10 Things You Didn't Know About The Atari VCS (2600)

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
03:05 - What's In A Name
04:38 - The First Cartridge Game Console?
05:43 - Atari Wasn't Making Money Before Warner
06:56 - Stella!
08:52 - 128 Bytes Of RAM
10:15 - PCBWay Ad
11:11 - Making It Hard For Competitors
13:42 - It Could Have Been Better For $1.25
15:42 - Only A Few Games Were Planned
17:30 - Atari Had The First Screensaver
18:40 - The Magnavox Lawsuit
20:25 - Texas Instruments Misdirection
22:00 - The Chess Lawsuit
24:07 - The Amiga Connection
25:52 - Wrap Up

Music used by permission:
"Rise And Shine" and “Fakebit World” by Malmen

"Pathfinder" by Kubbi

Other music from the YouTube Audio Library

#Retro #Computers #atari

[jdmcs]

I would very much enjoy a "10 Technical Things You Didn't Know (or might have forgotten)" episode on the Atari 2600!

[virgochild]

I sure miss going to CGEXPO in Vegas each summer and seeing all these great Pioneers and hearing their stories! Even went to the first one called "World of Atari".

[adirondacker]

Locking up chip manufacturers story reminds me of a sneaky thing I did in college. I was taking Physics 105, a sort of introductory, hands-on course that had several design contests in its curriculum. We were given specs one day, for a rubber band powered boat contest. Before the day was out, I went to the only hobby shop in town and bought every bit of competition grade rubber band they had in stock. I was a regular customer there, and was friends with the owner. He assured me that it would take a few weeks to restock. I was evil.

[bitset]

The Star Trek poster and Vader helmet are a little crooked.
The Hulk poster looks okay though.
Great video with really good music. Your delivery is really good too! Really well done.
Could I fix those for you though? The poster you know and the helmet?
Just a little tweak?

[MB-nnjw]

That's a nice condition heavy sixer behind you. Plus I found it a very informative video too.

[horusfalcon]

At first, I saw the notification and almost didn't watch: I tend to find this general class of YT videos to be disappointing in one way or another. Then I saw it was Retro Hack Shack. The Shack merits some slack, so here I am. Not too shabby...

[yougetagoldstar]

I was wondering how you could possibly know that I didn't know those 10 things about the Atari; but you were right, I didn't know those things.

[transtremm]

I always wanted to know how the name of the system changed from VCS to the 2600?

[DavidsonL]

Cool. Sim eu tenho muito interesse em saber sobre os aspectos da tecnologia pôr trás do Atari 2600. Aliás foi pensando que o vídeo era sobre este assunto que cheguei até aqui. Yes I can now about of Technologic aspectes of Atari 2600!

[Ranechannel]

I played nintendo first then one of my friends had a bunch of 2600 games and the console, I played alot of his games, like Pitfall, Moonsweeper, Dragonfire ext. I thought it was much less detailed, but still cool, and then I saw the Colecovision system, and Intellivision, I'm still amazed how many interesting systems came out before the Nes did.

[Sinn]

How much of the 13 did I know...maybe 2 or 3 entries. I started gaming in 1986 with the Nes and Sega Master System. I had no experience with an Atari anything until the Jaguar released in 1994. Further still, I am a 5th generation collector (and up) so all of this might as well be in ancient Egyptian algebra and math is not my strong suit.

Addendum- I am very interested in Atari's history and I just purchased my very first VCS from a garage sale last week. I got a working in box Atari 2600 Vader 4-switch with 50 games all but 3 are complete. The person that owned this VSC before me was definitely a true gamer as most of them are considered the best for the generation. If you're interested in seeing a list of the 50 games let me know and I will gladly post them here.

[aromad]

Aren’t exclusive deals acts associated with monopolies? Why is this allowed? Antitrust laws?

[mcorleonep]

What gets me is awhile after the lawsuit with Magnavox, is that Atari sued them for their Pac-Man clone (KC Munchkin) for the Odyssey 2 system saying it was too much like their Pac-Man which they had just bought the rights to. Atari won and Magnavox was forced to cease production of their game which turned out to be superior to the 2600 version of Pac-Man. Talk about shady business practices…

[giantlobsterboy]

I do not understand any of this programming / tech stuff. It's not my field of interest.

[LasseHuhtala]

Yes! I have Joe's password. Mua ha ha.