Atari 2600 Jr.

By the mid-1980s the Atari 2600 was a veteran many times over, yet it stubbornly refused to retire. The 2600 Jr of 1986 was a late-life makeover: a smaller, sleeker, cost-reduced version of the iconic console, sold at a budget price to anyone wanting cheap and cheerful gaming.

Pitched as an affordable first console, it could still play the enormous library of cartridges that had piled up over nearly a decade, which was no small selling point. For families on a budget, here was a machine with hundreds of games behind it for not very much money at all.

It is a remarkable testament to the strength of Atari's original design that the same basic console could keep selling, in fresh packaging, so many years after its debut. The Junior is the sound of a classic machine refusing to bow out, squeezing one last lease of life from a true icon of gaming.