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120 Comments
- lordmike, on 03/31/2009, -0/+70More than that.... there was no video memory... your code had to actually draw the graphics as the scanline was drawn on the screen. There was some hardware to help you with that (2 sprites, 2 missiles, and a ball) and that was it. Background graphics had a resolution of 40 pixels total, and you could only draw on one half side of the screen (the other side would be mirrored)... because of its simplicity, you could do all sorts of tricks to give you more sprites, colors, resolution, etc, but it was hard work!! Remember, you had to draw graphics in real time, and had one scanline of video buffer... oh, and you had 128 bytes of RAM. That's right... bytes! I'm amazed that anyone managed to successfully program anything on that thing, and yet, some great games were created!
- atomicpoet, on 03/30/2009, -1/+64Think about it: The 2600 games had graphics, music, and gameplay compressed in 2k. Think about it. That's awesome.
- twiztidsinz, on 03/31/2009, -0/+40No.
Modern PCs aren't yet powerful enough to emulate an Atari 2600. - doctechnical, on 03/30/2009, -0/+24Hand-crafted assembly at it's finest.
- Chordonblue, on 03/31/2009, -0/+21I just want to add one more comment. A lot of people here has dissed the 'old' games as being too simplistic or repetitive (and they were), but you folks are missing the point.
Back in the 70's, most of us didn't grow up with video games. Pong was an interesting curiosity, but it wasn't until the 2600 that gaming became more than a simple fad. For the first time, kids got their hands on a controller. There were no focus groups, no roadmap for game developers, and many of them grew up in the 60's so although the resolution and colors on the canvas were limited, the sky was the limit - no idea was too crazy. Try comparing that to most of what today's games are simplistically binned as: FPS shooter, RPG, RTS, etc.
But I would be lying if I told you that I stopped gaming after the 70's - of course I didn't. I can tell you that at points (especially in the late 80's, early 90's) I was VERY disappointed with the direction game development had taken. Consider that on my old Atari 400 computer, I could play a space shoot game (Rescue on Fractalus), that had real time fractally generated terrain and terrific gameplay. It wouldn't be until MUCH later on the Amiga that anything close came to that same arcade space shoot 'em up (Elite II - Frontiers). However, during that long wait, if I wanted another driving game or beat 'em up, I was good to go. :P
Fast forward 20 years later and I'm a dad of a recently diagnosed autistic child. Autistic kids are locked in their own little world, often not able to make sense of their senses. Benji loved watching me play games on my Dreamcast, but couldn't make sense of the controls as they related to what was going on, onscreen.
Someone released an ISO with a 2600 emulator+games and I started playing the old Asteroids, Defender II, and Vanguard again, and a strange thing happened. Benji wanted to play. Unfortunately, the Dreamcast controller was too big for his little 3 year old hands so I got the idea to dig out my old 2600 - the one with the Slick Stick (for those who remember). The Slick Stick had a much smoother and easier to control design and it was GREAT for Benji who didn't seem to care if it was upside down or sideways - he was CONTROLLING things! :)
It was then that I realized that the 2600, and consoles like it, were exactly what was needed way back when. And in the case of my son, no other type of controller would do, and if the games were any more complex than most of the ones on the Atari, Benji would have been interested.
A basic 8-way joystick and big fire button to mash HUGE pixelated asteroids on my 50" HDTV was enough to induct my son into gaming heaven. I remember those who mocked the Wii's controller as being too Fisher-Price simplistic, but I wonder if someone at Nintendo came to the same conclusion I did - not everyone wants a 32 button, analog/digital controller. Sometimes the art of simplicity is in the eye of the beholder. - doctressjulia, on 03/30/2009, -0/+21I still play my 2600... I love Warlords, Burgertime, and Cosmic Ark.
- inactive, on 03/31/2009, -0/+17Way to ruin all the fun captain buzzkill!
lol, no actually what you said was the most interesting thing I've read in ages. Thanks! - aurorous, on 03/31/2009, -0/+16It started at 2kb but most games were in the 4-8kb range after programmers figured out how to switch between multiple ROM chips. I think the largest games were 16kb. Every 2600 game ever made could easily fit on 3 1.44MB floppy disks.
- inactive, on 03/31/2009, -0/+15Game play, people. That's what gets lost sometimes with all the bells and whistles these days is the game play. Back then, game play was king and everything else was secondary. *old man voice* I tell ya, they don't make 'em like they used to.
