53-707: Space War is a video game cartridge released by Atari, Inc. in 1978 for the Atari Video Computer System (renamed to the Atari 2600 in 1982). The game is a version of Spacewar! , the 1962 computer game by Steve Russell . It was released by Sears as Space Combat , for its Atari compatible Tele-Games system. A version for the Atari Lynx was planned but never released. The cartridge includes 17 game variations. Variations 1–13 are duels between two ships and 14 to 17 are for one player. In some of
106-462: A DVD-ROM or CD-ROM . Techniques such as bank switching were employed to be able to use cartridges with a capacity higher than the amount of memory directly addressable by the processor. As video games became more complex (and the size of their code grew), software manufacturers began sacrificing the quick load times of ROM cartridges in favor of greater storage capacity and the lower cost of optical media. Another source of pressure in this direction
159-434: A home computer , video game console or, to a lesser extent, electronic musical instruments . ROM cartridges allow users to rapidly load and access programs and data alongside a floppy drive in a home computer; in a video game console, the cartridges are standalone. At the time around their release, ROM cartridges provided security against unauthorised copying of software. However, the manufacturing of ROM cartridges
212-407: A cartridge containing 27 games. As people transitioned to the newer systems, some companies were left with surplus stock and were selling at a loss. The combination of market saturation and the start of the second generation caused many companies to leave the market completely. These events became known as the video game crash of 1977, as sales of second generation consoles were only modest for
265-758: A fee and prosecuted companies who released consoles without a licensing agreement. It was with the Odyssey that Nintendo first became involved in the home video game market. According to Martin Picard in the International Journal of Computer Game Research : "in 1971, Nintendo had – even before the marketing of the first home console in the United States – an alliance with the American pioneer Magnavox to develop and produce optoelectronic guns for
318-422: A game where players controlled dots chasing each other and a light gun shooter game with a plastic rifle. By August 1967, Baer and Harrison had completed a third prototype machine, but Baer felt that he was not proving successful at designing fun games for the system; to make up for this he added Bill Rusch, who had helped him come up with the initial games for the console, to the project. He soon proved his value to
371-470: A licensee of Magnavox. Home video games achieved widespread popularity with the release of a home version of Pong and its success sparked hundreds of clones, including the Coleco Telstar , which went on to be a success in its own right with over a dozen models. Starting in 1976, Coleco released a series of fourteen dedicated consoles up until 1978, when they suffered a significant loss due to
424-509: A number of advantages over other methods of storage like floppy disks and optical media . As the ROM cartridge is memory mapped into the system's normal address space, software stored in the ROM can be read like normal memory; since the system does not have to transfer data from slower media, it allows for nearly instant load time and code execution. Software run directly from ROM typically uses less RAM, leaving memory free for other processes. While
477-424: A prototype of the game. By the end of November 1970, the pair had abandoned the project as untenable, as economically feasible computers were not powerful enough. Dabney soon thought of a way to manipulate the video signal on the screen without a computer controlling it, and from there Syzygy Engineering came up with the idea of removing the computer altogether and building specialized hardware to handle everything for
530-494: A slot at the back of the calculator. The calculator came with a module that provides several standard mathematical functions including the solution of simultaneous equations. Other modules were specialized for financial calculations, or other subject areas, and even a "games" module. Modules were not user-programmable. The Hewlett-Packard HP-41C had expansion slots which could hold ROM memory as well as I/O expansion ports. Computers using cartridges in addition to magnetic media are
583-425: A small range of beeps and buzzes. In 1976, General Instrument produced a series of affordable integrated chips that allowed companies to simplify console production and lower costs. Due to this, many companies had entered the home console market by the late 1970s. A significant number released consoles that were essentially clones of Atari's Home Pong and many were poorly made and rushed to market, causing
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#1732793942875636-507: A well-established Japanese company that made a number of different products, entered the video game console market for the first time in 1977 with its Color TV-Game series . In 1951, Ralph Baer conceived the idea of an interactive television while designing a television set for Loral in the Bronx, New York . Baer did not pursue the idea, but it returned to him in August 1966 when he was
