18 replies to this topic

[desiv]

I was browsing the 2600 and 7800 FAQ's and was just wondering...

Are they random names? CX2600? etc...??

Or do the 2600, 5200, 7800 numbers have any meaning???

I'm not going to stay up late dying for the answer, (I wouldn't let it interrupt my Robotron playing or anything, but) just wondering...

Txs

[MegaManFan]

That the 2600 being named 2600 was an accident, a spillover from the model # assigned to it after a final release version was shipped out to stores. It was the Video Computer System officially, and just plain "Atari" to most people, but 2600 caught on as a nickname and became official when Atari needed to differentiate it from the next-generation system they were releasing. That was when VCS officially became the 2600 and the next gen system became the 5200 (theoretically twice as good). Once that logic had already been established, it only made sense to call the next system the 7800. Three times as good as 2600, or one step beyond the 5200, depending on how you look at it.

[CrazyImpmon]

AFAIK 2600 was slapped on Atari because 2600 used to mean something back in the old day (free calls at pay phones, it's illegal now)

[SS]

"Back In The Day". Man, I love that phrase. It’s so darned retro sounding.

[Tizoc]

CrazyImpmon said:

AFAIK 2600 was slapped on Atari because 2600 used to mean something back in the old day (free calls at pay phones, it's illegal now)

and,

5200 = 2600 + 2600 (Twicw the Fun!) :-)

7800 = 2600 + 5200

or something along those lines.

[MegaManFan]

Tizoc said:

and,

5200 = 2600 + 2600  (Twice the Fun!) :-)

7800 = 2600 + 5200  

or something along those lines.

Didn't I already say this?

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

You did State this Megaman..but the true meaning goes like this=

2600 is the actual model for the VCS but wasn't touted until the 5200 came along.

5200 was considered twice as good as the 2600 hence the 2600+2600=5200.

7800 was originally the 3600 but then later changed to 9000. However, Atari marketing killed that number because it was too high and they wanted to leave room for more systems. So they then decided that the 7800 had 5200 graphics + 2600 compatibility making it 5200 + 2600 = 7800.

The addition of the numbers you have all posted...but didn't explain Desiv's question about how they all came to be.

[ZylonBane]

CrazyImpmon sort of answered it already. 2600Hz was a frequency very dear to early phone phreaks. From the alt.2600/#hack FAQ--

Quote

06. What is a Blue Box?  

Blue boxes use a 2600hz tone to seize control of telephone switches that use in-band signalling. The caller may then access special switch functions, with the usual purpose of making free long distance phone calls, using the tones provided by the Blue Box.

Given the hacker culture prevalent at Atari in the Bushnell days, I think it's safe to assume this is where the "2600" product number came from.

[MegaManFan]

ZylonBane said:

Given the hacker culture prevalent at Atari in the Bushnell days, I think it's safe to assume this is where the "2600" product number came from.

As much as I'd like to believe that, nobody from the early days of Atari has ever come out and made that statement publically, even though I've seen and heard interviews from quite a few of them (some in person at CGE). And if 2600 really is that significant, why would they distort it with 2700, 2800, et cetera? My feeling is that these were product numbers built up from their early days of making Pong arcade games, and just by coincidence when it came time to develop the home gaming system they had hit "2600" in the sequence as the first official model rolled out of the factory - which was NOT you might note named the 2600 at first, but the "Video Computer System." If the # really was that significant, it would have been called a "2600" right from the jump, but it didn't gain that name until much MUCH later.

[Sir Plus]

Well, besides the corporate computer types working with "mini"computers (those large
monsters that filled entire rooms), about the only people that understood
computers at the time were people that were really into electronic equipment and
the like. It's not by chance that many of them were phone phreaks. And these were
the people that could be hired out into the private sector working out of their
garages. I'd imagine that at least one person working on the design of the hardware
was an ex-phreak.


