Atari 2600 Gets Turned Into a Core i7 PC

The Atari 2600 is about as iconic as a console can get. Released in 1977, it offered cool color graphics, a massive collection of games, and believe it or not, even had online capabilities. For many reasons, the console goes down as one of the best ever released, and that means just one thing: it’s going to get modded. The regular Nintendo (NES) has been modded by a billion different people, but the Atari 2600 hasn’t been so much. It’s for that reason that a particular mod over at the Windows Team Blog caught my eye.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team brought a couple of Atari games to the Web via HTML5 capabilities last month, and to continue the Atari love, the company teamed up with Hard Drives Northwest to turn some classic units into current PCs. The result is interesting.

Under the hood is a Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, a Radeon HD 6570 GPU and a 192W power supply. Instead of controller ports up top, USB ports are found instead, and where the cartridge is meant to go, fans exhaust air (it could be an intake, but it’s hard to tell). At the back is access to the motherboard I/O area and DVI / HDMI ports. Finishing the entire package off? An autograph by none other than Nolan Bushnell.

This isn’t one of the most impressive mods I’ve ever seen, as it does have some rough edges, but the novelty of it strikes me. If you want one, tough noogies – they’re not for sale. But, Microsoft is teasing the fact that two will be given away. You’ll need to follow this YouTube channel to eventually find out how to enter the giveaway.