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Imbued with a mere 128 bytes of RAM, the Atari 2600 was originally designed to play Pong variations, simplistic action games, crude racing simulations, rudimentary educational titles, and the like. However, with the release of Space Invaders in 1980, the system skyrocketed in sales and became a mainstay of arcade conversions.
In 1980, after a limited marketing test in 1979, Mattel released its [[Intellivision]] system nationwide, setting the stage for the first true console war. Bolstered by a scries of commercials starring spokesman George Plimpton, the lntellivision had superior graphics and sounds and more power under the hood. Nevertheless, the Atari 2600 maintained a dominant following, thanks to its plethora of popular arcade titles and its propensity for fast-action games that were easy to pick up and play. By 1983, however, due in part to competition from other systems (like the [[ColecoVision]] and the [[Atari 5200]]) and a multitude of inferior titles cranked out by certain third-party companies, the shine began to wear off the aging console. By 1984, the Atari 2600 was all but dead, a victim of the fabled Great Videogame Crashgreat video game crash.
==Technical specifications==
