The 4011 chip in the cartridge is a quad NAND gate used to invert the polarity of address bit A12 and combine that signal with the chip select line. That produces chip selects for each of the two 2K SRAM chips, one which enables on the top 2K from $1800 to $1FFF, and one for the 2K below that from $1000 to $17FF. Back in those days I had a DIY copier setup using a home made cartridge slot to DIP 24 cable adapter which took the place of a 2732 EPROM and plugged into an EPROM programmer card in an Apple ][. Cartridges turned into files on disk and then back into EPROMS which went into a ZIF socket on a hacked cartridge PCB. Those were the days... (until you inserted a chip backwards).
Thank you for the extra detail on that chip! Your home-grown setup sounds neat (aside from the mentioned danger of plugging in wrong). Really appreciate the story!
@@RetroFox It's the kind of mistake you make once and then you're extra paranoid going forward. I've never done it (fortunately), but I've seen others do it enough that I was pre-paranoid :D
@@Scyllinice even making this video, I kept double and triple checking I was inserting the PCBs I extracted from the game carts the right way because I was paranoid about inserting those backwards and damaging something.
I had no idea a cartridge copying device for the atari existed up until now. Usually when you hear about stuff like that, things like the Famicom Disk Writer kiosks come up a lot or similar devices for the SNES and N64. Great video!
Thank you so much! There really doesn't seem to be much talk about this thing out there. I do have one of those Super Famicom 'backup' devices I should do a video on - but the floppy drive is dead. If I ever get it working, maybe that'll end up in a video, too! :)
There was a tape based copier for the 2600, a mate of mine had one in the early 80`s. It was a cartridge that you put an original game on top, powered on the console with the switch on the back set to save and it dumped it to tape. The switch could then be flipped so you could flash the tape image into the carts ram without the original cart. It lost its memory every time the console was switched off. No idea if it was a commercial product or a hacked together thing but it worked very well and loaded up a game pretty fast. I know there was a commercial tape loader for the 2600 (starpath supercharger?) but that only loaded its manufacturers custom games and couldn't copy anything.
@@meetoo594 That seems like a better option than this one. You should be able to at least back up two games per tape (one on each side), then you don't have to worry about the battery dying and losing everything.
@@meatpockets From what I remember he could fit loads of games on a single c90 tape and used the tape counter to locate the one he wanted. The games were 8k max so didn't take up much space or take long to load. The trouble was, by this time most people had sinclair spectrums or c64s so the 2600 looked a bit crap and we used to rip the piss out of him for it lol. Combat was always fun though.
@@meetoo594 This device was featured as a DIY project in an electronics magazine ca. 1984. There was another commercial cart copier apparently manufacturered in small quantities, but Atari got an injunction to prevent its sale before it ever reached the retail marketplace. I do not immediately recall the name, but it was the subject of a major lawsuit in the early-1980s.
I remember as a kid, us having around 25+ 'ET-The Atari Game' cartridges with handwritten labels with names for other games written on them, and they did infact contain the handwritten games on these cartridges. The console belonged to my older brother who was around 15-16 at the time and I was around 5. I spoke to him recently about this, and he said he remembers acquiring them from a friend's uncle who used to work in the electronics industry, who had managed to get hold of around 5,000 copies of the ET game before they all ended up in landfill (plus a lot of other cartridges) that he was hoping to cannibalise for chips etc. Also, he remembers he said he paid NOTHING for any of them. Anyway, it turns out that he knew what he was doing because he started to supply his nephew with ET cartridges containing newer or better games, and in turn, my brother ended up with a lot of them too. All I can assume is he had set up some sort of rom flasher to do this? It would of been nice to have still had these repurposed cartridges to try and work out what was done but the console and cartridges got sold on, on around 1987, to pay for a new Nes console. Does anyone else have info that can shed some light on how this was done?
I've only worked with fixing broken NES cartridges, but I believe the same methodology would mostly work with Atari cartridges. I'm definitely no expert and I wasn't born until 1984 anyway :D. If you had access to an E(E)PROM programmer and a pin compatible EPROM, it would be relatively trivial to desolder and resolder an EPROM in place of the original mask ROM. Sounds like his friend's uncle would have had access to the tools at the time. It looks like a 2532 EPROM would have been the easiest choice.
