The Atari 2600 Is Thirty - Happy Birthday Videogames

Believe it or not, videogames are thirty this month.

Well, that is if you randomly assign the launch of PlayStation’s great-great-grandad the Atari 2600 (an experiment originally codenamed "Stella") in October 1977 as the ‘birth’ of modern videogames, which many do.

While we get all nostalgic about how enthralled we were as youngsters with the 2600 versions of Pole Position and Asteroids on the big lounge telly, and while we argue the toss in the SPOnG office today about the exact date of the ‘birth’ of modern videogaming, one thing that is particularly interesting has come out from digging around old Atari’s trivia – what appears to be a clear early version of Nintendo’s Wii Fit Balance Board – the Atari Joyboard (both pictured below, so you can compare and contrast), which SPOnG also told you about back in July.

“Sold with the skiing game Mogul Maniac, the joyboard is a platform that you control by standing on it and leaning in different directions. Interesting, but not terribly effective.”

Damning. Watch out for a Wii Fit Balance Board nostalgia piece, to be found under the ‘where are they now file’ on SPOnG in October 2037.

^{source: The Guardian}