Having already developed Arcade Machines for the last few years, Atari CEO Nolan Bushnell pushed into the home video game market. While not the first system to be released, it was arguably the first to push the console market as a true consumer product and attract significant third party development.

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Releasing in 1977, it was still being produced with new games released until the end of 1991 when Atari dropped its console support. It outlasted its own successor, the 5200 and was still being sold beside its other successors the 7800 and XEGS when they were all discontinued. Its impact on the game industry was legendary.

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With the help of Romcarts and new releases, even now new games are available for purchase through homebrew developers - with some original development teams coming back 40 years later.