689-601: Is a 1962 mainframe game developed by a group of students and employees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Bushnell had worked at an amusement park, and felt that an arcade game version of the game would be very popular. The high price of computers capable of running the game, however, meant that any such arcade game would not be economically feasible. By 1970, however, minicomputers were beginning to come down in price. He and his office mate, Ted Dabney , agreed to work together to try and design
742-529: Is the only major company to exclusively use cartridges for their consoles and handhelds, as others such as Sony and Microsoft continue to use optical disc -based media for their consoles. In 1976 , 310,000 home video game cartridges were sold in the United States. Between 1983 and 2013, a total of 2,910.72 million software cartridges had been sold for Nintendo consoles . ROM cartridges can not only carry software, but additional hardware expansions as well. Examples include various cartridge-based chips on
795-430: The Atari 2600 released the following year. From the late 1970s to mid-1990s, the majority of home video game systems were cartridge-based. As compact disc technology came to be widely used for data storage, most hardware companies moved from cartridges to CD-based game systems. Nintendo remained the lone hold-out, using cartridges for their Nintendo 64 system; the company did not transition to optical media until
848-625: The VIC-20 and Commodore 64 , MSX , Atari 8-bit computers , TI-99/4A (where they were called Solid State Command Modules and were not directly mapped to the system bus) and IBM PCjr (where the cartridge was mapped into BIOS space). Some arcade system boards , such as Capcom 's CP System and SNK 's Neo Geo , also used ROM cartridges. Cassettes and floppy disks cost less than ROM cartridges and some memory cards were sold as an inexpensive alternative to ROM cartridges. A precursor to modern game cartridges of second generation video consoles
901-806: The history of video games , the first generation era refers to the video games, video game consoles , and handheld video game consoles available from 1972 to 1983. Notable consoles of the first generation include the Odyssey series (excluding the Magnavox Odyssey 2 ), the Atari Home Pong , the Coleco Telstar series and the Color TV-Game series . The generation ended with the Computer TV-Game in 1980 and its following discontinuation in 1983, but many manufacturers had left
954-569: The 1980s, before Yamaha's Music Cartridge was introduced. Models that used these cartridges were in the Casiotone line of portable electronic keyboards. Amstrad Atari, Inc. Bandai Blaze Entertainment Coleco Fairchild Camera and Instrument Fisher-Price IBM Interton LeapFrog Magnavox / Philips Mattel Milton Bradley NEC Nikko Europe Nintendo Sega SNK First generation of video game consoles In
1007-577: The 1980s, such as the DX1 , DX5 and DX7 and their PSR keyboard lineup in the mid-1990s, namely the PSR-320, PSR-420, PSR-520, PSR-620, PSR-330, PSR-530 and the PSR-6000 . These keyboards use specialized cards known as Music Cartridges , a ROM cartridge simply containing MIDI data to be played on the keyboard as MIDI sequence or song data. Casio has also used similar cartridges known as ROM Pack in
1060-673: The Chief Engineer and manager of the Equipment Design Division at Sanders Associates . By December 1966, he and a technician created a prototype that allowed a player to move a line across the screen. After a demonstration to the company's director of research and development, some funding was allotted and the project was made official. Baer spent the next few months designing further prototypes, and in February 1967 assigned technician Bill Harrison to begin building
1113-566: The Mattel Speed Freak and the Mattel Competition Football handhelds are closer to the end of the first generation (1982) . They were followed by other titles based on sports and some licensed properties such as Battlestar Galactica . Each game had basic controls, a simple LED interface and a buzzer for sound. The series was popular, sold well and, at times, was difficult to find due to high demand. In
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#17327939428751166-837: The Odyssey, since it was similar to what Nintendo was able to offer in the Japanese toy market in [the] 1970s." In 1974 North American Philips purchased Magnavox and released a series of eight Odyssey consoles in North America from 1975 to 1977. All of them were dedicated consoles , and each subsequent release was an improvement over the previous, adding features such as additional game variations, on-screen displays, and player-controlled handicaps such as smaller paddle sizes and variable ball speed. Three Odyssey series consoles were also released in Europe with similar features from 1976 to 1978. On September 12, 1975, several months before
1219-771: The Super NES , the SVP chip in the Sega Genesis version of Virtua Racing , and a chess module in the Magnavox Odyssey² . Micro Machines 2 on the Genesis/Mega Drive used a custom " J-Cart " cartridge design by Codemasters which incorporated two additional gamepad ports. This allowed players to have up to four gamepads connected to the console without the need for an additional multi-controller adapter . Storing software on ROM cartridges has
1272-419: The ability to display color, reduced the number of controller types, and changed the system of selecting games from a dial to separate game cards that modified the console's circuitry when plugged into the console. Magnavox named the console the Magnavox Odyssey and announced the system's launch date for September 1972. In the late 1960s, Nolan Bushnell saw Spacewar! at Stanford University. Spacewar!
