You know how much people judge a new gaming system by its launch lineup these days? Well, the Atari 2600 had a game called Basic Math among its initial titles. It is exactly what it sounds like. Be grateful for what you get today!

To be fair, we’re talking about the late ’70s here, where interactive entertainment you could connect to your TV was still new, exciting and a little scary to some people — so the prospect of having something educational to use on the system was probably quite appealing to concerned parents of the era.

It’s just a shame they really took that “Basic” part of the title to heart perhaps a little too much…

Find a full archive of all the Atari A to Z videos on the official site.