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Not mine. Just a couple pics a local "antique" seller provided.
What are those? First time I've ever seen that on 2600 games.
Kind of like interchangeable ROM chips? I guess this is old school console hacking at its best. :P
http://i57.tinypic.com/2whlco4.jpg
http://i61.tinypic.com/15s3153.jpg
I've not yet opened up a 2600 case, but based on the age of the tech, I'd assume that yeah, those are just desoldered/pulled from other games and left out loose to swap into that socket.
Assuming at least some of those are EPROMs, I'm pretty sure it's just a way to pirate games -- in this case early 4K games like Superman, Circus Atari, etc., since nothing with bank-switching or extra RAM would work.
These show up every so often in the Atari world (and aren't worth anything), and they always tend to look about the same. Maybe someone was converting these via mail-order, or supplying the schematics?
Someone wasted too much time on making a cart to play EPROMs on an Atari
2600 cart. Most of the carts can be had for under $2.
Not in 1981, they couldn't. All those titles are early releases (Warlords is the latest, from 1981), and I figure this hack job dates from before the crash.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
Or maybe the older titles were easier to burn EPROMs for. The Centipede cart came out in 1982. ;)
As others have said, yes they're ROM chips. There's got to be a story to this. It could be one of the earliest examples of console game piracy or maybe it belonged to a developer/engineer or someone who repaired games and needed a way to test the chips.
Or they were just from some tinkerer who made it simply because they could. Quite mysterious!
The Centipede cart is just sort of there and not really relevant. It's the modified cartridges and disembodied ROM chips he's talking about. Those are all older releases.Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
Obviously!