Download Atari Games

A couple of decades ago, a game system called the Atari 2600 redefined home entertainment as we knew it. The games that were developed for the 2600 and its brethren were the ancestors of today's more complex video games. Though the old Atari systems were considerably less powerful than today's elaborate computing systems, the creativity and innovation used in crafting the Atari's games ensured that they would be exciting to play, even to this day.

To play these older games on today's computers, a user has a couple of options. Alas, the old cartridges themselves cannot be read by modern computers. Instead, the modern gamer must resort to one of two tactics to play the games that he or she enjoyed in the past.

Ways to Download Atari Games

One option is to find a clone of the game. There are some modern web tools, like Flash and Shockwave, that enable programmers to try to clone the graphics, sound and action of the original video game. In most cases, the replication will not be exact, and can even be of dubious legal status; the creator of the clone might be infringing on copyrights of the original game.

Another option for playing these old games on a modern computer is to load the original video game code into a host emulator. In this case, the user will install a piece of software that clones the original gaming system. The user can download individual game ROMs (often the same code from the original game cartridges) into the emulator's memory. In many cases, these ROMs provide cheap and legal ways of recreating the thrill and fun of the original Atari games.