Atari Corporation

Highlight: within its category (Video Games & Entertainment) · in the overall history of IT

Atari is one of the most famous names in the early history of video games, a pioneer of arcade games, home game consoles, and home computers whose products helped define electronic entertainment from the 1970s to the mid-1980s. Founded in 1972 in Sunnyvale, California by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, the company scored its first hit with the coin-operated arcade game Pong and went on to produce popular stand-up arcade machines such as Centipede.

In the late 1970s Atari released the home console for which it is best remembered, the Atari 2600, originally sold as the Video Computer System (VCS). It brought cartridge-based gaming into millions of households. In 1980 the company entered the personal computer market with the Atari 400 and 800, and later the 16/32-bit Atari ST.

Ownership of the Atari name has changed hands many times. Bushnell sold the company to Warner Communications in 1976. After the video game crash of 1983, Warner sold the home console and computer business to Jack Tramiel, forming Atari Corporation, while the coin-operated arcade division became Atari Games. Atari Corporation later merged with disk-drive maker JTS in 1996, and the brand passed to Hasbro Interactive in 1998 and then to France's Infogrames, which renamed itself Atari SA and still owns the name today.

Edited by Aaron Sylvan

Legacy Content: Unknown Author

Company Type	Video Games & Entertainment
Date Formed	1972
CEO	Jim Wilson
Website	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Corporation
Address	United States

Citations:

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Atari Corporation

Hardware by Atari Corporation

Software by Atari Corporation