10 Facts About Atari 7800

Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800, is a home video game console officially released by Atari Corporation in 1986 as the successor to both the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200.

Atari 7800 was first announced by Atari, Inc on May 21, 1984, but a general release was shelved until May 1986 due to the sale of the company.

Atari 7800 had been facing pressure from Coleco and its ColecoVision console, which supported graphics that more closely mirrored arcade games of the time than either the Atari 7800 2600 or 5200.

The Atari 7800 5200 was criticized for not being able to play 2600 games without an adapter.

Atari 7800 ProSystem was the first console from Atari, Inc designed by an outside company, General Computer Corporation.

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The original production run of the Atari 7800 languished in warehouses until it was introduced in January 1986.

In February 1987, Computer Entertainer reported that 100, 000 Atari 7800 consoles had been sold in the United States, including those which had been warehoused since 1984.

On January 1, 1992, Atari Corporation announced the end of production and support for the 7800, 2600, and the 8-bit computer family including the Atari XEGS.

Atari 7800 came bundled with the Atari Pro-Line Joystick, a two-button controller with a joystick for movement.

Source code for 13 games, the operating system, and the development tools which run on the Atari 7800 ST were discovered in a dumpster behind the Atari 7800 building in Sunnyvale, California.