Atari VCS / 2600 | The Console that Launched an Industry 

A special thank you to Neil who loaned his 2600 and games collection to The Cave to share with you. The 2600 was a generation before I got on board with computers and gaming, and it wasn't anywhere near as big in the UK as the US so I enjoyed learning more about it. What are your memories of Atari's line of consoles? Neil - RMC

Just another example of how the very best You-tubers are hitting near BBC levels of production, editing, research and overall top notch quality. Truly spiffing stuff, well done.

Growing up in the 80s was awesome! So happy to have been a GenXer

I got mine as a Christmas present in '79. I remember even correctly guessing what was in the box. I still have it, too, and still play it. There's something about those old, simple games that just can't be completely replaced by modern games.. There was this sense of excitement about the games. You'd see a new cartridge and it was this mysterious thing...you had no idea what the game was about, and you'd pop it in the console and have to learn about it by playing, because who read the instructions? Trading the games around with your friends was another part of gaming that's sadly mostly gone. Hours spent in front of my mom's old Curtis Mathis console tv playing Yar's Revenge until I got blisters on my thumbs. I'd have never thought games would look and sound like they do today, either.

I remember buying a copy of Space Invaders with the money I got for my September birthday, many moons ago. Only problem being that I didn't get the actual 2600 itself until Christmas. For 3 long months that box and its contents tormented me, and you know how much slower time seems to go when you're a kid.

What a great video and history lesson. As a youngster in the 1970's and 80's, even though to today's standards the video game systems look really basic, it was a really exciting time. There were several different systems on the market but I always considered the Atari 2600 as the 'holy grail' of the console world.

I was born the same year as Atari 2600 was launched. And i wanted it, but my parents couldnt afford it. Then i did see my friends C64, and it was awesome. But couldnt afford it. But then i tried NES, only one of my friends could afford it, and it was the most awesome thing ive ever seen, and i told my parents i would get a NES no matter what. I didnt have enough money for it yet, and then suddenly and surprisingly my father came home with an Amiga500. Man was i happy, it was better then anything, and my friends would come visit often to try it. I miss those days..

I have a good sized collection of VCS's. The memories are found because although they weren't as good looking as the arcade it was still mesmerizing to have anything that could play games in a similar fashion at home. Words can't describe how I felt as I looked at what was on the screen and thought about how the machine was making them work! LOL... I guess that's what makes me the dork I am. Anyways, a few friends had one, I did not. When I asked my grandma for a video game system she actually came home from Montgomery Ward with a Bally Astrocade. At first I was like "this isn't Atari!"... but then I played it and saw how much better it was. Eventually Atari lost it's luster as I played games on a C64 and then the NES came out and just plain put it to shame, but all these years later I absolutely love it not only for how it first made me feel as a kid but also for what it represents in the history of it all - a turning point in video gaming.

To me, the Atari 2600 is a bit like a Beatles album. I've never owned one, have no fondness for it, but recognise the impact it had on everything that came after. Great video, as usual. My first computer was a C64 which my dad brought home in 1986 (I was 6). It's amazing how much fondness you have for your first machine.

The first game I ever played or even saw was Combat on the Atari 2600. I can still remember my amazement that you could interact with things on the TV. Flying those planes and making the other guy (my friend, Daniel, who owned it) spin when you hit them... That was it - it was the best thing I'd ever seen and I was into games forever more. Great video as always, mate, high quality stuff.

THANK YOU for using a 6-switcher Atari as the example of the "original" Atari VCS. It's a pity it's not the rare heavy-sixer but at least it's not a four-switcher.

I still have the mazes memorized from Adventure. It's weird how I still remember those mazes after 40 years.

*MY* *Early* *Childhood* *In* *One* *Video* Thank you _RMC_ you Legend.

Neil, what a fantastic retrospective, good memories. I did play my very first home video games (apart from pong of course) on the 2600 and Pitfall was my favourite one. Short after that I was given a Colecovision at the age of nine, it still sits in the basement and is in pretty good shape.

