Atari 5200

Atari 5200 Game Console

The Atari 5200 was Atari's evolution in console gaming with a 1.79 MHz processor and 16 kilobytes of RAM.  It was introduced in 1982 to compete with the Intellivision and Colecovision.  Those of you who owned one of these will remember the joysticks with keypads and the fact that you no longer had to manually switch the RF adapter on the back of the TV (like you did with the Atari 2600).

Atari 5200 Pole Position Game

The Atari 5200 did not do well on a commercial scale, mainly due (in our opinion) to the fact that the system was initially not backwards compatible with the Atari 2600 games.  Some even argue that the list of games was lackluster, and of course it cost much more than the Atari 2600. Above is a screen shot of the game Pole Position for the 5200. If you compare it to the Pole Position versions for the 2600 and 7800, you can see the technological progression of Atari.