The Atari 2600’s TV Type Switch: An Important Piece of the VCS Legacy
The “TV Type” switch on the Atari 2600 was a hardware feature that allowed users to switch between two different video output modes: “Color” and “Black and White”.
Initially, in the “Color” mode, Atari 2600 titles would output a color signal to the television. This was the default mode of the console, and most games were designed to be played in color.
When supported, the “Black and White” mode would instruct software to output a high-contrast version of the game, and was primarily intended for use with older televisions that were not capable of displaying color, or in situations where the color signal was too weak to produce a stable image.
