A question for all those folks who burn carts.
Posted: Wed May 28, 2003 2:53 pm
I've noticed that in the retrogaming scene there's a troupe of inspired people making their own Atari 2600 cartridges. Some of them right here on this base, as a matter of fact. This is a very cool thing.
I was curious to ask about how difficult this is to do: how difficult the programming is, the manufacture of said cartridges, and if blank carts are available for other systems, like (for instance) the SNES. Is there a site that's a central repository for all the people making this sort of thing?
Now, back when I was working at the used bookstore, we had an electronics counter. The guys who staffed it were pretty hardcore about their gaming, and took pride in collecting rare imports and stuff. So, as a joke, they put up a request for a game that didn't exist: A Japanese cart that was "so rare, you never even see it up on eBay." A Super Famicom cart called Super Jump Jump Kick Robot II -- the story held that it was the greatest fighting game of all time.
They offered higher and higher rewards for it as the legend grew. There was a big sign up over the "Most Wanted" list at the Electronics desk that read $300 TRADE CREDIT FOR ANY COPY OF SUPER JUMP JUMP KICK ROBOT II !!!
Greasy fanboys and prepubescent brats on the hustle tried doctoring up cartridges to claim the prize. Poseurs tried to fake like they'd played it at a friend's house, or seen an import console. This led to some impressive bullshitting streaks as Mikey or Trip would chat up some guy who claimed he'd played it, each one making up character names and button combos as they went along and the guy agreeing with them vigorously; yeah, Woldo's got some awesome counters to the Milkman's kick attacks, uh-huh, but you've gotta have incredible reflexes to take advantage of them.
So I was just thinking what an awesome gift a self-programmed cart of this nonexistent fake game would be. It wouldn't even have to be that good, just as long as plugging it into a Super NES got a title screen, and maybe a match between two characters.
So, anybody got the inside scoop on this sort of thing? Google gives me nothing useful, probably because I don't know the right jargon to get a good search.
I was curious to ask about how difficult this is to do: how difficult the programming is, the manufacture of said cartridges, and if blank carts are available for other systems, like (for instance) the SNES. Is there a site that's a central repository for all the people making this sort of thing?
Now, back when I was working at the used bookstore, we had an electronics counter. The guys who staffed it were pretty hardcore about their gaming, and took pride in collecting rare imports and stuff. So, as a joke, they put up a request for a game that didn't exist: A Japanese cart that was "so rare, you never even see it up on eBay." A Super Famicom cart called Super Jump Jump Kick Robot II -- the story held that it was the greatest fighting game of all time.
They offered higher and higher rewards for it as the legend grew. There was a big sign up over the "Most Wanted" list at the Electronics desk that read $300 TRADE CREDIT FOR ANY COPY OF SUPER JUMP JUMP KICK ROBOT II !!!
Greasy fanboys and prepubescent brats on the hustle tried doctoring up cartridges to claim the prize. Poseurs tried to fake like they'd played it at a friend's house, or seen an import console. This led to some impressive bullshitting streaks as Mikey or Trip would chat up some guy who claimed he'd played it, each one making up character names and button combos as they went along and the guy agreeing with them vigorously; yeah, Woldo's got some awesome counters to the Milkman's kick attacks, uh-huh, but you've gotta have incredible reflexes to take advantage of them.
So I was just thinking what an awesome gift a self-programmed cart of this nonexistent fake game would be. It wouldn't even have to be that good, just as long as plugging it into a Super NES got a title screen, and maybe a match between two characters.
So, anybody got the inside scoop on this sort of thing? Google gives me nothing useful, probably because I don't know the right jargon to get a good search.