WyoLum Blog | Open Source Electronics for Huge Nerds
Very early in my career, I lucked out and got a job at General Computer Company in Cambridge. GCC had a contract with Atari to write games for the 2600, and eventually were tagged to create their next generation system, the Atari 7800. I worked on 2600 Joust and Kangaroo, and also on Centipede for the 7800 as well as test code for the hardware and a sound driver that was used in several games.
We were given 7800’s from an early production run, and I recently found mine in my attic, and dragged it out, and hacked it to have a composite output. I also had been carrying around these EPROM carts for many years, and I wanted to see if I had anything “interesting” or special.
Once I got my 7800 running, many of the cartridges just worked, but there was one set that was labeled ROB 4(9?)/20 (probably Robotron 2084 written by my friend Carlos Smith) and another labled Xevious UNENCRYPTED (written by my friend Tom Flaherty). Neither worked in the 7800, and the Xevious one told me why it didn’t work: It said unencrypted (which was technically un-signed, but that’s what we called it back in 1984).
WyoLum Blog | Open Source Electronics for Huge Nerds