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In the mid-70s, video game consoles flooded the market. What they all had in common, however, was the problem, that the games themselves were hardwired into the hardware - so the implementation was directly in the circuits. If you played through the existing games, you were through with the console. Sustainability is something else, but that wasn't an issue at the time for machines like the Magnavox Odyssey, the Coleco Telstar, or the many PONG clones.

What was needed, was a console, that was capable of running different games - regardless of the base hardware. At ATARI Al Alcorn, Jay Miner, and Joe Decuir worked on just that solution, and the rest is history. 

And it is this history that Jamie Lendino has rehashed and written down for the 45th birthday of the ATARI 2600. The original 2600 as well as the later VCS still enjoy serious popularity today, and whoever is interested in details of the console and its innards, may find some previously unknown facts in Jamie's latest article.

In any case, entertaining and absolutely worth reading. 🕹