To take that full circle, though: the hardware capabilities of the 2600 were designed as a generalization of earlier "hard-wired" consoles. Support for graphica

To take that full circle, though: the hardware capabilities of the 2600 were designed as a generalization of earlier "hard-wired" consoles. Support for graphical features like a "ball" and "player" paddles was built into the TIA chip, and it was by creatively manipulating these features that later games like Pitfall were able to produce (relatively) sophisticated graphics.