Atari Video Computer System
1976
Atari would have been in deep trouble had word gotten out that it was developing a revolutionary new gaming console. A June 1976 patent settlement granted Magnavox the right to any new Atari hardware introduced in the following 12 months. So head engineer Al Alcorn took the project, codenamed Stella after an engineer’s bicycle, to a remote mountaintop lab near Grass Valley, California. The final prototype, put together by Cyan Engineering in just three months with less than $500 in parts, generated video on the fly and could run multiple games. Later, Atari would use Cyan’s code as the brains for the Video Computer System—eventually rebranded as the 2600. Of course, the company waited until CES in June 1977 to brag about it. Atari went on to sell more than 30 million consoles and became synonymous with home videogames in the 1980s.
Quelle: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_prototypes/3/
