What do you call the System - VCS or 2600?

[Great Hierophant]

In the beginning there was the Atari Video Computer System, model CX2600. Then it became known as the Atari 2600 Video Computer System, but the common designation it is simply the Atari 2600. So, in conversation with knowledgeable people, as opposed to ignorant persons, how do you designate the system? Especially if you had to distinguish it from other Atari systems, what would you utter first? Out of respect for tradition, I am preferring to call it the Atari VCS or if I wanted to emphasize the point, the Atari 2600 VCS.

[rockman_x_2002]

Personally I use the terms interchangeably. Depending on the situation, I'll use both VCS and the 2600. Usually the latter, though, as around here that's what it's more understood as.

[Lemmi]

its always the atari 2600 to me when i refer to it, my first atari was the black 2600

 

i dont remember the first few years of atari i was 6 in 1977, my interest in videogame systems came in 1979 when my uncle gave me his well used roberts pong system, played that for a few years and played atari at a friends house untill i finally got the 2600 for X-mas

[dykesr]

I refer to it as the 2600.

 

I didn't get my first 2600 until 1987 and it was a junior so tha name had been changed to 2600 when i recieved my first Atari. For me it will always be the Atari 2600. I love that little GUY :wink:

 

RD

[Bruce Tomlin]

Back in the day, 79 or 80, not sure which, was when we got our Atari. And we never called it the "VCS". So we must have just called it the "Atari".

[ATARIPITBULL]

Me too, as kids we just called it the Atari, everyone else had to say what they had, but when you said Atari, people knew what it was.

 

[Serblander]

Definately "2600" i have only ever heard it referred to as the "VCS" a couple of times (at the most). But then again, ... around here the common term for the Atari 2600 VCS is simply 'Atari'.

 

I've experienced this here NUMEROUS times! I'm always searching for Atari Jaguar & Lynx items, but whenever i ask anyone about them, they always seem to show me 2600 carts

[NovaXpress]

When the system was originally sold it was never called anything by the public other than an "Atari." The NES was also just called a "Nintendo" and many called their Genesis a "Sega" as well. A company chooses whether to promote their system or themselves and the public always recats accordingly. It seemed like Mattel was almost trying to hide the fact that they made Intellivisions.

 

Now that there are so many Atari systems to discuss, everyone I know who actively collects or plays classic games calls it a "2600" because there's no other way to talk to each other. But anyone outside the hobby STILL just calls it an Atari.

[FireTiger]

2600 if its specificly that I'm looking for, or "old Atari stuff" if for any pre Jaguar system.

[video game addict]

Atari.

 

 

 

What there are others?

[WildBillTX]

Atari.

What there are others?  

 

"That stupid video game that you waste all your money on" - my mom.

[Inky]

To me, it'll always be simply 'The Atari'. When I refer to the others, I say 52, or 78, or ST, or 8-Bit

[BassGuitari]

I call it the VCS or simply The Atari.

 

On this subject, I do sometimes use strange terminology. Sometimes I refer to game systems as "computers" or "game computers," and sometimes I call cartridges "programs." Maybe I subconciously try to make these things seem more sophisticated than they are.

[Kenwood]

Mostly....Atari

[Mr Egg]

ATARI!

then again where i am from all videogames , home console or arcades were known as ataris for a long time . only now is the term nintendo catching on when speaking of videogames

[Tsukasa]

At my house I currently call it atari because it's the only atari system I have. Here, I call it the 2600. When talking to ignorant people, I call it atari, and if I need to clarify I will say 2600.

[Agent X]

I called it "VCS" when I first got it (in 1981), but once Atari started referring to it as "2600" a year later, I did likewise.

 

I usually use the term "2600" now.

[Vic George 2K3]

Generally, the Atari 2600, or just 2600.

[atari_wizard]

atari growing up. now i call it the 2600 because there are different models out there that i was blinded from as a kid.

[Big Player]

I would just call it the Atari back when I first got one when talking to someone about it. But since I read a lot of video game magazines then and they all called it the VCS, so in my mind it was the VCS.

 

On this subject, I do sometimes use strange terminology. Sometimes I refer to game systems as "computers" or "game computers," and sometimes I call cartridges "programs." Maybe I subconciously try to make these things seem more sophisticated than they are.

 

Nothing strange about those terms--very accurate terms actually. The VCS is a computer and the cartidges are programs.

[Big Player]

That should be "cartridges."

[keilbaca]

It was known as the Atari for me. Even when there was a 5200 around, when someone said Atari, everyone knew it was the 2600, not the 5200. heh.

[Adrian M]

2600, usually.

[kisrael]

That should be "cartridges."  

Well, at least you're not calling 'em "tapes"...that used to bug the heck out of me when I was a kid, when my cousins would call 'em that "I mean they don't even have magnetic tape in 'em, for crying out loud"

[Adrian M]

That should be "cartridges."  

Well, at least you're not calling 'em "tapes"...that used to bug the heck out of me when I was a kid, when my cousins would call 'em that "I mean they don't even have magnetic tape in 'em, for crying out loud"

 

My uncle still refers to all games as "tapes"....even in today's era of CD/DVD-based gaming.