Flash/EEPROM was not invented yet. So no flashing for sure. Surely the carts contained either PROMs or EPROMs. Someone had to program a PROM or EPROM, then replace the ROM on the ET board with the EPROM OR PROM using a soldering iron then put it in the cart and close it up. It’s also possible the carts just had boards from other carts in them of course. If it had EPROM then the chips inside could be reprogrammed. But you had to erase them with a special UV light first. So that probably meant desoldering them first. A big hassle. And that’s all expensive equipment and parts. Used carts would likely be cheaper than the chips alone. SRAM is not a likely possibility since you’d need batteries too. 4K EPROMs (2732A) were the first ones that were pin compatible with ROMs IIRC. So soldering them onto ET boards would be relatively simple.
I remember seeing this thing advertised back in the day! I didn't know anyone who bought one, because we were all moving from consoles to computers that year anyway. I'm just shocked to learn it ever got distributed. BTW: I've been able to heat and remove labels (mostly from old Colecovision carts, which also have the screws under the label) by setting my heat station to 100 and using a lot of patience to heat the labels at the edge and slowly peel them up. I've done it with 4 carts so far with no issue.
I don't currently own an adjustable hot-air station - maybe some day but I still would hate to attempt it unless it was necessary. For this purpose, it was just keep a look out for already damaged label/rough carts to test with as there are sadly many that have not been treated well.
You called the issue. Asteroids was an 8K ROM bankswitched cart. The 2600 could only address up to 4K ROM carts directly, but that was exceeded by adding bank-switching circuitry and other enhancements to the carts themselves. That circuitry could vary by manufacturer, and by cart, so it makes sense the copy cart is limited to 4K, as that would work universally without needed to guess and accommodate many different possible bank-switching methods.
Fascinating video! Not only was this a topic that I don't believe anyone else has covered, but the way you presented it was interesting as well! It didn't feel so much like a "review", per se, moreso like you were casually showing off a neat piece of your collection that not many people have heard of. I'm looking forward to whatever you have in store for the future!
Appreciate the compliment! I was of multiple minds on how to present it - just get right to the point or at least give a little backstory. Seems like people are enjoying it. Thanks!
Guess sometimes the YT algorithm does something right 😃. Very interisting video (btw, the closest thing I have is a Doctor V64jr, so maybe that's why I ended up here). Keep up the good work!👍
Cool! Remember seeing these advertised in magazines back then. Never knew they had that propriety cutout preventing other carts from easily being plugged in. Yep, Asteroids is definitely over 4k. It was one of the first games to use bank switching. To allow more memory. Thanks for posting.
Ah ha! So my guess was right. Thanks for confirming my suspicion regarding the size. As far as the cutout, yeah I'm sure they left that little tid-bit out. It'd be interesting if someone that bought one originally spoke up about that part - if they modded it, sent it back, or what.
Someone on Mastadon was telling me the same. I guess I really should have put a picture of the chip out there first and asked so I could get that detail better.
Reminds me of my childhood. Keep in mind that over here in England, the NES didn't arrive until '88 and didn't do well as most folks already had systems, with consoles not taking off until the Sega Mega Drive arrived a year later. We used computers, most commonly Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC at the time, though there were users of older systems such as Atari and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. The media these systems used for game storage(again, at least here in England) was audio cassette, and every couple of weeks, me and my friends would pool our money together, buy several games from the £1.99 budget section of Boots the chemists(yeah, they sold computer games back in the day for any youngsters) whilst one of us would hit up Dixons for a pack of blank tapes. We'd head back and have some "fun" with my dad's hi-fi system. Each game was usually 3-5 minutes long, so we could get around 5-10 games on each blank tape depending how lucky we were with load times. I'm sure that's what the intention of this device was.
I think so - it's just that that being able to hold one game and the $16 per extra copy cart wasn't as appealing as the cheap costs of blank cassettes that could also (as you said) hold 5-10 games. Plus, far as I know, these things weren't in local markets like a pack of blank cassettes. So they really didn't seem to think the whole plan through. :)
@@RetroFox Oh yeah, no doubt it goes in the bad idea bin, makes me wonder why they didn't use tapes. Just stick 2 3.5mm jacks onto the main unit and have it plug into the mic and earphone sockets of an ordinary tape player(this is the method used by Sinclair computers, the first of which is from 1979) for loading/saving games to the RAM on the cart.
Admitting this to the universe, but I stole many Atari games from a store as a kid, I would open the cartridge take the PCB out and ... because this is Quebec, it was by law obligated to have bilingual information in the box, so Atari would include a French manual that I kept, and French sticker to place over the English one if need be, I would simply use that sticker to cover the screw mischief and return the cart as damaged. The Store I got these from was a catalogue superstore store that never bothered to check anything and would simply return the money, which I used to purchase the next game. Nobody reads these anyways. :) Bonsoir!
