Presented in Retrovision: The Atari VCS 2600
As the years of my adolescence have passed, technology has evolved as a speed I would have never dreamed. Photo-realistic 3d graphics, 7.1 channel spatially positioned audio, wireless controllers and mass storage have all become a staple in the game industry. Spoiled, we expect nothing else. Anything less than the latest and greatest is usually met with almost immediate pessimism and grief. It is easy praise the marvels of today's gaming technology and the bounds it has taken since the years of my youth. This week in Presented in Retrovision, I will instead be remembering where it all began. In memorandum of its recent 30th birthday, I present to you that Atari Video Computer System (2600).
The Atari VCS’ life began in 1973. Code-named “Stella”, the infant VCS was the work of the recently acquired think tank Cyan Industries. The project was simple enough, design a machine capable of playing a interchangeable games with a microprocessor at the core. At the time this concept was revolutionary. It would allow games to be marketed at a fraction of the cost of other systems. The cartridge based designed allowed games to be distributed for the cost of a Chip, some board and a case. Atari was not alone in their ambitions. Only to be beaten to the market by Fairchild Semiconductor, Atari was forced to push production forward faster than they anticipated. Atari needed to reach production level as quickly as possible, anticipating a flood of copy-cat console. With the now dwindling sales of Pong and the increasing necessity for fast cash, Atari was sold to Warner with the promise that the VCS would be finished as quickly as possible.
The system was officially released and marketed through Sears, Roebuck and Company in 1977. It was a rocky birth, Initial sales for the system were less than stellar. By 1978 just over half a million units were sold. The lackluster sales placed an unnecessary strain on Atari, causing friction between head Nolan Bushnell and Warner. With heated arguments and conflicting interests, Nolan would resign shortly before the VCS would truly blossom. Developers became more experienced and the market noticed. The system was capable of much more than Pong and Breakout. Translated arcade titles like Space Invaders drew in the attention of the public and by the end of 1979 the system was the hottest selling console on the market, as well as the gift to give for the holiday season.
The peaking success for the VCS was short lived. Atari maintained a strict policy of anonymity in their video games. Developers were not allowed to take credit for their work. Atari also held the exclusive rights for the software created for the system. The game designers were paid a meager sum, compared to the millions Atari was netting. Disgruntled, several of the developers had left and started a third-party software company named Activision. While not an immediate threat, Atari sued the developers in an attempt to prevent unlicensed developers from releasing software from their system. Ultimately, the courts ruled the unlicensed software legal. This sparked a flood of software companies such as Imagic and Coleco. Further legal battles took place with the company Mystique over their infamous title Custard's Revenge. Atari's foot hold was further shaken. Atari began to release sub-standard licensed titles and the market responded poorly. Games like Pac-Man and E.T. were rush to market, hoping to regain profits and meet holiday schedules. The flood of software and poor decisions of Atari would ultimately lead to the video game crash of 1983, and the eventual sale of the company in 1984. The system finally called it quits in 1990 with it's last official title Klax.
The VCS was the first system I owned as a child. I don't remember the crash, as I was too young to really understand the concept of economics. I loved E.T. and I still have my copy sitting in an attic. My fervor for the system would not be revitalized until I was preparing for college. I had taken up an interest in computer hardware and some how managed to become entranced by the hardware behind the VCS. It was at the same time complicated and simple. Every aspect of the system was calculated, but flexible in ways I had not seen. The hardware ultimately became the thing I recognize the most about the system.
I will take a moment to disclaim that the following is needlessly technical. The Atari was designed around three chips: The 6507, RIOT and TIA. The 6507 is a cost-reduced 6502 microprocessor, the brain of the machine. The 6507 maintained all the arithmetic functionality of the original, they only eliminated the unneeded interrupt logic and three lines of the addressing bus were removed. The RIOT (Acronym for RAM I/O Timer) was an off the shelf peripheral chip. Very popular with arcade system engineers, it provided: two I/O ports, general-purpose ram and a programmable timer. These two chips would supply the glue for the hardware as well as two of the major limitations. The system only allowed for 4kB programs and 128 bytes of system memory.
Finally is the TIA, the real “heart and soul” of the VCS. The TIA was truly a marvel of engineering for it's time. The entire design consisted of approximately 1000 transistors, paltry in comparison to the millions in a single modern chip. The TIA was the aptly named Television Interface Adapter. It's purpose was to generate picture and sound for the machine. The most fascinating part of the chip is it contained almost no memory. Programmers were required to generate a picture one horizontal line at a time, operating the chip with strict timing restrictions. The chip did however provide a significant level of flexibility. Since the chip essentially relied so heavily on the software, developers quickly discovered tricks that the TIA was not originally designed for. It is still one of the most enigmatic designs of all time. Only recently has the anatomy of the TIA and it's various secrets been understood.
For most people this is where it all began. The VCS was a national past time, and Atari was a household name. No other console can say that it single handedly created and destroyed an industry. No other company been so absorbed into popular culture due to entirely to one product. Even today products centered around the VCS are still being manufactured and marketed in major retailers. If there is one thing that the creators of the system should be, it is proud.
Asterick
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 4 October 2007
· Comments (6)
Other stuff like this: 2600, atari, console, ET, retrovision, vcs, video game crash of 1983
Hey there... I really dislike commenting on stuff just to be negative, but this article is pretty poorly written. From spelling mistakes/typos in the first and second-last sentences (among many others) to an undeservingly bombastic opening (really, you're ALARMED by the speedy development of graphics processors?) to a general lack of style and strange, strange tone... I dunno, this article doesn't really meet the standard of quality I've come to enjoy from this site.
Best,
- Christopher
Dont for get the Supercharger...it was released by Arcadia who was eventually forced to change their name to Starpath due to the fact another company named Arcadia released another video game system around the same time.
The Starpath Supercharger was an 6k upgrade "cartridge" for the 2600 that plugged into a casette player's line out jack. That's right...all the games for it were on tape!
The cool thing is, the games could contain several "parts" simply by having the player finish one part then pushing play on the casette player which would then load the next section.
I still have one...the best game for it was a game called Escape From the Mindmaster which featured a really cool smoothly scrolling 3-D maze and some of the best graphics the 2600 would ever produce.
More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starpath_Supercharger
The starpath was fantasic! Especially for homebrewers. THe 6k of ram was unheard of! Unfortunately, I've never actually seen one in person. I know that the thing was freaking massive.
I could go on for ages about the VCS, I'm a bit of a fan. Unfortunately, time and space are both extreme limiting factors on these things. I find that I have to talk too much about stuff I don't like, and too little on stuff that I do.
Pitfall II Poly8 Audio mixing cartidge mapper FTW!
Also, Coleco wasn't a start-up during the videogame era (its original name was Connecticut Leather Company) and the infamous Mystique title was "Custer's Revenge". No custard was ever shown on screen.
Technically, yes, coleco was not a startup, but it did begin it's entry into the video game world under the name "Coleco" for the VCS.
And if only Custard's Revenge was about the dessert.
Sorry, but you're wrong about that. Coleco was making Pong clones under the name "Coleco" as early as 1975. They also didn't release any third-party games for the VCS/2600, nor their Gemini clone system, until after they had already released the Colecovision in 1982. (The console makers may have made third-party games back in those days, but they retained exclusivity for some months or years before releasing them, and Coleco's ports in particular were usually pretty bad.)