1325-478: The combination of dock workers' strike, preventing it from shipping the final product in time for the holidays, and the start of the second generation. The series featured a number of different styles of ball games and external accessories to enhance gameplay such as the Telstar Arcade, which had a unique triangular design that came with a light gun and steering wheel attached to the casing. The series
1378-536: The company's shift away from their own proprietary optical disc -based media after last using them in the Wii U in favor of small cartridge-based media. These cartridges are known as Game Cards like previous Nintendo handhelds, and are much smaller and thinner than previous cartridges for consoles as well as Nintendo's own Game Cards for their DS/3DS handhelds. It uses a form of flash memory technology similar to that of SD cards with larger storage space. As of 2024 , Nintendo
1431-419: The contacts with an isopropyl alcohol solution typically resolves the problems without risk of corrosion. ROM cartridges typically have less capacity than other media. The PCjr-compatible version of Lotus 1-2-3 comes on two cartridges and a floppy disk. ROM cartridges are typically more expensive to manufacture than discs, and storage space available on a cartridge is less than that of an optical disc like
1484-459: The future of the home video game market. In June, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded Atari , which would go on to be one of the most well-known video game companies and play a vital role in the early generations of consoles. In September, Magnavox , an established electronics company, released the Odyssey . Inspired by the Odyssey's ping-pong game, Atari would soon go on to market the game Pong in both arcade and home versions; Nintendo ,
1537-488: The game instead. Computer Space , the first commercial arcade video game, was released by the pair as Syzygy Engineering through Nutting Associates at the end of 1971 and after its release they incorporated as Atari in the following year and began designing more games. Bushnell saw a demonstration of the Odyssey console playing its Table Tennis game in early 1972 and assigned their first employee, Allan Alcorn , to produce an arcade table tennis game. The result, Pong ,
1590-411: The game played to enhance the gameplay experience as graphical capabilities consisted of simple geometry such as dots, lines or blocks that would occupy only a single screen. First generation consoles were not capable of displaying more than two colours until later in the generation, and audio capabilities were limited with some consoles having no sound at all. In 1972, two major developments influenced
1643-401: The games. It had features that became industry standard in subsequent generations such as detachable controllers, light gun accessories and interchangeable game media. While no game data was stored on the circuit cards as they would be in future consoles, they could be used to select one of the twelve games built onto the hardware. Magnavox licensed its video game patents to other companies for
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1696-421: The generation moved the bulk of the circuitry to custom integrated circuits such as Atari's custom Pong chips and General Instruments' AY-3-8500 series. Graphical capabilities were limited throughout the generation, often supported with physical accessories and screen overlays, but saw some improvement towards the end of the generation. While the Odyssey could only display 3 square dots in black and white, as
1749-500: The generation progressed, consoles started being able to display color as well as more complex shapes and text. Early consoles such as the Odyssey and TV Tennis Electrotennis required players to keep track of scores manually but later, many introduced score counters on the display to assist players in score tracking. Audio capabilities were slow to improve over the generation, starting with the Odyssey, which had no audio, and later moving on to consoles which had buzzers that could produce
1802-464: The home console market to saturate. The demand for the chip was so high that General Instruments could not supply enough to satisfy all the orders it was receiving causing problems for some smaller companies. Coleco received their order early on, allowing them to build up strong production capabilities and have success with their Telstar range. The start of the second generation and the next major advancement in home console technology began in 1976 with
1855-626: The insertion of cartridges containing software in ROM . In most cases the designs were fairly crude, with the entire address and data buses exposed by the port and attached via an edge connector ; the cartridge was memory mapped directly into the system's address space such that the CPU could execute the program in place without having to first copy it into expensive RAM. The Texas Instruments TI-59 family of programmable scientific calculators used interchangeable ROM cartridges that could be installed in
1908-401: The market prior due to the market decline in the year of 1978 and the start of the second generation of video game consoles . Most of the games developed during this generation were hard-wired into the consoles and unlike later generations, most were not contained on removable media that the user could switch between. Consoles often came with accessories and cartridges that could alter the way
1961-586: The next few years until the arrival of the killer app , the home port of Space Invaders for the Atari VCS in 1980. There were hundreds of home video game consoles known to have existed in the first generation of video games. This section lists the most notable. In 1972 Magnavox released the world's first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey. It came packaged with board game paraphernalia such as cards, paper money and dice to enhance
2014-412: The project. Harrison spent the next few months in between other projects building out successive modifications to the prototype. Baer, meanwhile, collaborated with engineer Bill Rusch on the design of the console, including developing the basis of many games for the system. By May, the first game was developed and by June, multiple games were completed for what was then a second prototype box. This included
