The "Modern" Atari VCS

Atari had a 50% off sale on Labor Day and I could not resist picking up an Atari VCS. At just $150 for the console and two controllers, I thought it would be fun to play around with¹.

Note that this is not the Atari 2600 VCS, this is an all-new console created by Atari.

I’m a little late to the party with this as it has been out for a few years now. It was first announced as an IndieGoGo crowdfunding project back in 2017, but didn’t become available until 2020/2021 and has been on sale since then. Its regular price is about $200-300, but it goes on sale occasionally as it did this past Labor Day².

The Atari VCS is essentially a mini computer. It comes installed with Atari OS which is a version Debian that runs custom software to play games. Unlike most consoles, the VCS comes with many games, but unlike most consoles these are old, retro games.