Retronauts Episode 530: Atari Archive and the 2600 Launch
Have you read Atari today?
The 1970s gave us a lot of things—the blockbuster summer movie, the Quarter Pounder, Jeremy Parish—but the decade also served as the flashpoint for video games as a medium. Interactive software existed much, much earlier, but it wasn’t until Pong’s 1972 success as a standalone machine that the commercial market took shape.
Many successful arcade cabinets would follow, but Atari also sought to bring the company’s successful games to American living rooms, and in 1977 launched the Video Computer System or VCS for short. Atari later rebranded it as the “2600” to contrast it from later, numerical-based releases, but whatever name you think of when you picture that black plastic & wood grained console, the VCS/2600 laid the groundwork for how we play games at home to this day.
Host Jeremy Parish welcomes author Kevin Bunch and editor Jared Perry to discuss the newly-released Atari Archive Vol 1, a book dedicated to documenting the early history of Atari’s groundbreaking work. Don’t worry if you haven’t read it yet, just tune in and enjoy the conversation!
Description: Jeremy Parish and Jared Petty chat with author Kevin Bunch about the launch of his book, Atari Archive Vol. I, and dig into the lessons he learned about the creation and launch of the groundbreaking VCS console.
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Artwork for this episode by John Pading and editing thanks go to Greg Leahy.
