The Atari 2600 is a home video game console created by Atari, Inc. It was first released around September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS). This console helped introduce computer chips into home gaming systems and used game cartridges that could be swapped out, a feature first used in 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, along with the release of the Atari 5200.

During the mid-1970s, Atari was successful in making arcade games. However, the high cost and short lifespan of these games led CEO Nolan Bushnell to search for a home system that could be programmed. In late 1975, inexpensive computer chips 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 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. Some versions, like Breakout and Night Driver, had color graphics, while the original arcade versions used black-and-white images. The first major success of the VCS was the home version of Space Invaders in 1980. In 1980, Adventure was released and became one of the first action-adventure games, containing the first widely known hidden message, or "Easter egg." Starting with Asteroids in 1980, many games used a technique called bank switching to support larger cartridges. By 1982–83, games on the VCS had much 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 companies like Activision and competition from systems 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 describe video games. However, poor decisions by Atari’s leadership hurt the system’s and company’s reputation. This included the release of Pac-Man and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the 2600. While Pac-Man became the best-selling game for the system, it was criticized for not looking like the original arcade version. E.T. was rushed to stores for the holiday season and also received negative reviews. These games, along with many low-quality third-party titles, contributed to the decline of Atari 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, Tramiel’s 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 release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. Production of the Atari 2600 ended in 1992, with an estimated 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, a coin-operated video game released the same year. Pong became the first successful game of its kind. Over the next few years, Atari made new arcade games, but Pong helped create many competitors in the arcade game market. These competitors, along with other problems, caused Atari to have financial difficulties in 1974. By the end of that year, the company recovered. In 1975, Atari released a home version of Pong, which competed with Magnavox, the only other major home console maker at the time. However, Atari engineers noticed that the custom circuits used in the console limited it to only one game. The growing competition made it harder for Atari to stay successful, just as it had with arcade games and earlier home consoles. Both the arcade and home consoles used separate parts, not programmed like a mainframe computer. This made developing a console expensive, costing at least $100,000 (about $598,000 in 2025) and taking time. However, the final product had only about three months of popularity before newer games replaced it.

In 1974, Atari bought Cyan Engineering, a company started by Steve Mayer and Larry Emmons. Mayer and Emmons had previously worked with Bushnell and Dabney at Ampex. Cyan’s engineers, led by Mayer and Ron Milner, imagined a home console using new microprocessors that could play Atari’s arcade games. These microprocessors would make the console easier and more powerful than single-game units. However, the cost of the microprocessors 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, who led the team that created the chip. They suggested using the 6502 in a game console and invited MOS to discuss it further. Over two days, MOS and Cyan engineers designed a console using the 6502. Financial plans showed the $25 price was still too high, so Peddle offered a cheaper version called the 6507 and a chip called RIOT for input/output. Cyan and MOS agreed to buy the 6507 and RIOT for $12 each. MOS also introduced Cyan to Microcomputer Associates, who had created tools for testing the 6502. Milner used these tools to demonstrate a working model of a programmable console by adapting an arcade game called Tank.

Atari wanted another company to make the chips in case MOS could not. 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 leaders the deal was final, and Motorola was upset. It filed a lawsuit against MOS the next week.

By December 1975, Atari hired Joe Decuir, a recent graduate from the University of California, Berkeley, who had tested the 6502. Decuir began fixing problems with the first prototype, which was named “Stella” after Decuir’s bicycle brand. This prototype used a basic design for the graphics interface. 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 graphics and sound to a television. This version included the TIA, a 6507 microprocessor, and a slot for ROM cartridges.

As the TIA was improved, Al Alcorn brought Atari’s game developers to test the console. The 6507, TIA, and other parts had limitations, so programmers found creative ways to use the console’s features. The console lacked a special memory area for graphics, so games had to control the screen’s electron beam directly. Programmers used this to perform tasks while the beam moved off-screen.

At the same time, Bushnell hired 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 finish, and that cartridges should be easy to use and protect against static electricity. He also recommended including four to five built-in games, but this idea was not used in the final design. The cartridge design was done by James Asher and Douglas Hardy. Hardy had previously worked on Fairchild’s Channel F cartridges but left to join Atari in 1976. The inside of the cartridges was different enough to avoid patent issues, but the outside design was similar to Channel F to help with static electricity.

Atari was still recovering from financial problems in 1974 and needed more money to enter the home console market. 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 potential of the video game industry to help its struggling film and music businesses. Talks began in 1976, during which Atari settled a patent lawsuit with Magnavox over Ralph H. Baer’s patents. In mid-1976, Fairchild announced its Channel F console, which would be released later that year, beating Atari to the market.

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

The VCS was shown at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show on June 4, 1977, with plans to sell it in October. The release was delayed to avoid sharing technical details with Magnavox under a patent agreement. However, production problems and testing with cartridges caused delays.

Newspaper ads for the Atari VCS appeared in August 1977, and the console was sold in stores soon after. It cost $199 (about $1,060 in 2025) and came with 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 type of 6502 processor. It operates 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, reducing the maximum memory from 8 KB (2¹³ = 8,192) to 4 KB (2¹² = 4,096). This was enough for early games like Combat, which used only 2 KB. Later games used a method called bank switching to work around this memory limit.

The console has 128 bytes of RAM used for temporary storage, the call stack, and the game's current state.

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 versions moved the difficulty switches to the back. 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 TV standards (NTSC, PAL, or SECAM) using a special switch box as the TV’s antenna.

