TECH TITANS ATARI

The greatest hits of the home gaming pioneer ranked

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01 ATARI 2600

The Fairchild Channel F holds the ‘first cartridge console’ crown, but Atari took the idea and ran with it… fast. Like the Channel F, the 2600 (launched as the Atari VCS) saw carts as an answer to the poor clones of the Pong machine that were flooding the market. The difference was, Atari had good games.

In fact, it had more than that. Instead of Fairchild’s weird controllers, Atari kept things modular and approachable. The 2600 had paddles and joysticks that echoed arcade fare, and set the scene for future innovations. And while the console’s design reflected the times, its innards were far more forward-thinking.

That’s not to say the specs weren’t limited. The system and early carts had terrifyingly little RAM, and there were just five sprites: two ‘players’, two ‘missiles’ and one ‘ball’. But talented devs worked wonders and the machine’s games catalogue quickly became increasingly sophisticated, from the genre-defining Adventure to dazzling titles from Activision, one of which – Pitfall II – even bolstered the 2600’s capabilities by packing extra hardware into the cartridge itself.

It couldn’t last. Crappy shovelware filled the shops, and 1983’s US videogame crash hit Atari hard. By the time the dust settled, the NES had arrived, rendering the 2600 obsolete. But Atari’s woody wonder was a gaming colossus, and its impact on the industry is undeniable.

RELEASED 1977

02 ATARI ST