Fairchild Channel F

Fairchild's Channel F arrived in November 1976 and introduced the idea every console after it relied on: games sold separately on ROM cartridges, slotted in at the front. Engineer Jerry Lawson led the team that built it around Fairchild's F8 microprocessor. The odd plunger-shaped controllers, wired to the woodgrain case, could be pushed, pulled, twisted and tilted. It launched as the Video Entertainment System and took the Channel F name after Atari's VCS appeared the following year.