If you're not really interested in old video games, particularly old Atari games, you might want to skip this chapter. Following is an unlearned but earnest critique and history of the VCS games as seen through the eyes of mesmerized kid who still hasn't gotten over it, an armload of worlds that were excellent for the most part, in their own context rather than compared to later computer games. The main reason they were able to do this was that the 2600 relied on the chips that were in the cartridges themselves much more than the graphic-manipulation circuits inside the main unit.
Cartridges are actually little boxes of hardware.
It would cost more than your television, but you see the illustration. After perfecting the machine and its earliest game-programming techniques in 1976, he entered into a strange legal deal with Atari's business end that prevented him from designing games for his own system, although he retained the rights and royalties to the first few cartridges. In some cases, this promise of variety was even actually fulfilled. The availability of such colorful and complex competitions was as unexpected and mind-blowing to the average young TV owner as this sudden, overwhelming boom was to the market. The youth of America was obviously thrilled at the prospect of becoming surrogate Luke Skywalkers in these interactive cartoons.