Atari 2600

The Atari 2600 — originally launched as the Atari Video Computer System (VCS) in September 1977 — is the console that brought video games into millions of American homes and created the home gaming industry as we know it today. Before the 2600, video games were single-game dedicated machines. The VCS changed everything: interchangeable cartridges meant a single console could play dozens, then hundreds, eventually over 500 titles.

The project was born from the minds of Jay Miner (who would later create the Amiga) and Joe Decuir, with a team led by Steve Mayer and Ron Milner. The heart was the MOS Technology 6507 chip — a reduced version of the famous 6502 — paired with Jay Miner's TIA (Television Interface Adapter), handling graphics and audio with just 128 bytes of RAM. Programmers had to perform miracles in that microscopic space.

The 1977 launch was lukewarm: 9 launch games, $199 price, fierce competition from the Fairchild Channel F. Atari nearly went bankrupt. It was Nolan Bushnell's visionary decision to license Taito's Space Invaders arcade game for the 2600 that changed everything: in 1980, Space Invaders became the first "killer app" in home video game history. Sales exploded. Families bought the 2600 specifically to play Space Invaders at home.

From 1979 to 1982, the 2600 dominated the market with over 80% share. Titles like Asteroids, Missile Command, Breakout, Pac-Man, Pitfall! and Adventure defined what a video game was. Adventure introduced exploration and history's first "easter egg." Pitfall! invented the action platformer. River Raid was the first game banned in a country (West Germany).

But success also bred disaster. The cartridge gold rush attracted third-party publishers with no quality control — hundreds of mediocre games flooded the market. The infamous E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), developed in just five weeks for the holiday season, became the crash's symbol: millions of unsold cartridges were buried in the New Mexico desert (recovered in 2014). The 1983 "video game crash" nearly destroyed the entire industry.

Yet the Atari 2600 survived. With over 30 million units sold and production continuing until 1992, it remains one of history's longest-lived consoles. Its games defined entire genres. Its programmers — forced to work in 4 kilobytes — invented programming tricks that still amaze engineers today. Without the 2600, there would have been no NES. Without the crash, Nintendo wouldn't have had an empty market to conquer.