use MOS Technology. This upset Motorola, which sued MOS the next week.

By December 1975, Atari hired Joe Decuir, a recent college graduate who had tested the 6502. Decuir helped fix problems with the first prototype, which was named “Stella” after his bicycle brand. The prototype used a simple design for graphics. A second prototype was completed in March 1976 with help from Jay Miner, who created a chip called the Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) to send video and sound to a TV. This prototype included the TIA, a 6507 microprocessor, and a slot for game cartridges.

As the TIA was improved, Atari’s game developers tested the console. The 6507 and TIA had limits, so programmers found creative ways to make games work well. The console lacked a special part called a framebuffer, so games had to tell the system to create graphics in time with a TV’s scanning process. Programmers used a technique called “racing the beam” to do other tasks while the TV scanned outside the visible screen.

At the same time, Nolan Bushnell brought in Gene Landrum, a consultant who had worked on Fairchild’s Channel F console. Landrum suggested the console should look like a living room appliance, with a wood grain finish. He also recommended cartridges that were safe for children and protected against static electricity. Although he suggested including four to five built-in games, this idea was not used in the final design. The cartridge design was done by James Asher and Douglas Hardy. Hardy had worked on Channel F cartridges but left Fairchild to join Atari in 1976. The inside of the Atari cartridges was different enough to avoid patent issues, but the outside design was similar to Channel F to help with static electricity problems.

Atari was still recovering from financial problems in 1974 and needed more money to enter the home console market. However, Bushnell wanted to avoid depending on outside investors. Atari got small investments in 1975 but not enough. By early 1976, Atari considered selling to a larger company. Warner Communications saw the video game industry’s potential and bought Atari for $28 million in October 1976. Warner provided $120 million to speed up development. By 1977, the console was ready and named the Atari Video Computer System (VCS).

The VCS was shown at a trade show in June 1977, with plans to sell it in October. The release was delayed to avoid sharing technical details with Magnavox during a patent lawsuit. However, the first batch of consoles had production problems, and testing was complicated by the use of cartridges.

Newspaper ads for the Atari VCS began in August 1977, and the console was sold in stores later that year. It cost $199 (about $1,060 in 2025) and included two joysticks and a Combat cartridge. Eight other games were sold separately. Most of the launch games were based on arcade games made by Atari or its subsidiary, Kee Games.

Hardware

The Atari 2600 uses a CPU called the MOS Technology 6507, which is a version of the 6502 chip. It runs at 1.19 MHz. The 6507 was less expensive than the 6502 because it had fewer memory-address pins—13 instead of 16. The Atari 2600 used a cartridge interface with one fewer address pin than the 6507 allowed, reducing the maximum memory from 8 KB (2^13 = 8,192) to 4 KB (2^12 = 4,096). This was enough for early games like Combat, which only needed 2 KB. Later games used a method called bank switching to work around this limit.

The console has 128 bytes of RAM for temporary storage, the call stack, and 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. Later models moved the difficulty switches to the back of the console. The back also included the controller ports.

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 created a radio frequency signal that matched regional standards (NTSC, PAL, or SECAM) using a special switch box 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 includes a single-color, 20-bit background register that covers the left half of the screen (each bit represents 4 adjacent pixels) and is repeated or reflected on the right side. It also supports five single-color sprites: two 8-pixel wide players, two 1-bit missiles (same color as the players), and a 1-pixel ball (same color as the background). The 1-bit sprites can be stretched to 1, 2, 4, or 8 pixels.

The system lacked a frame buffer to save on RAM costs. 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, a process called "racing the beam." Game logic ran when the TV's beam was not visible. Early games used the same visuals for pairs of scan lines to reduce vertical resolution and allow more time to prepare graphics. Later games, like Pitfall!, updated visuals for each scan line or added black areas to extend processing time.

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

The first VCS bundle included two controller types: a joystick (CX10) and a pair of rotary paddle controllers (CX30). Driving controllers, similar to paddles but with continuous rotation, came with the Indy 500 game. After less than a year, the CX10 joystick was replaced by the CX40 model designed by James C. Asher. The Atari joystick port and CX40 became industry standards, allowing 2600 joysticks and peripherals to work with later systems like the MSX, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari 8-bit computers, and Atari ST. The CX40 can be used with the Master System and Sega Genesis but lacks some buttons of native controllers. Third-party options included Wico's Command Control joystick. Later, wireless CX42 Remote Control Joysticks were released with a receiver that plugged into controller jacks.

