10 Things You Probably Never Knew About Atari

Are you the ultimate Atari nerd? Let's see if you knew all of these facts. And to experience all the joy of Atari without the joystick, visit arcade.atari.com. It's gaming reimagined by Internet Explorer.

1. The Atari 2600 was released in October 1977.

tumblr.com / Via retrovideogamesystems.com

2. A young Jack Black was in one of their commercials

3. Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Mario Andretti, and Pele were also in commercials.

4. The first Atari Football game was created in 1973, but it wasn't released until 1978.

theclevelandfan.com / Via electronics.howstuffworks.com

It was delayed because games couldn't scroll then! When it was finally released, it was the first game to use scrolling, a key part in lots of games today!

5. Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, also founded Chuck E. Cheese's

Mike Mozart / CC BY http://2.0 / Flickr: jeepersmedia

6. One of Steve Jobs' first jobs was as a technician at Atari.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

7. You can play reimagined Atari games online on Arcade.Atari.com.

Via atari.com!/arcade/atari-promo

It's old school gaming with new school fun! All reimagined by Internet Explorer.

8. Not only is the Atari logo a stylized "A," it is also represents two video game players with a "Pong" court in the middle

Via en.wikipedia.org

9. Activision, one of the world's largest video game publishers, was founded by former Atari programmers.

John Pastor / CC BY-ND http://2.0 / Flickr: ttkgeek

10. The Playstation 2 design was based off of the Atari Falcon 030 Microbox.

Michel Ngilen / CC BY http://2.0 / Flickr: 20179579@N00