Task: Watch Joe Decuir on YouTube
Needed: Web browser
Time: 1-2 hours
Introduction
Joe Decuir was hired by Atari to debug the prototype for the Atari 2600 and then went on to help design and build the Atari 400 and 800 computers. He has had a very successful career as an electrical engineer and was elected a fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for his contributions to video games and computer graphics. He is a legend in the Atari community and was kind enough to speak at the Vintage Computer Festival (VCF) East on May 5th, 2019. He delivered an outstanding talk and fortunately it was recorded and posted to YouTube. I highly recommend watching this video.
Instructions
Navigate to the YouTube page and enjoy watching!
Comments
It was so much fun to hear Joe Decuir talk about the Atari 2600 and 800. I learned a lot from this talk. For example, he talked about how the Atari 2600 case was much bigger than the circuit board to help consumers feel like they were getting good value for the $200 they were spending. The 2600 was about the same size as cassette players at the time. Here is a list of references he recommended for learning more about Atari. He also talks about some of the books available on Atari at the end of the talk. Good stuff!
