Did People Make Their Own Games/Carts in the 1980s?

[bigdirkmalone]

Did anybody in the 80s make their own Atari 2600 carts? What I mean is did they program/modify carts and use an eprom burner to make carts that they could have used on their Atari 2600?

 

I know people do this know but was curious if this was a thing that anybody had accomplished back in the day. The reason I ask this is that I'm in the planning stages of a fiction book and was thinking of having one of my characters make/hack their own games.

 

[jaybird3rd]

If you're talking about simply making pirate copies of existing games, then yes, that happened. There were a few 2K/4K "cartridge copiers" on the market which were really just specialized EPROM burners in disguise, so games could be pirated even by people without any particular technical skills; the blank cartridges had 2532 EPROMs in them, as I recall.

 

As for new game development, there were a lot of smallish third-party developers in the 1980s (too many, really, but that's another story), but I don't think game development by individual hobbyists happened very often. 6502 assembly language books, and computers with the necessary development tools, were generally available by the 1980s—at least one third-party developer used the Apple ][, for example—but not nearly as many individuals had access to ROM burners, and manufacturing cartridges in scale was also a very expensive process at the time. The internals of the Atari 2600 were also considered (by Atari, at least) to be trade secrets, so to get the necessary technical information to program it, interested developers had to either reverse-engineer the machine themselves and write a manual (as Jerry Lawson of Fairchild Semiconductor did), or pay a lot of money to someone else who already had.

[bigdirkmalone]

Thanks for the reply. I wonder if there was any crazy person that pulled it off or somehow got their hands on the stuff once Atari went down?

 

Were there "make your own Atari Game" articles in magazines where you copy the code like for other systems?

 

If you're talking about simply making pirate copies of existing games, then yes, that happened. There were a few 2K/4K "cartridge copiers" on the market which were really just specialized EPROM burners in disguise; the blank cartridges had 2532 EPROMs in them, as I recall.

 

As for new game development, there were a lot of smallish third-party developers in the 1980s (too many, really, but that's another story), but I don't think game development by individual hobbyists happened very often. 6502 assembly language books, and computers with the necessary development tools, were generally available by the 1980s—a lot of third-party developers used the Apple ][, for example—but not nearly as many individuals had access to ROM burners, and manufacturing cartridges in scale was also very expensive at the time. The internals of the Atari 2600 were also considered (by Atari, at least) to be trade secrets, so to get the necessary technical information to program it, interested developers had to either reverse-engineer the machine themselves and write a manual (as Jerry Lawson of Fairchild Semiconductor did), or pay a lot of money to someone else who already had.

[Zwackery]

Some of the rarest commercially released Atari carts were done by individual designers working on their own. Look for topics here on Birthday Mania, Gamma-Attack, and Red Sea Crossing as well as Extra Terrestrials.

 

Here's a video I made associated with a little article I have coming out:

 

https://youtu.be/jPjh2-6sTzM

[jaybird3rd]

Thanks for the reply. I wonder if there was any crazy person that pulled it off or somehow got their hands on the stuff once Atari went down?

 

Were there "make your own Atari Game" articles in magazines where you copy the code like for other systems?

I should clarify that, when I refer to the 2600 internals as being "trade secrets," I'm talking about a fairly narrow window of time. I'm sure that everything about the 2600 was widely known within a few years; you can't keep secrets like that forever. By the time you get to the mid- to late-80s, Atari was awarding contracts for new 2600 games to individual developers, and I'm sure that at least some of them were working from home, either on the PC or on Atari's own ST computers. But by then, the crash had happened and the 2600 wasn't as prominent as it once was, and there probably wasn't as much interest among hobby developers to create new games for it. The "homebrew scene" as we know it today really didn't begin to come together until the mid-1990s, as I recall; Ed Federmeyer's "Edtris" was one of the first homebrew 2600 games.

[bigdirkmalone]

I think this is some of the information I was looking for. Mostly I wanted to know if it was done or was possible at the time.