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

Two attempts were made to turn the Atari 26

Console models

The first version of the VCS was made in Sunnyvale in 1977. It used thick polystyrene plastic for the casing to make it look heavier, even though the inside was mostly empty. The early models had mounts for internal speakers, but the speakers were too expensive to include. Instead, sound was sent through 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 called "Heavy Sixers" and "Light Sixers," named after the six front switches.

In 1980, the difficulty switches were moved to the back of the console, leaving four switches on the front. The switch labels changed from all lowercase letters to fully capitalized words. These four-switch models look similar to the earlier six-switch versions. In 1982, the console was renamed "Atari 2600" to match the release of the Atari 5200. A version of the four-switch model without woodgrain and with an all-black design was called the "Vader" model by fans because it resembled the Star Wars character.

Atari kept its partnership with Sears, which sold the original Pong in 1975. 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 1982. Sears also released Atari 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 other companies had sold the 2600 in Japan earlier. The 2800 came out after Nintendo’s Family Computer, which became the dominant console in Japan. It did not gain much popularity. Sears sold the 2800 in the U.S. in 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, and about 35 games were released for it.

Engineer Joe Tilly designed the 2800, which had four controller ports instead of the 2600’s two. The controllers combined an 8-direction joystick and a 270-degree paddle, designed by John Amber. The 2800’s case had a wedge shape with non-protruding switches, a design later used for the Atari 7800, redesigned by Barney Huang.

The 1986 model, sometimes called the "2600 Jr.," was smaller and had a design similar to the Atari 7800. It was advertised as a budget 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 with new games and ads promoting "The fun is back!" Atari released several variations, including a "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 backward-compatible successor to the 2600 with more memory, better graphics, and improved sound. The Atari 7800, announced in 1984 and released in 1986, was the official successor to the 2600 and could play 2600 cartridges.

After the original Atari 2600 was discontinued, several retro-style consoles and microconsoles were made:

• The TV Boy includes 127 games in 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, with four more unlocked by a cheat code. It uses recreated hardware from the original 2600 and works with original controllers. It can be modified to play original 2600 cartridges.
• In 2017, Hyperkin released the RetroN 77, a clone of the 2600 that plays original cartridges instead of preinstalled games.
• The Atari VCS (2021) can download and emulate 2600 games through an online store.
• The Atari Flashback 12 Gold (2023) includes 130 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 7800. It shares features with the 2600+ but has a design inspired by the original 7800.

Games

In 1977, nine games were released on cartridges to support the launch of the console: Air-Sea Battle, Basic Math, Blackjack, Combat, Indy 500, Star Ship, Street Racer, Surround, and Video Olympics. The game Indy 500 came with 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 found that box art with only game descriptions and screenshots was not enough to sell games in stores, as many games were based on abstract ideas and screenshots provided little information. Atari hired Cliff Spohn to design box art. Spohn created artwork that looked interesting and suggested movement, helping players imagine the game while staying true to how it played. Spohn's style became a standard for Atari, and he trained assistant artists like Susan Jaekel, Rick Guidice, John Enright, and Steve Hendricks. Spohn and Hendricks created most of the covers for Atari 2600 games. Ralph McQuarrie, a concept artist known for Star Wars, was hired to design one cover for the arcade game Vanguard. These artists usually worked with programmers to learn about the games before drawing the art.

In 1978, an Atari VCS version of the Breakout arcade game was released. The original game used black and white with a colored overlay, while the home version was in 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 1 million copies. It sold over 6 million cartridges by 1983 and helped increase console sales. Atari's versions of Asteroids and Missile Command, released in 1981, were also popular.

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

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 the console was renamed from "VCS" to "2600," support for black and white display modes decreased. Most games from this time only used color, and the switch no longer worked. Later games, like Secret Quest, used the switch for gameplay features, such as pausing.

Two Atari games, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Pac-Man, were released in 1982 during the console's peak. These games were rushed to market and are considered factors in the video game crash of 1983.

A company called American Multiple Industries created 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 name for the console and for video games in general. Jay Miner led the development of the next versions of the 2600's TIA chip, called CTIA and ANTIC. These chips were important for the Atari 8-bit computers released in 1979 and later for 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. They mentioned its important role in the first video game boom and the video game crash of 1983, and said it was "the console that our entire industry is built upon."

In November 2021, the current version of Atari announced three new 2600 games to be published 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 model includes three games: Asteroid, Centipede, and Adventure. It also includes a minifigure with a bedroom design inspired by the 1980s.