- one1plus1one, on 03/31/2009, -0/+14Quick tip about a bug in the 2600-Space-Invaders-Cartridge that not many people know about:
If you put in the cartridge, and play with the on/off switch in just such a way (moving the switch to the half-way position, and then back to the on position rapidly) you'll see a sudden screen appear in which your base-ship is firing off multiple missiles at once.
At that point press the reset switch on the 2600 console.
You will then be able to "cheat" and fire off multiple missiles simultaneously. My brother and I discovered that as kids, and we used that technique to conquer the aliens and get such a high score that we flipped the scoreboard back to the zero-point. - slavetolust, on 03/31/2009, -2/+15I'll stick to my colecovision.
- one1plus1one, on 03/31/2009, -0/+13Long live the Combat-Cartridge!
- Kallius, on 03/31/2009, -0/+12Adventure was my all time favorite. Especially finding the easter egg as a fluke.
- popzero, on 03/31/2009, -0/+12Man, I remember tossing aside Combat (packaged with the system) as lame, but then later it became the best game ever to play with a bud. (No scrunched up split screen necessary, either.) And if you worked your tank into the wall just right, you could get it to warp to the other side of the screen and do a surprise attack. Great bug!
- 4rp4n3t, on 03/31/2009, -0/+12Same thing with movies - all special effects and no story line!
Now, get off my lawn! - alanocu, on 03/30/2009, -2/+14There was so much hype on the Pac-Man release. I remember waiting in line to buy that - early 80s. The 2600 was at its peak, but the game was a disappointment.
- SpeedSteamBoat, on 03/31/2009, -2/+14E.T. was huge in at the time. It was on everywhere and, yeah, people loved the ***** out of some E.T.
- RadiatedAnt, on 03/31/2009, -0/+9I modded my 2600 to output composite video when I was 14 after scoring one in a garage sale for 15 bucks! Yes I was such a dork... but my childhood memories of me playing superman on an endless level will never be taken away!
http://benheck.com/book/support/Atari2600VidMod.ht ... - Chordonblue, on 03/31/2009, -2/+11What's more is they didn't have multi-megahertz computers with gigabytes of RAM running 2600 emulations and compilers. Some of the compiling was actually done on mainframes to further crunch the code.
Not that I belittle anyone who still tries to code something usable today. Some of the more recent games on the 2600 were just incredible considering what you have to work with.
And yet somehow Vista needs 2 GB to be usable. I'd like to say we've advanced but... - Chordonblue, on 03/31/2009, -0/+8Not true my friend. On the other hand, maybe you are right. When you look at those pathetic (by today's standards), graphics, you have to wonder what anyone saw in them.
But that was the thing - IMAGINATION. You used your mind to fill in the pixels back then. It didn't matter that Defender only had a 16 color palette. It mattered that the gameplay - to this day - was amazingly complex and that I could OWN you at it.
What I saw in my head back then was worlds different than what you see with your jaded view today. Remember kids, just because something's in 3D doesn't mean it doesn't suck. - phrenzy, on 03/31/2009, -0/+8Warlords = First game of multi-player (more than 2) ***** talking ever. So awesome.. surviving to the end with like 1 ***** brick left.
- phrenzy, on 03/31/2009, -0/+8Wow that's cool! Didn't even know that was possible.. Good lord I destroyed so many RF modulators as a kid. Those stupid prong connectors would break off constantly from the antenna connectors on the back of my ***** black and white TVs.
- jabelli, on 03/31/2009, -0/+8Emulator: http://stella.sourceforge.net/
- rsmith32, on 03/31/2009, -0/+7After carefully examining the information available at the site pointed to by your "hyperlink" I have reached the conclusion that it is not relevant to the topic at hand.
- Neorio, on 03/31/2009, -0/+7KABOOM!
To know it is to love it. - ChaosElement, on 03/31/2009, -0/+7Is it me or were pretty much all of the truly memorable Atari 2600 games made by Activision? H.E.R.O. is one of the few games for the system that I'll still go back and play every now and then.
- inactive, on 03/31/2009, -0/+7Stella. google it.
- blindmelon1, on 03/31/2009, -0/+7I did the same! S-Video output and dual mono rca outs!
No fuzzy RF tuning, plug and play, one of the best things you can do with a 2600...
:) - Shawno1, on 03/31/2009, -2/+9Old school game consoles are the best really
- Chordonblue, on 03/31/2009, -0/+6Warlords ftw, Yar's Revenge and Fathom were my favorites, but mainly because I discovered the Easter Egg in Fathom. :)
- Frozo, on 03/31/2009, -0/+6Tried to do too much?? Thats pretty damn hilarious. The game was made in like a week to get on the shelves!
