Things I didn't know existed: Atari's Mario Bros.

I saw this on The Retroist and was genuinely surprised; I never knew that there was a pre-NES Mario Bros. game. Sure, I knew Mario and Luigi were in Donkey Kong, but always assumed that Super Mario Bros. was their first solo title. In addition to this ad, The Retroist also has screencaps of the three versions of the game - arcade, Atari 2600, and Commodore 64 - and I have to say, the game didn't look all that great on the 2600. It's understandable, the 2600 was several years old by then, arcade cabinets had more power than consoles, and the Commodore was simply newer.

I noticed something else just now, the ad has a copyright of 1983 - the same year the American video game market collapsed, which actually paved the way for Nintendo and other Japanese game companies to enter the market.