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| systems:atari2600 [2021/12/05 10:27] – created atari | systems:atari2600 [2023/12/15 08:30] (current) – [Controls] toccata10 |
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| The Atari 2600 (originally branded as the Atari VCS) is a second-generation home videogame console developed by Atari. It was released in September, 1977 and retailed for $189.95 USD (adjusted for inflation: $811.23 in 2020). | The Atari 2600 (originally branded as the Atari VCS) is a second-generation home videogame console developed by Atari. It was released in September, 1977 and retailed for $189.95 USD (adjusted for inflation: $811.23 in 2020). |
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| Before this venture, Atari was more well-known for the [[:arcade|arcade]] games they made. Wanting to expand their horizons, the company invested in the creation of a efficiently manufactured home console: the Atari VCS. It released with a swell of games ported from the arcade, allowing many people to play these games from the comfort of their home for the first time (albeit, with certain downgrades in graphics/sound in the porting process). It was a huge success, leading to the founding of third-party developers such as Activision and others. | Before this venture, Atari was more well-known for the [[:arcade|arcade]] games they made. Wanting to expand their horizons, the company invested in the creation of a efficiently manufactured home console: the Atari VCS. It released with a swell of games ported from the arcade, allowing many people to play these games from the comfort of their home for the first time (albeit, with certain downgrades in graphics/sound in the porting process). It was a huge success, leading to the founding of multiple third-party developers. |
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| Due to a combination of poor management decisions, pressure from competition and crushing development deadlines, the quality of games released on the system started to decline. This culminated in being largely responsible for the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983|NA videogame crash of '83]]. Infamously, this lead to the burial of hundreds of thousands of unsold Pac-Man and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial game cartridges somewhere in Alamogordo, New Mexico. | Due to a combination of poor management decisions, pressure from competition and crushing development deadlines, the quality of games released on the system started to decline. This culminated in being largely responsible for the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983|NA videogame crash of '83]]. Infamously, this lead to the burial of hundreds of thousands of unsold Pac-Man and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial game cartridges somewhere in Alamogordo, New Mexico. |
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| No other console can claim to be as influential as that. | No other console can claim to be as influential as that. |
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| | If you'd like to learn more about the Atari 2600's history, Stella's user guide has a [[https://stella-emu.github.io/docs/index.html#History|pretty good summary]] of it. |
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| This system scrapes metadata for the "atari2600" group and loads the ''atari2600'' set from the currently selected theme, if available. | This system scrapes metadata for the "atari2600" group and loads the ''atari2600'' set from the currently selected theme, if available. |
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| {{ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/batocera-linux/batocera-controller-overlays/master/solid-4k/atari2600.png }} | {{ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/batocera-linux/batocera-controller-overlays/master/solid-4k/atari2600.png }} |
| | Left and right difficulty switches have 2 positions: ''A'' for ''Advanced'' and ''B'' for ''Beginner''. On Space Invaders for example, ''A'' will give a larger (more vulnerable) player ship. |
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| Libretro's controller mapping: | Libretro's controller mapping: |