Three Kinds Of 2600s: Cold Start

Have you ever noticed how some numbers tend to get more meaning associated with them than seems objectively fair? Trust me, it happens. Take the three digits 9,1, and 1, for example. That combination of numerals is a legendary rear-engined sports car, the American emergency services phone number, and the date of the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center. That’s a lot of baggage for three numbers to carry! There’s other numbers like this, perhaps less significant, but still notable. One of these is 2600, which also has three big things associated with it, one of which is the truck you see up there. A Dutch truck, even!

The three 2600s I’m thinking of are the DAF 2600 truck, the Atari 2600, and the 2600-hertz tone that was used by the telephone network. Each of these was incredibly significant in their respective fields in some way, and all contribute to putting 2600 in that rare class of number that has far more significance than you’d imagine.

Let’s give a little explanation for each, why not? We’re still an automotive site, so let’s start with the big DAF 2600.

The DAF 2600 is considered the first “international” (at least for European nations) truck, and was revolutionary in the way it focused on the driver. The huge cubical cab was comfortable and spacious and the layout of controls around the driver was one of the first truly ergonomic large truck designs. The layout and design of the 2600 were hugely influential in the heavy truck world, and the DAF 2600, which was in production from 1962 to 1973, remains a trucking icon.

The next 2600 is the legendary Atari 2600, which for many, many people was the machine that brought video games into the home. The 2600 was a remarkable bit of technological cleverness and austerity, with only 128 bytes of RAM and really only designed to play pong-like games and simple tank games, but somehow managed to be able to be pushed far beyond those original limits. Imaginative and clever programmers were able to make the 2600 do things the original designers never meant it to do, and that gave it a far longer lifespan than anyone could have imagined. Sure, there were some legendary missteps like the half-assed Pac-Man adaptation or the legendary flop E.T., but overall the Atari 2600 was a triumph of fun and creativity within severe limits.

Finally. we have 2600 as the 2600 hertz tone used by the telephone network to get linked to the long distance network, and if you could generate such a tone into a pay phone, one could make free long-distance calls. Incredibly, in 1971, the Cap’n Crunch cereal, represented by Captian Horatio Magellan Crunch, offered a plastic “bo’sun whistle” that just so happened to produce the exact 2600 Hz tone used by the phone networks.

A computer programmed named John Draper learned about the quirk of this whistle and helped to start the whole sub-culture of Phone Phreaking, where people would hack and explore the complexities of the phone network to make free calls and learn things and cause trouble and much more. Two people who were involved with this scene were Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, who were building “blue boxes,” which were electronic devices used in phone phreaking.

Their partnership eventually expanded from Blue Boxes into other equipment and devices, like, you know, motherflapping iPhones.

All this for the number 2600! And I bet there’s more! Lots more!