Atari founders and CEOs Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney realized that home consoles used their own logic built straight onto
the board, allowing variants of just one game. And while Atari could keep turning their arcade games into home consoles, it
would cost $100,000 and would go obsolete in a few months. They had bought out electronic company Cyan Engineering, with
founder and engineer Steve Mayer and co-founder Larry Emmons reuniting with Bushnell and Dabney, who all worked together at
Ampex in the past. The new team started coming up with ideas for new arcade games and how to gain support for multiple
games. They realized that microprocessors were necessary, but they were expensive. In September 1975, the MOS Technology
6502 was introduced. Mayer and fellow engineer Ron Milner met with chip designer Chuck Peddle at Cyan's headquarters to
discuss a potential console and specs. It was priced at $25 a piece, which Atari considered too expensive.
Peddle instead offered (or peddled, lol) two chips for roughly the same price: A cost-reduced descendent
of the 6502 called the 6507 and an input/output chip called the RIOT chip.
In addition, debugging software and hardware were created by Microcomputer Associates for the 6502, which Peddle advised
they use as they make their new console. Milner then made a proof-of-concept demo of Atari's 1974 arcade game Tank (which
came out on the 2600 as Combat and fittingly had a part number of CX-2601).
At the end of 1975, Atari hired novice Joe Decuir to help Steve Mayer by debugging a component for the new console. It also
received the codename "Stella", after Joe's bicycle's brandname of all things.
A second prototype was made in March 1976 by Decuir and engineer Jay Miner, who designed a new chip called the Television
Interface Adaptor (TIA), which provides the video and audio output. This and the 6507 were employed in the design of this
prototype, in addition to the cartridge input and controllers you see here. Interestingly, controllers like these wouldn't
be sold with the console.
A Foe Emerges
Meanwhile, Fairchild Semiconductor introduced their own console called the Fairchild Channel F in November 1976, further
pressuring Atari to finish their console. This was exacerbated by them being low on money after a fiscal year that ended
with only $3,500,000 in profit. Enter Warner Communications, looking to transition from 7-inch vinyl record media which was
losing profitability. They bought Atari for $28,000,000, moving Bushnell to chairman but leaving him as CEO. Another
$100,000,000 was invested into Atari, empowering them to quickly finish up the console. Eventually, it was far enough in
development to be called the Video Computer System (VCS).
Atari sold around 400,000 units from its release on September 11, 1977 to the end of the year. It also has the distinction
of being the longest-supported of any game system in history, being discontinued in
1992 during the 16-bit wars after
over 14 years!
When the system was first released, it had six switches. The first model used thicker material and had
rounded corners. As such, it was called the "Heavy Sixer".
A couple years later, Atari re-released the unit with lighter material and less curves. This model was
called the "Light Sixer".
This model had only four switches on the front and the difficulty switches were put on the back.
The final model of this form factor did away with the pretty woodgrain, and completely blacked the
machine out. It's referred to as the "Darth Vader" model due to this color change. Plus, when this model was unveiled, its
successor the 5200 was released, requiring the VCS name be replaced with the 2600 name.
The final revision of the 2600, released in 1986, uses a design language similar to the 7800 that came out
around the same time.
