Decathlon (1983)

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Frederico Custodio

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Published on March 3, 2013 11:53:04 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aen7a2rqb4g

Game:

The Activision Decathlon (1983)

Duration: 13:04

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The Activision Decathlon is a sports game for the Atari 8-bit, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Commodore 64, ColecoVision and MSX platforms. Up to four players compete in the ten different events of a real-life decathlon, either in sequence or individually.

The game became somewhat notorious for the amount of wear or damage inflicted upon console controllers,[citation needed] namely the Atari 2600 version where rapid back-and-forth movement of the joystick propels the athlete down the track.

The game was later reissued simply as Decathlon by the UK budget label Firebird. It was subsequently featured on the PlayStation 2 compilation Activision Anthology.

The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and ROM cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in. The first game console to use this format was the Fairchild Channel F; however, the Atari 2600 receives credit for making the plug-in concept popular among the game-playing public.

The console was originally sold as the Atari VCS, for Video Computer System. Following the release of the Atari 5200, in 1982, the VCS was renamed "Atari 2600", after the unit's Atari part number, CX2600. The 2600 was typically bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a cartridge game—initially Combat and later Pac-Man.

The Atari 2600 was wildly successful, and during much of the 1980s, "Atari" was a synonym for this model in mainstream media and, by extension, for video games in general.

The Atari 2600 was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, New York in 2007. In 2009, the Atari 2600 was named the second greatest video game console of all time by IGN, who cited its remarkable role as the console behind both the first video game boom and the video game crash of 1983, and called it "the console that our entire industry is built upon."


Some well known Atari 2600 emulators today are:
Stella - An open source, multiplatform emulator (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Dreamcast, Nintendo DS, Wii, GP2X).
z26 -- Another open source, multiplatform customizable emulator (Windows, MS-DOS, Linux)
javatari -- Open-source, multiplatform Java based emulator with network multiplayer features and a real console panel user interface.
PC Atari Emulator -- Easy to use, very fast emulator (Windows, MS-DOS). Handles the Cosmic Ark starfield effect correctly.
MESS -- the multi system emulator that supports all old Atari console systems
The Pocket VCS -- PPC -- Easy to use, very fast and emulator (Windows Mobile).
GP2X-2600 -- An emulator for the GP2X handheld console.

Frederico Custodio Ribeiro

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