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The
Atari 2600 was released as the Atari Video Computer System, or
ATARI VCS in December of 1977 for around $250. Atari Corp
also established a licensing deal with Sears to sell the same
games and identical hardware under the "Sears Telegames Video
Arcade" brand - such as my Sears Telegames Light Sixer to the
right. It was one of the longest running 8-bit consoles
running from 1977 all the way to 1991 when the original Atari
folded. The system is based on a 1.19 MHz MOS Technology 6507 CPU,
128 BYTES of RAM, no FPU, no GPU, everything on the system was
done in real time. Given the limitations, that's quite impressive
what this console achieved. The 1980 Sears Telegames Light Sixer
to the right was bought for $5.00 on E-bay in 2001 via a glitched
E-bay auction. It's amazing to think this thing is over 40
years old and still performs - if not a little better - than it
did brand new. It's unmodified, there's no
Composite/S-Video/RCA mods, bone-stock, as it came from Atari.
Every video I make with it is done over RF, yes, that clean signal
is RF. Surprising huh? |
