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The System of the Millenium (Part I)
by Steven Kent for Gamers Today
There are only a few solid contenders for the title of Game System of the Millennium: Magnavox Odyssey, the first home console; Atari Video Computer System (a.k.a. 2600); Nintendo Entertainment System; Game Boy; and PlayStation.
Sure, some collectors and video game elite will disagree. Some game sophisticates will say Vectrex was more ahead of its time than any system since. Technophiles will point out that Sega's Dreamcast was the most powerful system released before the end of the millennium, and history buffs will point out that Fairchild's Channel F was the first system with games stored on cartridges. Who cares? There wasn't a single game for Channel F that was worth its weight in tax forms as far as fun is concerned, and Dreamcast will demonstrate its overall significance in years to come.
Other challenges: Some of the Atari faithful will hearken to the 7800 and Jaguar, systems with impressive hardware and no software support. There may even be people in some quarters who say that Sega CD was the best system ever-none of them are Sega employees, however.
We begin with this installment, in which we look at the Odyssey and Video Computer System (or 2600).
Odyssey:
There are many reasons why Odyssey should be considered Game System of the Millennium. Not only was it the first console on the market, it was the first console to offer multiple games. Odyssey had several games hardwired into its circuits. Players switched from one game to the next by plugging wallet-sized cards that acted like dip switches into the back of the console.
Actually, there was more to changing games than plugging in game cards. Odyssey's graphics consisted mostly of lines and boxes. To give games more identity, Magnavox created see-through plastic overlays which people placed on their television screens. The hockey overlay looked like a hockey rink, the tennis overlay was green, then there were more exotic ones that looked like a haunted house and a roulette wheel.
Odyssey was created by an innovative engineer named Ralph Baer, a German-born Jew whose family moved to the United States prior to World War II. Baer, who worked for a military contracting firm, envisioned his television game selling for approximately $25; but his company sold the invention to Magnavox, and the engineers who took over the project expanded it into a $100 product.
Odyssey did not fare well with the public. Over-priced and poorly marketed, Odyssey was originally only sold at dedicated Magnavox dealerships.
The first advertisements for the system even hinted that it only worked on Magnavox televisions. It also suffered because people did not understand what a television game might be. Though Odyssey came out shortly after Pong, it was the first product of its kind and few people could conceive the idea of playing tennis on their television.
Video Computer System (or 2600):
The Video Computer System, later known as the 2600, was the first popular success among programmable game consoles. Released in 1977, it was created by Al Alcorn, the Atari engineer who also developed Pong; Joe Decuir, who later went on to Microsoft; and Jay Miner, considered one of the most brilliant engineers of his time who later led the team that created the Amiga Computer.
There is no way to count all of the 2600's significant milestones. This was the first international system. Atari sold over 20 million 2600s, and the system's sales continued long after they died out in the United States. This was the first system to attract third-party developers and arcade conversions. It was also the system that did the most to expand the define way consumers' expectations of the video gaming experience.
Everybody envisioned a system for playing Pong games and Tank when Alcorn first started working on the 2600. By the time the system hit the skids in 1982, it played side-scrolling games, sports simulations, even porno games.
