The Atari 2600, Reconsidered

The Atari 2600 turned the living room into an arcade. Its hardware is almost absurdly minimal — 128 bytes of RAM, a TIA chip you have to race the beam to program — and yet it launched a whole industry.

Why it still fascinates

Writing for the 2600 is the purest form of retro programming: you're timing code against the electron beam scanning the screen, cycle by cycle. It makes the C64 look positively luxurious.

More retro-console pieces will land in this section over time.