Very nice retrospective... The Atari VCS was the very first console that I purchased, at the age of 11. I spent the Spring and early Summer of 1978 mowing lawns, combined with my allowance, to get the money to buy it. My library would grow only modestly, of course. In the end, it grew to a humble 15 titles, and was my mainstay until my attention turned to Atari computers in 1980... Anyway, My little collection was comprised mostly of the arcade favorites that I had played in the arcades. Games like Breakout, which honestly was an upgrade on the VCS, given that the arcade original was just black and white with colored overlays on the screen. I still remember that vivid color palette of bricks on the screen like it was yesterday... :) Call it midlife, or whatever - a few years ago, I managed to pick one up just like the one I had - older really, as it's not only a heavy sixer, but it also came with the original design Joysticks that used spring loaded contacts, paddles with the Atari logo instead of the later revised "Paddle" notation, and 8 of the launch releases, complete in their gatefold boxes. Anyway, over time, I've been able to curate and recover the games originally in my collection and add about 40 more games that I believe to be ones that "defined" what it was like to own an Atari back then. Although I don't actively collect for it now, there are probably 8-10 more games I'd like to add to my collection. Believe it or not, it's the one console of several generations worth that I own, that gets the most commentary by guests. "You still have one of those?!" is the usual response I get, haha.

I'm indebted to the guy who worked in my video game shop. I nearly bought Pac-Man when I was 7 with my birthday money but the guy said get Pac-Man Jr instead. I was slightly worried when I first saw the box but in time I realised he saved my life. What a legend.

I've seen much of this information elsewhere before, but never presented so thoroughly and succinctly. I was also pleasantly surprised by the first-gen coverage, which is usually skipped by youtubers. This might be the definitive video on the system, in my opinion.

Many of the 2600’s games didn’t hold up very well over the years, but there are some fun competitive head-to-head games like Activision’s Tennis, Freeway, Ice Hockey, M Network’s Frogs and Flies, and Atari’s Super Football, Outlaw & Warlords. For 1 player there’s Activision’s HERO, River Raid, Keystone Kapers, Pitfall II & Seaquest and Atari’s Phoenix, Berserk, Ms Pac Man

This VCS/2600 was my first console/computer of any kind, and I will always have very fond memories of it. Thanks for the walk down memory lane, and for filling in the many blanks I had about its history. Also the Argos catalogues - they're fantastic! :)

Thanks for the lovely story. I'm from Romania and I was born in 1979. Here at that time we were restricted by communism so this kind of technology, PC or consoles, was rare among people's homes. Only after the 89 revolution we were able to catch up with other countries. But by that time PC's were also in vouge , so we kinda got all of them in almost one shot. In 1993 one year before high school, we got our first IT classroom and I saw for the first time a PC. Actually there were 2 types HC-90 and CIP-03. In that year I also played for the first time on an Atari 2600. It was the first generation. For me it was already an old console but I still liked it, it was a pice of history and gaming legacy.

The Atari VCS wasn't my first tv game. I had the pong clones and also a multi cart system from Sheen that played Pong, Breakout, Tank, Submarine and Stunt Cycle. It was actually very good for its time and sold under a variety of names and different cases and controllers around the world. It introduced me to the fun of having multiple cartridges so I could play more games, but the games library never grew. I played it to death, but was ready when the Atari VCS made it to Australia and started being heavily promoted in the late 70's early 80's. The Atari VCS gave me a library MUCH bigger even in the early days, but I recall even back then, some early titles were quite lacklustre. That started to change quickly though and companies like Imagic, Parker and Activision really pushed the hardware hard to create an awesome collection of games and forced Atari to catch up in the process. Having a game system with arcade titles was a genuine novelty as was the concept that the library of games grew each month. Then there was the stack of games magazines that came with it, hinting at new releases and game systems that were either not yet in Australia or never likely to (Atari 5200). I played that system for thousands of hours and will always have a soft spot for the Atari, but really my heart is with the Colecovision. It combined better graphics (still passable today) and some great arcade ports. Still the Atari VCS really kicked them all along and I have nothing but fond memories of that system. Like any system Jay Miner touched, it was pretty special for its time.