2067-535: The release of Home Pong in North America, Epoch released Japan's first home console, the TV Tennis Electrotennis. The technology was licensed from Magnavox and it contained a single ball and paddle style game that resembled Pong but without an onscreen score display. The game controls were contained within the base unit and it connected to a television set through an ultra high frequency (UHF) antenna, as opposed to being directly connected, which
2120-494: The release of the Fairchild Channel F . The technology behind the first generation quickly became obsolete as consumers had the ability to purchase new games for second generation consoles instead of having to purchase new systems when they wanted new content as with the dedicated consoles of the first generation. In comparison to the limited game library for each dedicated console, the Atari VCS launched with Combat,
2173-573: The release of the GameCube in 2001. Cartridges were also used for their handheld consoles, which are known as Game Cards in the DS/3DS line of handhelds. These cartridges are much smaller and thinner than previous cartridges, and use the more modern flash memory for game data rather than built-in ROM chips on PCBs for the same purpose. The release of the Nintendo Switch in 2017 marked
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2226-561: The series, the Color TV-Game Racing 112, was the first project of Shigeru Miyamoto , who would go on to become the creator of some of the most well-known video game franchises. All of the handheld systems from the first generation are dedicated consoles and started late into the first generation. It was not until the second generation and the release of the Microvision that players could purchase games separately for
2279-405: The standard size of optical media dictates a minimum size for devices which can read discs, ROM cartridges can be manufactured in different sizes, allowing for smaller devices like handheld game systems . ROM cartridges can be damaged, but they are generally more robust and resistant to damage than optical media; accumulation of dirt and dust on the cartridge contacts can cause problems, but cleaning
2332-527: The systems. The early dedicated handheld consoles were eventually eclipsed in popularity by programmable video games, which became popular in the fourth generation with the introduction of the Game Boy . One notable example is the Mattel handheld game series, which were released from 1976 to 1982. The first to be released were Mattel Auto Race and Mattel Football, while some of the latter models like
2385-404: The team by coming up with a way to display three dots on the screen at once rather than the previous two, and proposing the development of a ping pong game. As Sanders was a military contractor and not in the business of making and selling commercial electronics, the team approached several cable television industry companies to produce the console, but were unable to find a buyer. By January 1969
2438-548: The team had produced the seventh prototype, nicknamed the " Brown Box ". After a Sanders patent attorney recommended approaching television manufacturers, they found interest first at RCA and finally at Magnavox , who entered negotiations in July 1969 and signed an agreement in January 1971. Magnavox designed the exterior of the machine, and re-engineered some of the internals with consultation from Baer and Harrison; they removed
2491-427: The variations the ships fight near a planet which has gravitational attraction. This article about a video game released on an Atari console is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . ROM cartridge A ROM cartridge , usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge , cart , cassette , or card , is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as
2544-430: Was introduced with the first generation video game console Magnavox Odyssey in 1972, using jumper cards to turn on and off certain electronics inside the console. A modern take on game cartridges was invented by Wallace Kirschner, Lawrence Haskel and Jerry Lawson of Alpex Computer Corporation, first unveiled as part of the Fairchild Channel F home console in 1976. The cartridge approach gained more popularity with
2597-590: Was marketed at a lower price than its competitors and sold well with over a million sales. In the late 1970s, Nintendo released a series of five consoles for the Japanese market. The first of the series and the first console created by Nintendo, the Color TV-Game 6, was released in 1977 and contained six ball-and-paddle games. The last, the Computer TV-Game, was a 1980 port of Nintendo's first arcade game, Computer Othello . The third console in
2650-401: Was more expensive than floppy disks, and the storage capacity was smaller. ROM cartridges and slots were also used for various hardware accessories and enhancements. The widespread usage of the ROM cartridge in video gaming applications has led it to be often colloquially called a game cartridge . ROM cartridges were popularized by early home computers which featured a special bus port for
2703-476: Was that optical media could be manufactured in much smaller batches than cartridges; releasing a cartridge video game on the other hand inevitably includes the risk of producing thousands of unsold cartridges. Besides their prominent usage on video game consoles, ROM cartridges have also been used on a small number of electronic musical instruments, particularly electronic keyboards . Yamaha has made several models with such features, with their DX synthesizer in
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#17327939428752756-461: Was the first major arcade video game success, and inspired a large number of arcade and dedicated console versions and clones, including Atari's Home Pong in 1975. The first generation of consoles did not contain a microprocessor and were based on custom codeless state machine computers consisting of discrete logic ( TTL ) circuits comprising each element of the game itself. Over the generation, technology steadily improved and later consoles of
2809-577: Was unique to the console at the time. Compared to popular consoles of the generation, it performed poorly with an approximate 20,000 units sold. In late 1975 Atari released a home version of their popular arcade game Pong . It had been in development since 1974 under the lead of Allan Alcorn and Harold Lee. By the end of 1975, Atari had become a major company in the home console market due to Home Pong . Following Pong's success, Magnavox filed suit against Atari for infringement on its technology patents and ended up settling out of court with Atari becoming
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