as mascots for marketing purposes. According to trade publication Vending Times, revenues generated by coin-operated video games on location in the United States jumped from $308 million in 1978 to $968 million in 1979 to $2.8 billion in 1980. As Pac Man ignited an even larger video game craze and attracted more female players to arcades, revenues jumped again to $4.9 billion in 1981. According to trade publication Play Meter, by July 1982, total coin-op collections peaked at $8.9 billion, of which $7.7 billion came from video games. Dedicated video game arcades grew during the golden age, with the number of arcades (locations with at least ten arcade games) more than doubling between July 1981 and July 1983 from over 10,000 to just over 25,000. These figures made arcade games the most popular entertainment medium in the country, far surpassing both pop music (at $4 billion in sales per year) and Hollywood films ($3 billion). Introduction of cartridge-based home consoles Development costs of dedicated game hardware for arcade and home consoles based on discrete component circuitry and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) with only limited consumer lifespans drove engineers to find alternatives. Microprocessors had dropped far enough in price by 1975 to make these a viable option for developing programmable consoles that could load in game software from a form of swappable media. The Fairchild Channel F by Fairchild Camera and Instrument was released in 1976. It is the first home console to use programmable ROM cartridges - allowing players to swap games - as well as being the first home console to use a microprocessor which read instructions from the ROM cartridge. Atari and Magnavox followed suit in 1977 and 1978 respectively with the release of the Atari Video Computer System (VCS, later known as the Atari 2600) and the Magnavox Odyssey 2, both systems also introducing the use of cartridges. As to complete the Atari VCS quickly, Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications , providing the necessary cash infusion to complete the system's design by the end of 1977. The initial market for these new consoles were initially modest as consumers were still wary after the saturation of dedicated home consoles. However, there was still newfound interest in video games, and new players were drawn to the market, such as Mattel Electronics with the Intellivision. In contrast to the dedicated home Pong consoles, programmable cartridge-based consoles had a higher