 

Some of the rarest commercially released Atari carts were done by individual designers working on their own. Look for topics here on Birthday Mania, Gamma-Attack, and Red Sea Crossing as well as Extra Terrestrials.

 

Here's a video I made associated with a little article I have coming out:

 

https://youtu.be/jPjh2-6sTzM

[+x=usr(1536)]

Take the following for what it's worth - this is my recollection of a couple of conversations I had with some folks several years ago who were making their own cartridges back when second-generation consoles were still current.

 

Starting around the mid-1980s, it wasn't unheard-of for arcade game distributors and / or route operators to have equipment for dumping ROMs and burning EPROMS. Not necessarily common, but it was something that was starting to crop up.

 

This makes sense: it would allow performing certain types of repairs that might have otherwise involved having to purchase an entire PCB (or, at the very least, ICs) from the manufacturer in order to repair a game. Obviously, this cuts into profits, so if you were able to roll your own ROMs for considerably less than it would cost to buy them from <insert service department here>, there's a definite benefit to going that route.

 

Some of the more enterprising ones realised that this would also work for home video game cartridges. Realistically, most of the activity was centred around outright piracy: there's more money to be made selling a duplicate of a well-known game at a price that undercuts the original than there is in developing and trying to sell something completely homebrew and unknown. But some (meaning incredibly few) original / homebrew titles were released in very tiny numbers at the time.

 

Most of these games were sold at flea markets and swap meets. A few were available through mail order by way of magazine or newspaper adverts. Apparently the biggest hurdle to mass production of either pirate or homebrew carts at the time was getting ahold of cases and PCBs, so their numbers tended to stay low.

 

That's pretty much the extent of my knowledge. Like I say, take it for what it's worth, but it's something that I've always found anecdotally interesting.

[bigdirkmalone]

Interesting. Thanks for replying. I'll try to track down more information on this too.

 

Take the following for what it's worth - this is my recollection of a couple of conversations I had with some folks several years ago who were making their own cartridges back when second-generation consoles were still current.

 

Starting around the mid-1980s, it wasn't unheard-of for arcade game distributors and / or route operators to have equipment for dumping ROMs and burning EPROMS. Not necessarily common, but it was something that was starting to crop up.

 

This makes sense: it would allow performing certain types of repairs that might have otherwise involved having to purchase an entire PCB (or, at the very least, ICs) from the manufacturer in order to repair a game. Obviously, this cuts into profits, so if you were able to roll your own ROMs for considerably less than it would cost to buy them from <insert service department here>, there's a definite benefit to going that route.

 

Some of the more enterprising ones realised that this would also work for home video game cartridges. Realistically, most of the activity was centred around outright piracy: there's more money to be made selling a duplicate of a well-known game at a price that undercuts the original than there is in developing and trying to sell something completely homebrew and unknown. But some (meaning incredibly few) original / homebrew titles were released in very tiny numbers at the time.

 

Most of these games were sold at flea markets and swap meets. A few were available through mail order by way of magazine or newspaper adverts. Apparently the biggest hurdle to mass production of either pirate or homebrew carts at the time was getting ahold of cases and PCBs, so their numbers tended to stay low.

 

That's pretty much the extent of my knowledge. Like I say, take it for what it's worth, but it's something that I've always found anecdotally interesting.

[pacman000]

I've seen old magazine ads for cart parts.

 

You could have your character get a hold of a MagiCard. Then he/she could make a tape interface.

[bigdirkmalone]

I like this angle too. I had never heard of MagiCard. Do you have any idea where you would have seen the cart parts ads?

 

I've seen old magazine ads for cart parts.

You could have your character get a hold of a MagiCard. Then he/she could make a tape interface.

[pacman000]

Someone posted them to this forum. Where I forget.

[R.Cade]

These were the same groups of technical guys doing this that were doing satellite TV installations and modding cable boxes, etc. The "underground" electronics folk.