You've outdone yourself yet again - riveting to watch, excellent production values - i especially liked the silhouette effect in the photos. I love the longer documentary / mini documentary style videos you do, even though I've read up on these systems, their history etc, there's always loads of information that I didn't know in these videos, which keeps me coming back time and again for more content. Well done indeed!

Mmmm... woodgrain :)

I was 10 and for over one year I begged my parents for an 2600. When I finally got it on Christmas '83 with Pacman, Adventure and Berzerk, I sold it only six(!) weeks after that, because I had literally seen the "game changer" through a store window: A Commodore 64 running "International Soccer"! Compare Atari's "Real Sports Soccer" to that and you know why... :D I took the money and bought a Quickshot 2 and some floppy disks, and for one year lived in different stores every afternoon, playing on their computers, until I finally got my own at Christmas '84. But the 2600 was were everything started for me: Videogaming, which I still do 35 years later and my career as a computer scientist during the last 25 years.

I currently own one. I bought my "woody" earlier this year at a yard sale for just £10 as a project. Getting it working was really easy because the RF cable had come disconnected from the board inside, so after plugging it back in and connecting to a TV, it worked.

An excellent video and overall retrospective. Well done Neil!

Great stuff Neil! The first techology that my brother and I played so much as kids. Recently got back into it buying a Vadar for me and a few Jrs which I've cleaned up for resale. A active market at AtariAge has some wonderful new titles such as Scramble and Mappy for those still playing 👍

Stunning work as usual Neil, thank you! A great and complete insight into its history. In my early days we owned a 2600 Jr. alongside a Super Nintendo. One would think the 2600 Jr. would get his fair share of neglect with the Super Nintendo as its direct competitor, but me and my brother played it quite a bit. The simple gameplay of many titles (boxing and basketball for instance) made for some good times. Unfortunately our 2600 Jr. was asigned to his new home at the local garbage disposal at some point...

When one looks at the specification of the 2600, one really has to wonder what black magic the programmers at Activision were doing.

I love the 2600. It’s iconic, it looks and sounds take me right back to the dawn of video gaming. It’s a very special machine! Great video.

I remember my 2 year older cousin having a Sears Tele-games console at his house (a rebranded Atari 2600). My sister and I asked for an Atari 2600 for Christmas 1980. We were immersed into a world of video games! We'd share game cartridges with friends, etc. I got a few T-shirts from Activision by taking Polaroid pictures of the screen with certain game scores, and mailing the picture to Activision, which also netted a subscription to this magazine. This was the first computing device in our home. We later purchased a TRS-80 Color Computer (the first proper computer in the house), which I learned to program by hitting the manuals. When my mother decided to pursue a Master's degree, she bought an Apple //e. I built my first electronics for this computer, and, surprise of all surprises, when I entered college in the fall of 1990, I pursued studies in Electrical and Computer engineering. I changed my major to computer science, and graduated with that degree (Bachelor's). I've been working professionally with computers and information technology since 1996!

what a great morning. coffee and a puff with RMC. great video and a great perspective on things from as you say someone who wasnt knee deep in the atari at the time of its release.

Great vid as ever Neil. Thanks!

I see Atari 2600 and press like without hesitation. My first console ever when I was a kid. A 2600Jr. So much memories!!!!! Now i have 3 :p Recently I did a video mod and bought a SD cart for all my retro fun.

Absolutely terrific video, Neil - I didn’t want it to end. Informative content and beautifully put together. Superb work! I love that you powered on through the lengthy, single-take closing summary despite knocking the cartridge, too. I’m a little too young to remember the VCS, however prior to my family purchasing the Amiga A500 in the Christmas of 1988, I recall buying a simple sports-oriented Pong TV game from a jumble sale for a fiver. It was a simple grey box with 10 or so red buttons to select games, and two analogue sticks attached. Very basic, but it kept me, my sister and my Dad entertained for months. Keep up the excellent work!

