What an amazing run the Atari 2600 console has had. It was released in 1977. At it's birth it cost $199.00 and came with two joysticks, and a Combat game cartridge. There were eight more games available at the systems launch. They system was still being made up to the year 1992. There are an estimated 30 million units produced. There is no telling how many games have been made for this system. Some have said 7000 games were released, but that number includes hacks of other games. The amazing part is, some are still making new games for it even now. 
The 2600 was one of the very first game machines to use a micro-processor and game cartridges. It contained a low cost version of the 6502 processor known as the 6507 which ran at a blistering 1.19 Mhz. It also contained a 6532 chip which combined RAM and I/O and a custom display and sound chip. The unit contained only128k of RAM! The ROM was the game cartridge which contained 4k to 8k (bank switching to do 8k). In spite of it's super low technical specs, some very clever programmers made some excellent games. I have toyed with writing programs for this machine. It's is very difficult.  |
| 2600 Screen Shot |
As said earlier, some are still making games for the system. One of the newest releases is a remake of the classic Bolder dash game. This game will be released by Christmas 2011 in a limited release. There will be only 250 copies available. The game has been blessed by the games original makers First Star Software, Inc. With the limited number of games released this will be one of those collectiable games in the future. A video of the gameplay for the 2600 version can be seen here... It looks really good.
Youtube Video of Atari Bolder Dash Gameplay
The game can be ordered at the Atari Age web site. While your there review the forums. There is a wealth of information there.
Atari Age Web Site
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