The name 2600

[Ze_ro]

Okay, so I was thinking a while ago (I try not to do it too often), and, as usual, my thoughts drifted to the Atari... specifically, the name. "Why did they name it the 2600?" I thought... of course, I then realized that even when they were only calling it the Video Computer System, it had always had CX-2600 as it's model number, so obviously they had just started using that instead of VCS.

 

But then I got to thinking, "Why did they choose that as the model number?" So, thinking back (as I was away from the computer at the time), it occured to me that I had read on a webpage that "2600" was a popular frequency that was used for hacking telephone lines for free long distance and such back in the days when that kind of stuff worked. Of course, memories of web pages aren't exactly concrete evidence for me, so can anyone confirm this? Since there's also a hacker group called 2600, I'd tend to believe the origin of the number at least.

 

--Zero

[liquid_sky]

quote

2600" was a popular frequency that was used for hacking telephone lines for free long distance and such back in the days when that kind of stuff worked. Of course, memories of web pages aren't exactly concrete evidence for me, so can anyone confirm this?  

 

Back before they reworked the phone system.. a whistle at 2600 would allow you to "blue box" a call. An interesting note, the first people to discover this were people playing with these little whistles that came in bags of captian crunch. I beleive the first "phreakers" were blind people who hacked into teleconfrences to be able to talk to one another but im not for sure. I used to have a book all about the origin of hacking, phreaking, and virus writing, it was a great book but i forget its name. I am not for sure if "THE HACKER CRACKDOWN" has any phreaking information but I remember reading it, it had alot of good information on that sort of thing.

[Osbo]

I think about that too... why 2600... 5200 and 7800?

[Tempest]

Actually the 5200 was code named PAM, which almost became the offical name since it could stand for Personal Arcade Machine. After than it was known as the Video System X (a few prototypes exist with that name), and finally the 5200. Atari settled on 5200 because they wanted to make it sound twice as powerful as the 2600 (2600+2600=5200).

 

The 7800 was orginally going to be called the Atari 9000 or something like that because they wanted to use a high number to make it sound far superior to all other Atari's. I forget why they settled on 7800, I think it was because it was 5200 graphics and sound + 2600 compatibility or something to that effect.

 

Tempest

[DanBoris]

The 7800 was also known at the 3600 for a time, there are some tech docs for the 7800 floating around that call it 3600.

 

Dan

[berzerk]

That seems almost crazy for them to even consider going from 5200 to 3600, that would make most people think it was an inferier product, glad they rethunk that.

[Tempest]

They also used the name 3600 for the system that was going to replace the 2600. It was a funky 10-bit system that was too hard to program so they scrapped it. I wonder if anyone owns a prototype of it? (Curt, I'm looking in your direction).

 

Tempest

[Ze_ro]

quote:

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Originally posted by Tempest:

The 7800 was orginally going to be called the Atari 9000 or something like that because they wanted to use a high number to make it sound far superior to all other Atari's. I forget why they settled on 7800

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I think part of it also had to do with them wanting to have somewhere to go *after* the 7800 (Though if their trend continues, the next would be 10900)... using a number bigger than 9000 would be difficult to do without it sounding stupid.

 

Oh, and going backwards in numbering would probably confuse a lot of the ignorant masses out there (Or at least, mothers buying games for their kids)

 

--Zero