''Alpha Beam With Ernie'' is an

edutainment Educational entertainment (also referred to as edutainment) is media designed to educate through entertainment. The term was used as early as 1954 by Walt Disney. Most often it includes content intended to teach but has incidental entertainmen ...

video game released for the

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocesso ...

Atari, Inc. Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari was a key player in the formation of the video arcade and video game industry. Based primarily around the Sunny ...

in 1983. It was developed in conjunction with the

Children's Computer Workshop Sesame Workshop (SW), originally known as the Children's Television Workshop (CTW), is an American nonprofit organization that has been responsible for the production of several educational children's programs—including its first and best-know ...

. The game was programmed by Michael Callahan and Preston Stuart.

Gameplay

The object of ''Alpha Beam'' is to help ''

Sesame Street ''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) ...

Ernie Ernie is a masculine given name, frequently a short form (hypocorism) of Ernest, Ernald, Ernesto, or Verner. It may refer to: People * Ernie Accorsi (born 1941), American football executive * Ernie Adams (disambiguation) * Ernie Afaganis (born c ...

pilot a small shuttle, collect fuel tanks (marked by a letter of the alphabet), and return them to his space ship so that he can return to Earth. The game was marketed as a family-friendly game that could teach children pre-reading skills such as identifying and matching letters. ''Alpha Beam'' was compatible with th
Atari Kid's Controller
which was sold separately, although the regular keyboard controller is also compatible.
/ref>

References

1983 video games Atari 2600 games Atari 2600-only games Children's educational video games Sesame Street video games Video games developed in the United States Single-player video games {{edu-videogame-stub