The familiar "game cartridge" invented secret story in NES and SFC cassettes

Nintendo Entertainment and Super Nintendo can switch games by inserting cassettes, but the information of such games was writtenROM cartridgeIt was the forerunner of "Channel F"Developers in an interview telling" How did you invent the cartridge? "

The Untold Story Of The Invention Invention Of The Game Cartridge | Fast Company | Business + Innovation
http://www.fastcompany.com/3040889/the-untold-story-of-the-invention-of-the-game-cartridge


Wallace Kirschner and Lawrence Haskell, who invented the cartridge type game machine "Channel F" for the first time 40 years ago. Game cartridges revolutionized the business model of video games by a user-friendly software experience that can be activated just by inserting cartridges into game machines.


Atari in 1972PONGAnd the Magna BoxOdysseyUntil the advent of video games, the video games just display one type of content on the screen, none of the products placed the computer at the center of the architecture.


Founder of Atari Nolan Bushnell said that in 1969MinicomputerAlthough I was thinking about game development as software, I did not realize it because it was too expensive. This situation was overcome by Intel's microprocessor "1971"Intel 4004". It is said that all the information necessary for game machines can be written on a single tip with little finger size. In 1974, the performance of 4004 dramatically improvedIntel 8008Has appeared,Fairchild SemiconductorYaRCASemiconductor companies like, have started developing their own microprocessors.


At this time, Mr. Kirschner, developer of channel F, said that by running software on a microcomputer equipped with a bitmap display instead of dedicated hardware, a more sophisticated video game might be possible I was aware that.

The home game machine which had been on sale by 1974 was only an Odyssey that can be switched to several kinds of games by inserting cards, but the production ended in the same year. Mr. Kirschner and Mr. Haskell have started to develop channel F in the first half of 1974. Initially, Mr. Kirschner developed a device that can write a 128 × 64 image on the display, using expensive 8 kilobits of RAM, with the system focusing on the 8-bit CPU Intel 8008. "The memory at that time was very expensive and there was a limitation on both the graphics capability of the system and the complexity of the system as each game's software was limited to less than 2 kilobits or less than 256 bytes, Mr. Haskell is talking.


"Hockey" and "tennis" built in channel F are completed as software that clears these restrictions. It is said that Haskell, who was in charge of game programming, was influenced by Atari's PONG. Following hockey, game software such as "third eye order", "shooting", "Doodle" was developed. The development team is developing a system that allows consumers to exchange game software easily and at a low price by purchasing expensive hardware for the first time and then developing a system that only needs to buy various software I was thinking.

At that time, removable storage of general-purpose computers was "paper tape", "magnetic tape", "magnetic disk", but it was said that it was very expensive as a product for consumers. There, Mr. Kirschner and Mr. Haskell says that ROM "EPROMAttention to. By switching the pin of the ROM chip to a durable connector, it is a plastic "cartridge" that allows users to insert and remove software repeatedly.


You can see the fact that you are actually inserting and removing cartridges on channel F from the following movies.

Commercial for Fairchild Channel F video game system at JC Penney - YouTube


Channel F's cartridge type game machine had a major influence on the game industry, but the final number sold was about 350 thousand units. Meanwhile, as a cartridge type game machine following the same time "Atari 2600"We have sold millions of units and software.