Appreciate the effort you went through in making this, thank you for yet another great video :)

Gazes up affectionately at the Light Sixer on the shelf behind me that I spent hundreds of hours playing on as a kid, including a few on Pac Man. Great video, thanks Neil!

Had one when they first came out. Made me an Atari fan for life. Moved onto a Atari 800, and Atari 800XL, an Atari 130XE, an Atari ST520, an Atari Mega4 and Atari Laser before finally throwing in with PCs and Nintendo SNES, Nintendo 64, Playstation, PS2, PS3 and now PS4. Will no doubt get a PS5 whenever they make it out the door. I still look back on my Atari days as the best.

Great effort, well put together. Thank you!

Ahh, this is what started it all for me. My dad brought this home to me for christmas 1980, and my world changed. It kept me interested for a long time, with all the great early games like Asteroids, Space Invaders, Combat and Galaxians. Loved them all. Then, that magical day in the summer of 1983, we discovered the Commodore 64, my dad and I.. And the rest is history. Superb video as usual, thanks for your continued efforts. :)

My first console was one of those Pong clones, but then my parents bought me a "Woody" 2600 when I was 6 or 7. I loved that thing and played Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Demons to Diamonds, Megamania, Air-Sea Battle, Frogger, Spider-Man and Superman for hours. Happy memories. Megamania is still one of my favourite shmups to this day, and I can still lose hours playing it on my MiSTer FPGA unit. It's incredible to think how such a compelling, addictive, slick game was created within the constraints of such primitive hardware. Those programmers were true geniuses, in every sense of that word.

Nice video, Neil, as usual. I especially liked the dissolve at 6:46. Bravo! This was an odd video for me to watch. I'm sat here at 'work' watching an RMC retrospective on the VCS, and I keep glancing over at my own VCS next to me (that I now know to be a Hong-Kong 'lighter-6'). It's a hard life but mustn't grumble.

Very well done video. Very professional and knowledgeable. You have a new subscriber.

Nice one! Very enjoyable look back on the VCS :)

I’ll never forget the day my Father brought home an Atari VCS along with Space Invaders and Pac-Man in 1982. It blew my mind that I could take control of the action on the TV screen. I’d had a few handheld electronic games before that, but the Atari cemented my love of computer games.

Thankies for the wonderful memories! I had a VCS sometime in the early 80s and Defender and Swordquest really lit up my imagination and enthusiasm for gaming! Activision, IMagic and the others were awesome developers, and looking back after 30 years and some education about programming, it's great watching the evolution of the craft! Also, I *KNOW* I'm not the only one who gave themselves "forehead hickeys" with the joystick covers!

Wonderful video, really gives a true picture of the life time of the 2600 and it's impact in the marketplace. Bizarre management decisions, why make 12 million copies like that, was there a discount the bigger the order and then to follow that mistake with the same thinking on ET. I wonder if this is why Nintendo stock always seemed to be low when consoles launched, to be safe if a failure but also drive demand if a success by being the elusive must have item?

This system was the first step into my videogame-addiction. The best Christmas-gift ever. My parents can't afford a new one, they got a used from a friend. The woody deluxe version, with a few cartridges (Asteroids, Jungle Hunt, Star Wars - Empire strikes back). Amazing graphics, so realistic (hey, was in the 80's, lol) Since then, always had a console or computer.

Excellent video! I enjoyed it much and learned quite a lot thanks to you. They do still make the 2600's to this day as the Atari Flashback. I think the FB8 got good reviews, too. At this point it looks like the 2600 will outlive all of us.

Always great content on this channel. Lots of great stuff I didn’t know about Atari! Mercifully no keyboards were retrobrighted like most retro channels!

Great retrospective, haven't seen such a deep look into those old machines.. Leave it to RMC, hehe. Enjoyed especially learning about the technical stuff. Oh man that Videopac brings back (bad) memories. My uncle would've gave me a Videopac with a good bunch of games for free, but my dad somehow couldn't get it to show image on our tv, so my uncle took it back and gave it to someone else. You can probably guess I that wasn't the happiest day of my life. Man would that thing been cool to have as a kid.

