- Atari 2600 (allthetropes.org)
The Atari Video Computer System, later known as the Atari 2600, but best known as just the “Atari” during its heyday, was the first really successful home video game console system, and only the second to feature interchangeable ROM cartridges that allowed new games to be published and installed without modifying the basic system itself. It also featured plug-in controllers that could be swapped out, allowing new kinds of controllers to be later introduced. Originally, just ten games were planned for it. The idea was to make a better system down the line to replace it eventually but the success of the system changed everything.
- Finding Atari Games in Randomly Generated Data (bbenchoff.github.io)
This project generated around 30 Billion individual 4kB files of random data. These files were winnowed down to about 10,000 through some heuristics gleaned from the complete collection of Atari ROM files. Finally, a classifier system scanned them using an Atari 2600 emulator to see if any of these random files were actually an Atari game. This project answers a question no one asked, no one wanted, and is a massive waste of resources: What if I shove a billion monkeys in a GPU and asked them to write a game for the Atari 2600?
- Atari 2600 (Wikipedia)
The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS), it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridges, a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F in 1976. The VCS was bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge—initially Combat and later Pac-Man. Sears sold the system as the Tele-Games Video Arcade. Atari rebranded the VCS as the Atari 2600 in November 1982, alongside the release of the Atari 5200.
