Atari 2500

The Atari 2500 was a prototype version of the Atari 2600 made in 1981. It was intended as a replacement for existing 2600s, but never saw release for some reason. The technical specifications are no different from the normal 2600, except for combination joystick/paddle controllers installed in the system itself (though you could use normal controllers too). It was light grey, and looked much sleeker than the current model 2600s. Though the system never saw the light of day, the 2600s would get a sleeker update (albeit without built in controllers) in 1986 with the Atari 2600 Jr..

Technical Specifications

* CPU: MOS Technology 6507 @ 1.19 MHz
* Audio + Video processor: TIA. 160 x ~192 pixel, 128 colors (121 of them actually different from each other on NTSC, 114 on PAL), 2 channel mono sound.
* RAM: 128 bytes (plus up to 256 bytes built into the game cartridges)
* ROM (game cartridges): 4 KB maximum capacity (32 KB+ with paging)
* Input: Six switches (original version): Power on/off, TV signal (B/W or Color), Difficulty for each player (called A and B), Select, and Reset. Except for the power switch, games could (and did) assign other meanings to the switches.
* Output: B/W or Color TV picture and sound signal (NTSC, PAL or SECAM, depending on region; game cartridges are exchangeable between NTSC and PAL/SECAM machines, but this will result to wrong or missing colors and often a rolling picture.)

External links

* [http://www.atari.com/ Atari's official website]
* [http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/2500/2500.html The Atari Historical Society's page about the 2500]