This is a history of Home Video Game systems since the first PROGRAMMABLE home system was made available to the public in the United States. This does not include the 72 different companies that produced the Pong type games. They are listed in the order of their release. Magnavox Odyssey Used colored plastic overlays that covered your TV screen to produce a color effect for the black & white games. Fairchild Channel F Sorry I have never seen one of these animals. Only know that they existed. Bally Home Arcade Graphics comparable to the Atari 2600, and actually a little better. Sold for the most part through Montgomery Wards stores. Used a controller that was the grip of a handgun with a trigger for a firebutton and a small joystick 'knob' on the top of the gun handle. Atari 2600 One of the most popular home video games of all time. Literally hundreds of cartridges produced for this thing. Graphics were lousy. Sound was not much better, but this was the first video game system that was heavily marketed and VERY successful for the Atari Corp.. The mass quantity of games available for this system led to the decline of home video games. Programmers found themselves searching for ideas and often producing games even when the ideas were terrible. People began to get fed up with paying $20 - $30 for a game that looked like it took about 1/2 hour to program. Magnavox Odyssey 2 This system was the only one to come with a typewriter style keyboard. Graphics were slightly better than the Atari 2600, but there were not nearly as many games available. This machine died out for the most part while the Atari 2600 market was still very strong. Arcadia 2001 Again, only vaguely remember this system. Mattel Intellivision The top rival for the Atari 2600. Was released soon after the 2600. The graphics were much better than the Atari 2600. The mainstay of this system was it's reputation for it's sports games. Animation of it's 'human' (just slightly more detailed than stick figures) characters was very realistic. It had less than half the amount of cartridges as the 2600, but also had much less third party support - most games were programmed by Mattel itself. This was also the only system that did not use the standard type of controller - the joystick. Intellivision used a 16 position disc for directional movement as well as a keypad much like that of a telephone. Colecovision Released just before the 'Great Video Game Depression' this machine did not have much time to catch on. Graphics were better than any system released to date. Controllers used were a combination of Intellivisions' keypad and the standard joystick in place of the disc. The systems themselves were not very reliable and often needed service. Possible reason for this is that Coleco had to hurry it's entry to the video game market as Atari was starting to decline and they did not fully test the machine. Many of the games were ported directly from arcade games. Atari 5200 Atari's answer to Colecovision. Graphics were much better than the Atari 2600, and Atari probably saw the 2600 starting to loose ground. The controllers were much like the Colecovision controllers - keypad and joystick. Only a few games were made for this system becuase had already lost faith in the video game systems and the quality of it's software. Vectrex One of the most unique systems produced. This system came with it's own monitor and had no color even though the technology was available. It used what is called vector graphics (hence the name - Vectrex) which is a type of graphics that has no curves. Just intersecting lines. The controllers were strangely similar those of a system that had not yet been produced - Nintendo. It seemed this machine was relying on parental fears of TV damage from the systems such as Atari 2600 and Intellivision that used the TV for it's output. This system never caught on. There were probably less than a dozen games made for it. Intellivision II This system added nothing to the original Intellivision other than a more compact design and an adapter to allow the user to play Atari 2600 games. Seemed as though Mattel had given in to the old saying - "If you can't beat them - join them". Atari 7800 Atari's 'third wind'. Have to hand it to this company though. At least they did not give up. This system had graphics close to the original Nintendo, but the Atari name was associated with the Atari 2600 and all of it's problems and never really caught on. This system would also play most of the Atari 2600 video games. Intellivision III After Mattel had given up on the system a third party bought the rights to it and produced this machine. It was exactly the same as the original Intellivision. The company (InTV) also produced a handful of new games for the system including revised versions of many of the sports games that allowed one player operation (the original games were mostly two player only games which was a big complaint from Intellivision I owners). This system probably lived about as long as the Vectrex did. Nintendo was released shorty after it and proceeded to scratch it from existence. That's it. I don't think I really need to go into the systems that are still available such as Nintendo's and Sega's systems. Just go to your local Toy's R Us and see for yourself. Some of these systems were very popular. You might even say that the Atari 2600's popularity was comparable to that of the Nintendo system today. Video games were a very new thing inthe late 70's and early 80's. People could not get enough of them. They bought up every single cartridge produced. It seemed programmers were just releasing garbage so that they could get in on it and eventually turned people away from the systems all together. A few systems tried to revive the industry such as Colecovision, Vectrex, and Intellivision II with it's computer and piano keyboard add ons, but the consumers would not hear it. They had been 'screwed' one too many times with terrible quality games for thier systems at $20 - $30 each that that all efforts to save the industry failed. People had been away from video game systems for about 5 years or so and Nintendo felt it was time to 'test the water' and released the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was and still is a HUGE success. The funny thing is that the same thing seems to be happening all over again. Everyone and their brother is trying to make a few bucks on the NES and the quality of the games is really starting to slip. Stayed tuned. We'll all just have to wait and see what happens.