featured a pause button that allowed players to freeze a game. This allowed them to take a break without the need to reset or turn off the console so they did not lose their current game progress. Fairchild released twenty-six cartridges for the system, with up to four games being on each cartridge. The console came with two pre-installed games, Hockey and Tennis. Following the release of the Atari 2600, the Channel F's popularity waned quickly as the more action-driven games of the Atari 2600 drew more attention than the more educational and slow-paced games on the Channel F. By 1979, only an additional 100,000 units of the Channel F were sold for lifetime sales of 350,000. In 1978, Fairchild redesigned the system into a new model, the Channel F System II. The System II streamlined some of the initial Channel F to reduce cost and improve consumer usage compared to the Atari 2600, such as improved controller connections and using the television speakers for audio output, but by the time it was released, the Atari 2600 has too much market advantage for Fairchild to overcome. After releasing only six games for the system, Fairchild sold the Channel F technology to Zircon International in 1979, which discontinued the system by 1983. Atari 2600 & 5200 In 1977, Atari released its CPU-based console called the Video Computer System (VCS), later called the Atari 2600. Nine games were designed and released for the holiday season. Atari held exclusive rights to most of the popular arcade game conversions of the day. They used this key segment to support their older hardware in the market. This game advantage and the difference in price between the machines meant that each year, Atari sold more units than Intellivision, lengthening its lead despite inferior graphics. The Atari 2600 sold over 30 million units over its lifetime, considerably more than any other console of the second generation. In 1982, Atari released the Atari 5200 in an attempt to compete with the Intellivision. While superior to the 2600, poor sales and lack of new games meant Atari only supported it for two years before it was discontinued. Early Atari 2600 cartridges contained 2 kilobytes of read-only storage. This limit grew steadily from 1978 to 1983: up to 16 kilobytes for Atari 5200 cartridges. Bank switching, a technique that allowed two different parts of the program to use the same