The History of Video Games: 1977
11839 years ago, in 1977, the most influential mouse of all time was created. Mickey Mouse? Are you out of your mind? I’m talking about the big cheese himself, Chuck E Cheese. In 1977, Atari opened the first Chuck E Cheese’s, called Pizza Time Theater at the time. Oh, the Atari 2600 was released this year too. In this video, i’ll be going over the events that transpired in 1976 in the history of video games. This is… The History of Video Games: 1976.
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The History of Video Games: 1977 (in text form)
This could be the bigger year in video games yet. Well, not really. But something magical is about to happen. Atari would again throw caution to the wind with this endeavor. Have you guessed what it is it? I doubt it. In 1977, Atari opened the first Pizza Time Theater, which you probably know better as Chuck E Cheese’s. Fun Fact: I took a Public Speaking class in high school, and the very last speech I had to give was about why everyone should go to Chuck E Cheese’s for Spring Break instead of Florida or Mexico. I even gave out tickets. It was pretty great. Back to video games, though. I’m sure you all know what Chuck E Cheese’s is. You go there to eat pizza, play various arcade games, and get sick, because there’s always that one kid with a cold that goes around coughing on everything and everyone. Yeah, I’m talking about you Steve. While it was opened by Atari, it was from the mind of Nolan Bushnell, who would eventually buy the rights to Pizza Time Theater back from Atari for $500,000.
Remember when I said that Fairchild Semiconductor had to change the name of their console from Video Entertainment System to Fairchild Channel F because of Atari’s console? That’s because Atari released the Atari 2600 in 1977. Well, sort of. It wasn’t called the 2600 until after the Atari 5200 was released in 1982. The original name was Atari VCS, which stood for Atari Video Computer System. I’m sure you can see why the two consoles could get confusing. Atari choose 2600 for the console’s new name from the part number, CX2600.
Most computers of the time had programs stored on floppy disks, cassette tapes, or paper tape. In the early 70’s, Hewlett-Packard computers that used Read Only Memory in the form of removable cartridges. For a time, these cartridges were considered for use in video game consoles. The 2600 wasn’t going to use cartridges at first, but after seeing a fake cartridge system on another console, Dabney and Bushnell released that their games could be on cartridges for the price of the connector and packaging for the cartridge.
The 2600 shipped with two joysticks and Combat, with 8 more games available at launch. Combat was a multidirectional shooter that played from a top down perspective. The gameplay consisted of two vehicles, either tanks biplanes or jets, attempting to shoot each other. The game claimed to have 27 games in one, but it was really just different gameplay options. For example, you could have shots could bounce off walls, or choose to have the vehicles be invisible except for when they fired. The Atari 2600 would go on to sell 250,000 units in 1977. Unfortunately, while there’s a lot to talk about with the Atari 2600, not a lot happened with it in 1977 besides being released. Don’t worry, though, we’ll get very intimate with the Atari 2600 because it won’t be discontinued until 1992.