Excellent video thanks for your hard work.

I still have mine from '84. My father bought it as a present when we were in Italy. It is the Darth Vader edition of course with Defender. I sometimes take it of the drawer and play with it for a while just for the old days sake. 😎👍

Finally discovering this channel and looking at these great documentaries. I had to laugh at how many times "Star Raiders" is filmed, front and center, while hearing all about some of the moves in the industry. I think the editor was trying to tell us something, there.

Awesome video mate!

Great video. I Fondly remember the VCS we had back in 1980. I didn't realize the variety of 1st gen systems that existed.

I really enjoyed this episode, thanks for making it.

Informative & well made - THX!

Your production quality is worthy of being shown on TV.

Hahaha. Such a timeless classic this unit is Neil. I do have to say, that we didn't grow up with the 2600. We started off with the Colecovision. But we have to admit that this unit help make mainstream video games what it is for sure bro. Nice work as always Neil. Keep it up. 8^) Anthony..

I remember for a while Woolworths had a display of Pongs, constantly surrounded by kids playing them including me. It seemed amazingly advanced at the time. Even then it was however apparent that all the different models were exactly the same thing in different boxes.

Subscribed to this channel last week. It was a good move.

Great review of a legendary gem, and a gem of a review video. Thanks for making these

As the Atari 2600 was the first console I use to play and that we had in the family, there's so much nostalgia wrapped in the wood veneered box. Great coverage on it's history and importance to gaming.

Although I’m slightly north of 50 years of age, I fondly remember getting my Atari 2600 for Christmas. I was initially a bit dismayed as I was hopeful for the Magnavox Odyssey II since it more resembled a computer which to me was especially fascinating since i was madly in love with the show Space : 1999. Nonetheless the 2600 would give me countless hours across many years of wonderful playtime with my cousins, neighbors, and friends. I did manage to get my Odyssey II...in 1995 when I was about 30 years old. It was certainly worth the wait. I especially enjoyed the early console retrospective you gave here instead of merely diving head-first into the 2600. Wonderfully done - thank you for your efforts.

I was born in '85 and received my first game console (an NES Power Set) for Christmas '89. I got an Atari VCS (a Woody Four Switch) CiB with 2 joysticks, 2 paddle controllers, and a shit-ton of games, and I mean a "shit-ton" (with all their respective manuals), from my much older cousins when they moved to Spain a few years later. It could only hold my attention for about an hour or so whenever I turned it on. NES games were ages ahead in terms of planning, design, and overall quality. It was nice having it though, as it made me appreciate my NES a lot more. P.S. Hockey was actually really fun for how simplistic it was and E.T. is nowhere near as bad as everyone online makes it out to be (good thing I had the manual to read before playing).

Nice work as always. A couple of things of interest that might be worth adding - Firstly, Grandstand obtained a license from Fairchild to produce the console in the UK under their name. The 'Grandstand Video Entertainment Computer' competed with the 2600 there and it did enjoy some popularity. Secondly, in the early 80s, Coleco were a major competitor and made an addon for their console which allowed all 2600 games to be played on their Colecovision machine - Atari sued, and it was settled out of court.

The first console I owned was a gand-me-down Atari 2600 and a box of games. Loved it and still play to this day!

Quite enjoyable and entertaining video. Thanks.

I play my Vader 2600 with S-video mod on a modern LCD using an upscaler. I think the popular games for it have held up pretty well.

Great video! As an Atari collector, I think this is awesome!

What a fab history lesson thank you Neil brilliant

I remember playing Pong in a bar at Aspen, Colo. in 1973. We were all amazed. (this was the era of pinball) However I never got interested in home video games, preferring coin-operated arcade games. But recently I sat in on a class on the Tiva Launchpad controller board (similar to the Raspberry Pi) which got me interested in chip architecture which has gotten me further interested in the early (and groundbreaking) 8088 and 6502 chips that started the home computing revolution.