Atari developed the Television Interface Adaptor (TIA) chip in the VCS to handle graphics and convert signals to TV formats. The TIA uses a single-color, 20-bit background register that covers the left half of the screen (each bit represents 4 pixels) and is repeated or reflected on the right side. It supports five single-color sprites: two 8-pixel wide players, two 1-bit missiles (same color as 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 did not use 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 runs when the TV’s beam is outside the visible area. 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!, changed visuals for each scan line or extended black areas to give more processing time.

Regional versions of the Atari 2600 used modified TIA chips for different TV formats, requiring games to be developed separately for each region. All modes are 160 pixels wide. NTSC mode has 192 visible lines per screen, drawn at 60 Hz, with 16 colors and 8 brightness levels. PAL mode has 228 visible lines per screen, drawn at 50 Hz, with 13 colors. SECAM mode, also 50 Hz, has 8 colors 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, which are similar to paddles but can be continuously rotated, came with the Indy 500 launch game. The CX10 joystick was later 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 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 all 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 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.

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

Console models

The first version of the VCS was made in Sunnyvale in 1977. It used thick plastic for the casing to make it look heavier, even though the inside was mostly empty. The early Sunnyvale models had parts on the casing for possible internal speakers, but the speakers were too expensive to include. Instead, sound was sent through the TIA to the connected television. All six console switches were placed on the front panel. In 1978, production moved to Taiwan, 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 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. Otherwise, these four-switch models looked nearly the same as the earlier six-switch models. In 1982, Atari renamed the console to "Atari 2600" to match the release of the Atari 5200. This name first appeared on a version of the four-switch model without woodgrain, giving it a black appearance. This black model is called the "Vader" model because it resembles the Star Wars character of the same name.

Atari kept its partnership with Sears, which started 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 beginning 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 version of the 2600, even though companies like Epoch had sold the 2600 in Japan before. The 2800 came out shortly after Nintendo’s Family Computer, which became the most popular console in Japan. It did not gain much popularity. Sears had released 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, and about 35 games were later released for it.

Engineer Joe Tilly designed the 2800, which had four controller ports instead of the two on the 2600. The controllers combined an 8-direction joystick and a 270-degree paddle, designed by John Amber. The 2800’s case was shaped like a wedge with non-sticking switches. This design influenced the Atari 7800, which was redesigned by Barney Huang.

A cheaper model from 1986, sometimes called the "2600 Jr.," had a smaller size and a design similar to the Atari 7800. It was advertised as a budget gaming system (under $50) that could play many games. Released after the video game crash of 1983 and after the launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America, the 2600 continued to get new games and TV ads promoting "The fun is back!" Atari made several small design changes, 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 later version of the 2600 that could play older games and 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 games made for the 2600.

Since the original Atari 2600 was no longer in production, several retro-style and microconsoles were made to play 2600 games:

• The TV Boy includes 127 games and has a larger joystick.
• The Atari Classics 10-in-1 TV Game, made by Jakks Pacific, uses ten games and an Atari-style joystick with composite-video output.
• The Atari Flashback 2 (2005) has 40 games, with four more unlocked by a cheat code. It uses recreated chips 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 copy of the 2600 that plays original cartridges.
• The Atari VCS (2021) can download and play 2600 games from an online store.
• The Atari Flashback 12 Gold (2023) includes 130 games.
• The Atari 2600+ (2023) is a smaller replica of the 2600 and works with original 2600 and 7800 cartridges.
• The Atari 7800+ (2024) is a smaller replica of the 7800 and has features similar to the 2600+, but its design honors the 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. 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 with only game descriptions and screenshots was not enough to sell games in stores, as many games were based on complex ideas and screenshots provided little detail. Atari hired Cliff Spohn to design box art. Spohn created artwork that suggested movement and sparked imagination while accurately reflecting gameplay. His style became a standard for Atari, and he trained assistant artists, including Susan Jaekel, Rick Guidice, John Enright, and Steve Hendricks. Spohn and Hendricks created most of the covers 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 worked with programmers to learn about the game before creating 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 1 million copies. It later sold over 6 million cartridges by 1983. This game became a major driver of console sales. Versions of Atari’s own Asteroids and Missile Command arcade games, released in 1981, were also popular.

Launch games used 2K ROMs. By 1980, 4K became standard, as seen in Space Invaders. The VCS version of Asteroids (1981) was the first game to use 8K memory through a method called bank 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 memory.

Many early VCS games could display in both black and white and full color using the "TV type" switch on the console. This allowed games to work on both monochrome and color televisions. However, after the console was renamed "2600," support for black and white display modes decreased. Most games released later only used color, and the TV type switch stopped working. Some later games, like Secret Quest, used the switch for gameplay functions, such as pausing.

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 linked to the video game crash of 1983.

A company called American Multiple Industries made several adult-themed games for the 2600 under the label Mystique Presents Swedish Erotica. The most controversial game, Custer’s Revenge, was protested by women’s and Native American groups because it depicted General George Armstrong Custer raping a bound Native American woman. Atari sued American Multiple Industries in court over the release of this 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—CTIA and ANTIC—which were important parts of the Atari 8-bit computers released in 1979 and later the Atari 5200 console.

The Atari 2600 was added to the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, New York, in 2007. In 2009, the Atari 2600 was named the second-best console of all time by IGN. The website said the console played a major role in 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" brand: Yars' Return, Aquaventure, and Saboteur. These games were previously part of Atari Flashback consoles.

In 2022, Lego released a model of the Atari 2600. The model includes the games Asteroid, Centipede, and Adventure. It also includes a minifigure with a bedroom based on 1980s design.