 

The way it usually worked is you gave them a cart (usually Combat) which they would mod with a ZIF socket and a cut a hole in the case. The cost for them to do this varied- I recall $50-100. They would then sell you the game EPROMs for $10 or so. I believe the cost of a 2732 EPROM in 1983 was $5 or so, less in quantity.

 

These turn up occasionally on eBay. A modded cart and a box of ROMs. I have never seen any homebrew from this era. It has all been just copies of the top games- that's what people wanted.

[crsdawg]

The thing is if a person made a homebrew game or showed promise that he could...that person would just get hired by a publisher and make official games. There was no need for a homebrew scene since their was a market for retail games and salaried jobs to be had making them.

 

I think Skeet Shoot is an example of a guy who figured out how to program games for the 2600, he made what we would call a homebrew game, then a publisher found out (maybe he marketed his game to a few), they bought the game, hired/partnered with the guy, and the game was sold in retail.

[NE146]

There was some reddit topic recently about a dude who made his own bootleg VCS carts.. lemme see if I can find it

 

<edit> found it: https://imgur.com/a/4CbNygf

Edited August 30, 2018 by jaybird3rd

[bigdirkmalone]

It's giving me an error. Which subreddit did you find it on?

 

There was some reddit topic recently about a dude who made his own bootleg VCS carts.. lemme see if I can find it

 

<edit> found it: https://imgur.com/a/4CbNygf

[jaybird3rd]

I just fixed the link (the URL somehow had some extra characters added to it).

[R.Cade]

That's a very poor version of it, but yeah. I bet that thing is finicky to keep running with that wiring...

[NE146]

It's giving me an error. Which subreddit did you find it on?

 

 

Guess it's fixed.. but I think I saw it on the front page to be honest.. I forget. The only thing I look at over there though is the retrogames subreddit so maybe that was it.

 

... the site is not loading really well now though.. I can't see the pics unless I click them. *shrug*.

[bigdirkmalone]

Thanks for posting it!

 

 

Guess it's fixed.. but I think I saw it on the front page to be honest.. I forget. The only thing I look at over there though is the retrogames subreddit so maybe that was it.

 

... the site is not loading really well now though.. I can't see the pics unless I click them. *shrug*.

[bigdirkmalone]

This is the link from reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/retrogaming/comments/9ahvsn/my_father_the_og_hacker_pirated_atari_games/

[zzip]

Did anybody in the 80s make their own Atari 2600 carts? What I mean is did they program/modify carts and use an eprom burner to make carts that they could have used on their Atari 2600?

 

I know people do this know but was curious if this was a thing that anybody had accomplished back in the day. The reason I ask this is that I'm in the planning stages of a fiction book and was thinking of having one of my characters make/hack their own games.

It was hard to even get into. There was no internet, and most people weren't even on BBSes yet. You couldn't get a "2600 programming for dummies" book. I don't think Atari had anything like a devkit because they hadn't intended on there being 3rd party development. The early third parties were made up of ex-Atari employees because they were the few who knew what they were doing.

[kskunk]

In the 80s, me and my friends (bored schoolkids) learned how to "hack" Atari 800 games. Graphics and text are easy to find and edit on disk.

 

Later on, one of us got an EPROM burner and within weeks we had moved into NES cartridge hacking. The burner could read the ROMs into a file on disk, where we would edit the text and graphics, then burn our changes. It was the same process we had mastered on the Atari 800.

It was very impressive to other schoolkids that we made "our own Nintendo game" with our names on the title screen and crappy amateur graphics. Nevermind that the program and levels were identical - we never understood or modified the code!

 

A more devoted/experienced programmer could go further and modify the 6502 code of an existing game - gradually turning it into something different. But starting from scratch is unlikely. Anyway, it wasn't that expensive, at least not by 1990. And I doubt we were the only ones to do it. All you need is lots of free time while you wait for the UV lamp to finish.