At the time, no one I knew was even aware of the crash in 1983. Everyone had an Atari, everyone kept buying games and playing them right up to the release of the NES and even after.

Great video, as always. Not only do we have Jay Miner to thank for chips like the TIA in the 2600 but also Joe Decuir, another Amiga designer, for the 2600 9 pin joystick port. This port became a de facto standard for a number of other computers, including the Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC and Sega consoles.

I really enjoy all the videos you do on restoring old systems. After years of begging, my parents finally dug my Atari 2600 out of their basement and sent it to me. The majority of the parts and cartridges are extremely dirty and only partially functional. It would be great if you could get your hands on an old 2600 and restore it and its joystick!

I remember the Atari 2600. It was my first games machine / console. I purchased it with my pocket money and it came with space invaders. I got so good at it and could clock it(i.e. get past 10,000 points where it would reset to 0 again) Next in line was the commodore 16,vic20, an intelivision, numerous commodore 64's, commodore 128, about 10 Amiga 500's, Amiga 600 x 2 , Amiga 1200 x 2, a few pc's, a few playstation 2's

Got one of those early,Wooden veneer ones from an uncle who was in the RN,his ship stopped at a USA base for a break.Truly a revolution in home entertainment to this one little kid,back then.only ever seen another veneer one on youtube.

14:06 Hey! That's a Input magazine collection right there in the background! I used to love reading these as a child!

Great video! 👍

I've gotten rid of a lot of my video game collection over the years but the 2600 is one console that I will always hold on to. I've got several variants (and a couple of 7800s and two Coleco Geminis) along with over 250 carts. So much crap was released on the system but there are still so, so many influential games that still hold up over the decades. I also finally caved (no pun intended) and bought a Harmony cartridge so I can just play games off a SD card.

Thank you for a great informative video, great history. Keep up the good work. God bless.🙏

Great story! I could listen to you all day :D You should be a teacher!

I was born in 84 and remember as a young kid My dad bringing home the 4 switch woody model for my family/older sister. Only games I remember are Pitfall and Qbert. Ah nostalgia

Awesome, really well produced .... // remember playing on an old Atari at a Cub Scout fundraiser in the late 70s ... we were charged 10 pence per game ... first time I played outside of an arcade ... amazing ... great memories ....

Although this story is elsewhere on RU-vid it was nice to hear it from Neil. Beginning of a series perhaps? Also PacMan was re-written for the VCS later on and it was amazing..

I can't believe you dissed Burt Reynold's 'tache. Ron Milner's facial hair is terrifying though.

Great video, thank you!

I think people who entered this field at the start probably had one of these. I had played in the arcade, followed by a home pong machine. I can't quite remember but got a VCS in 80/81. Next was Spectrum, C64, Amiga, PS1, PS2, Win XP PC along with PS3 up to current date.

I owned an Odyssey 2 :) My first computer :) I LOVED Pick Axe Pete :) The voice add on was REALLY cool :)

Awesome video

Hey just discovered you channel loved this review 👍brought back so many memories I was always disappointed with Pac-Man conversion but had not idea there were so many complaints! Interesting and very insightful thank you 🙏

That Computer Space cabinet 💕

The 2600 Jr was my first game system, bought for me by my parents from Argos for £20 in 1990/1

Great Video!!!

It is also a system that keeps surprising in the amount its boundaries can be pushed. Judging by its meagre specs, you'd never guess the breadth of its library.

My first console 1982 a huge deal to me as an 11 year old.Amazing to me at the time.Great memories.

Great tip/ hack for Space Invaders cartridge that I always performed when playing it on the VCS - I forget the combination now - perhaps a search on youtube will confirm - but put in the cart and jiggle the power on/off switch in quick succession and you could then play invaders with double firing turned on!

Very nice insight! Atari forever!!!

It must be where LGR gets his love of wood-grain. I do remember the underwhelming Pac Man game. One of my favorites was Pitfall from Activision.