"This is wild! I've got myself on speaker phone after bouncing my signal into every
trunk in the world!! The delay is... like.... HIP!" - Captian Crunch

[Curt Vendel]

Originally the 7800 had many different # designations, originally it was called the Atari 3600 from GCC (Who designed the MARIA graphics chip in the console) and Atari's marketing was then going to call it the Atari 9000, but with the assumption more poweful consoles would follow down the road the designation was rethought again and it was decided: 5200 graphics + 2600 compatibility = 7800.

This was info that came from Brad Saville and Gary Rubio, a couple of close friends of mine who were formerly with Atari. Brad, head of Production was involved with the 7800 all through the production process and was present in El Paso when the first 5,000 rolled off the assembly line, Gary was the OOEM Laison between Atari and GCC and oversaw the hardware designs and submissions from GCC. The 7800 has a rich and wonderful history and is an amazing console, if you'd like to learn more, have a look at the Atari Museum 7800 section:

http://www.atarimuseum.com/7800.html


Curt

[Sir Plus]

Nobody follows threads anymore
Just Kidding!!!! Thanks for the # breakdown.

But the current question is...
Do you know if "2600" was a phreak of coincidence or not?
Given that phreaks like to remain anonymous, the world may never know.

[Curt Vendel]

I've asked several of Atari management and employee's that question. It was just coincidence, no Urban Legends about Steve Wozniak suggesting its model # after the 2600 frequency his Blue Boxes were emmiting to get free phone call or something cool that that, sorry.



Curt

[LinkoVitch]

Is it not possible that the actual model number was 26 but deemed too small a number , so was multiplied by 100 to make it sound more impressive.. like the Philips G7000

Also adding the 00's leaves room for additional product's related to the 2600.. eg 2601 combat.. it's for the 2600 as can be seen from the the product code,?

Just wild guesses

but makes most sence to me..

I also thought the hacker circles of 2600 took their name FROM the Atari 2600 and not the other way around? due to it's popularity

[Sir Plus]

Hackers are into super-secret stuff, "what 'they' dont want you to know" and all that. They dont usually gravitiate to things deemed "popular". Well, besides the cyberpunk aspect (which was not exactly "cool" in those days). Not only that, but hackers were in business way before the VCS.


@Curt Vendel

Yeah..... but if it was true, they'd say the same thing

That's THREE people that tried to throw me. Hmmmm.....

Kidding! Just kidding! Uh.... tell those black helicopters to go away, please?

[Curt Vendel]

Well the orginal Pong started out as C-100 and the console right before the Atari VCS (aka 2600) was the Game Brain which was C-700, so where the heck 2600 came from is odd, you would've thought maybe they would've chosen CX-800 or CX-1000 or something along those lines, hmmmmmm.....

[Curt Vendel]

Sir Plus: Yikes!!! its them, there coming, they are gonna get us all, run... run while you can.

[Sir Plus]

[Atari 7800.com]

I just asked Dr. Gene Landrum about this question. Gene is an associate of mine and he is best known for being President of Pizza Time Theatres (Chuck -E- Cheeses) during its launch and for its first few years of success, but Gene also did the entire marketing research and development for the 2600 in 1976 for Nolan and Joe. Gene was really the one who showed Nolan the true advantages of a cartridge based system, and how they would be much more successful if they treat this machine like a record player where you can get new programs to load to the system and then play.

Anyways, I asked Gene about the 2600 thing... he claims that it was always the working in-house model designation number for as far back as he can remember, and that he remembered asking "why are we jumping to cx2600?" and that Joe Keenan had told him something along the lines of Stella being a "dear project" or being "the big one" and they wanted to give it a special designation.

Why they chose 2600 I'm not sure and neither is Gene. I asked him if it was possible that with the whole hacker mentality of the early Bushnell Atari, that maybe they had named it after the blue box frequency. He laughed and said that this was quite possible and "that sounds just like something Nolan would do. He was just absolutely crazy."

My guess is that the 2600 model number probabally did come from the Blue Box, but no one really knows for sure. I will try to get Gene to find out what he can in the mean time.

As far as the 7800 designation goes, Curt hit it dead on the head. 2600 compatability + 5200 graphics = 7800 ProSystem.


Best,