I have fond memories of my Atari 2600 system.  It was my first videogame system and at the time was truly cutting edge.  Who can ever forget the games such as Combat, Pitfall!, Breakout, River Raid or Kaboom!.  That system is antiquated at best compared to today's technology, but it holds a special place in my hear.  Thus, it is interesting that I recently ran across a long article on the history of Atari.  It is about 20 pages long and so you may not want to read it all at once, but it is interesting nonetheless.