- Frozo, on 03/31/2009, -0/+6But you cant blame it on the system when you compare it to Ms. Pac-Man. Rushed to market. Period.
- Rockarollr, on 03/31/2009, -0/+6Chordonblue...I signed in just to digg your comment and reply.
I, too, was a gamer from the 70's/80's that had an old Atari 2600 VCS that I thoroughly enjoyed during my childhood. My parents bought it for me in 1978 (when I was eight years old) from the neighborhood "People's" drug store for $199.99. I'll never forget it. It was one of the best days of my young life at the time. I, too, am a father now. My seven year old daughter loves to play video games and is WAY better at playing the modern ones than I could ever think about being. She loves the complex and involved game play that today's games require, and I buy her the systems to enjoy them on. As for me...give me Asteroids, Defender, Pitfall or Space Invaders on an old, dusty 2600 any day! In fact, I would love to eventually introduce her to the joy of the Atari 2600 and its simplicity. Unfortunately, several moves (and MANY years) later, I have no idea what ever became of my old Atari system. I suppose I could always turn to eBay to find a gently used one that someone has taken care of.
Anyway, your comment really caught my attention and I thought the story was not only great, but had a significant message in it. Maybe your son is simply demonstrating what we adults should already be asking ourselves - Why make things more complicated than they should be? That could apply to video games, life in general or anything in between.
Tell Benji to rock on...I, for one, am right there with him in spirit!
- phrenzy, on 03/31/2009, -0/+6Hells yes. They (almost) redeemed the utter failure of Pac-Man w/ Ms. Pac-Man.
The crushing disappointment of Pac-Man though was something I'll never forget. I think that was the day that "the arcade" became the holy grail for all console games. That holy grail would not be realized, really until the later PS2 era.
- Philbert, on 03/31/2009, -0/+6I was hooked on Combat. My sister and I would play that for hours.
- silence7, on 03/31/2009, -0/+6Everyone loves E.T. What's the matter with you?
- enantiodromia, on 03/31/2009, -0/+6actually, that's awesome. i have a 3 year old who would love an old school atari controller.
/had a 400, 800, 2600, 1200XL, 1040ST
//oddly enough, now works down the street from the original atari building (http://www.atari7800.com/html/borregas.htm#1) - Chordonblue, on 03/31/2009, -0/+6Pitfall I & II were simply awesome. I had pretty much written off the 2600 as being not much better than my Magnavox Odyssey II until a friend showed me Pitfall I. OMG.
What made it amazing was the way the 'trees' did a paralax scroll with a multishaded sky in the background, while animating this small guy running around jumping over things. At the time, that was a pretty incredible display of power that NO other console was capable of.
One of the problems I had with later consoles that used character-based sprites is that it was so limiting. All those display list tricks and timing jiggers didn't matter for the most part on later consoles since the graphics chips were pretty much locked into what they did best: Animate sprites.
On a system like the 2600, the sky was literally the limit as you basically had nothing to work with but a processor, 128 bytes, and your imagination. Not everything looked better on the 2600, but there were games that you couldn't come close to reproducing on a Colecovision or Intelivision. - inactive, on 03/31/2009, -0/+5Ha ha! For sure. I'll take characters and dialog over big budget eye candy any day.
- astrotrain, on 03/31/2009, -0/+5Don't forget the old Double-Ender carts from Xonix they contained 4k roms per each side.
Oh and there was the Supercharger which was a tape drive for the Atari 2600... - SanTe, on 03/31/2009, -0/+5Pitfall, Kaboom!, River Raid, and Megamania. Yeah, Activision ruled. Imagic made a few awesome 2600 games as well.
- Philbert, on 03/31/2009, -0/+5Ah memories, I recall repairing a few with tin foil, tape, and paperclips. Yeah I was also a Macgyver fan.
- Frozo, on 03/31/2009, -0/+5I remember rocking that bug. Word of mouth was pretty damn powerful when you consider we didnt have the internet to learn about this stuff.
There was a similar trick with Superman, if my memory serves me correctly. You could fake out the game to think the bridge was fixed by shaking the controller and finish the game in like 3 seconds. - enantiodromia, on 03/31/2009, -0/+5totally agree about game prices.
games have been the same price since the beginning of retail video games. of course, paying $50 was better than manually typing in a 10,000 line game in BASIC that you have to read from a magazine. - wracker92, on 03/31/2009, -0/+5H.E.R.O. was awesome. If you liked that, try Spelunker by MicroGraphix.
- sark666, on 03/31/2009, -0/+5Watch this, this will bring you back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCK1kXKPeWI - Chordonblue, on 03/31/2009, -0/+5Wow, yeah I went down a similar road:
Magnavox Odyssey 2, Atari 400, 2600, 600XL, 800XL, 520ST, 1040ST, then Amiga, PC, etc.
I got to visit the old Commodore plant here in PA when C= had their bankruptcy sale. So much of what happened in the game industry early on was due to Commodore's chipmaking business. They won the bid for the special cutdown 6502 in the 2600. They produced the single most used processor ever - the 6502 and that (or a clone) was used in almost every 8-bit console.
It is sad to see how the original innovators in this industry have fallen away. My heart almost stopped when Midway bought Williams years ago, and now it appears Midway is soon gone also. I guess there won't be a Defender III now... :( - strangeguitar, on 03/31/2009, -0/+5Man... I used to line up all the space games: Demon Attack, Vanguard, Megamania, Space Invaders. I'd pretend that I was this space vigilante and make up my own story to tie all the games together. Ah... the old days.
I just picked up a newer cartridge for the 2600 called Synthcart. I use it all the time in my recording studio with the musicians and bands I work with. They love it! Forgive a spam, but check out one of the kid punk bands I produced. See if you can spot the Atari breakdown :-) The sounds totally take you back to the past. That console is AMAZING!
www.myspace.com/rnrconservatory
The song is called Girls Don't Like Us and the clip is around the 45 second mark, right before the chorus.
I still play Pit Fall and Pac Man. I get to introduce a new generation of modern kid gamers to my old Atari 2600. They love it, haha! - Lynxpro, on 03/31/2009, -0/+4There's a reason why the 7800 was released as late as it was. Two words...Jack Tramiel.
Before Warner Communications sold off Atari Inc. in pieces - the consumer division to Jack Tramiel for $350 million in promissory notes equal to the number of Atari 800XLs in the warehouse valued at $80 a piece - it completed the 7800. It was ready to launch prior to the June 1984 sale to Tramiel.
Tramiel didn't want to be in the assumed dead video game industry. That's why he decided not to pay $10 million more in promissory notes for the arcade division which became known as Atari Games which Namco later snapped up before a few years later selling back to Warner (by then Time Warner). Time Warner in 1991 wanted to buy back Tramiel's piece of Atari and reunify the company but Tramiel refused. Time Warner later sold off Atari Games to WMS Industries which is now Midway and in bankruptcy.
But back to Atari consumer division - later known as Atari Corp. Tramiel wanted revenge on Irving Gould at Commodore who fired him for destroying Commodore's profit margins by constantly reducing the price of the Commodore 64 which was half responsible for Atari's own slide as well as Texas Instruments, Coleco, and Timex withdrawing from the home computer market. As such, Tramiel relaunched Atari as a computer only company and they immediately focused themselves on launching a 16-bit computer. Well, that and reducing Atari's workforce from several thousand employees down to less than 300. The release of the 7800 was canceled and inventory was left in the warehouse.
The Tramiel takeover of Atari cost the company the exclusive non-Japanese worldwide rights to the Famicom (aka "NES") as well as the Amiga. Atari then had to build the ST as a replacement to the Amiga and they did it within about 6 months.
In the meantime, Nintendo relaunched the American video game industry all the while locking up third party developers into exclusively licensing contracts which prevented them from releasing the titles on competing systems.
By 1986, Tramiel realized his mistake and re-released both the 2600 and the 7800 but unfortunately, now both platforms were locked out from third party titles which kept Atari at a total disadvantage and that is why the 7800 failed against the NES.
The 7800 had superior graphics to the NES outside of the ability to move the entire background title-based screen. Take "Double Dragon" for instance. The NES wasn't able to handle 2 player action so the title was one player; that was a piece of cake for the 7800.
The remnants of Atari Consumer/Tramiel's Atari Corp. are now the property of Infogrames of France. Tramiel sold out in 1996 to a gimmick hard drive company named JTS Industries which later sold all the rights to Atari to Hasbro for $7 million in chump change. Hasbro later sold their video game properties to Infogrames and that is who is using the Atari brand today. - timlump, on 03/31/2009, -0/+4Well, I was born in 1990 but my first console was the 2600. And I must say, there were alot of ***** games like there are now with modern consoles BUT there were some great games e.g pitman, galaxian. We only think of the good games when we get nostalgic. If you do look at the progression of technology, there are more good games nowadays and the new technology allows any idea to be conveyed in a game.
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