I enjoyed seeing the teardown of the SRAM cart. If you don't want to risk breaking the copier by popping it open, I understand, but I'm gonna sub in any case. I have two theories for what's inside: a) an early microcontroller, maybe a TI TMS1000, that counts through the addresses, strobing the /WRITE line on the ram cart cart (just one or two chips) b) A handful of off-the-shelf 74-series logic chips.. three 4-bit binary counters (maybe 7490's), some misc gates to generate signals and detect end-of-sequence, and for system clock, either a 555 timer with a couple resistors and a cap, or a more rudimentary 2-transistor oscillator with a couple resistors and a cap.
A buddy and I copied games with cassette recorders. We both had Starpath Superchargers, and every month or so we would each buy a different game then copy them.
I never had a Vidco Copy Cart and from what you have said about it I would have been extremely disappointed if I did have it. A friend of mine who deals in buying and selling old video game consoles and cartridges has recently obtained a Vidco Copy Cart, but now that I know about the advantages and disadvantages of having it I will definitely say no to buying it from him. Thank you very much.
I'd have loved this as a kid, my family were too poor to afford new games, so we'd have to rent them from the local TV repair shop. But as for the lock out thing stopping you from copying games, could it also be there to stop larger games with additional chips from being copied and damaging the copy cart, games like Pitfall 2 Etc... (or even 7800 games thinking about it)
I believe a lot of the Atari 2600 library were 4k and less games. In either case, it physically blocked insertion of all except those special ZiMag carts with the cutout. I think they ultimately expected you would modify the device or open carts - probably the former - they just had to make it enough of a hassle (guessing) to keep from getting sued.
Regarding the ET bit around 1:20.... It seems like most people still dont know that you dont exit a pit in ET from the top. Always exit from the bottom.. and you wont fall back in.
As a kid, I only ever played the game at a friend's place, so I never got much time in with it to really learn it and my friend wasn't any better (best I can recall). In recent years, another friend did a full playthrough of the game and explained the pit thing and collecting the pieces. The game gets a bad rap, but that's mostly because of AVGN and folks not understanding it is comedy. It's actually decent, but I wanted to throw in the joke with a disclaimer.
Weirdly enough, my father came home one day, with a paper box and took out a console. I was born 1981 (i am from germany, by the way) and of course i didnt know what this is. He plugged it in and then i saw my very very first video game. PONG. I guess, this was during the time, the NES already existed, my family always had consoles very late. What i am wondering about is, which console this was. It has only Pong (or at least the only game that was played) but had a light gun. Sadly my father didn't remember either, after all since then 35 Years (or more) had passed. Great video. I love video games, modern and retro games, but the classic games and consoles have some appeal i can't explain.
Sounds like one of the many machines that used the pong on a chip ic. I had one made by binatone. They usually had pong, squash (like pong but both players were on the right with walls on 3 sides), football (pong with 2 bats for each player one in front of the other) and 2 lightgun games that were usually just a few white squares bouncing around a black background for you to shoot. There were a lot of these machines, some had paddles built into the console and some had them on cords like modern controllers. The lightgun was just a photodiode and a switch inside a gun shaped shell and could be fooled by pointing it at a lamp or turning the TV brightness up. Nintendo,Atari,Binatone,Grandstand and a ton of others made these things from the mid 70s onwards.
Yeah, I couldn't guess what system that was based on the description. There were so many Pong console, probably less with a light gun. You might check out the AVGN pong consoles video - I think he shows at least one or two with light guns. Best bet would be to just Google search that criteria and see if any of the pictures look like what you remember. Thanks and glad you enjoyed the video!
My gosh. I remember the 2600. It was actually my first game console back in the late 70's. It came with space invaders which I got so good at . I'd be 20 rounds in and still going. Of course, with that game... If you get out , you're doomed because the invaders would be too far to the right and would just crush you before you got over again. By 1983 the Commodore 64 was out (far superior) anyway.
A very large percentage of 2600 games are larger than 4k. Many of the good later games are larger than 4k and have RAM on the cartridge. Atari developed the "SARA" chip which doubled the 2600's ram from 1kbit to 2kbit. Some 3rd party publishers have even bigger amounts of RAM on the cart, not to mention bigger ROMs. This would only be useful with game before 1981. I'm pretty sure Asteroids was the first game published by Atari which was bigger than 4k.
The 4011 is a CMOS quad NAND almost certainly to select the 2016 from the Address lines. The 8312 means it was manufactured 12th week of 1983. The BPC probably has something to do with the packaging and is unimportant.
Famicom came out in 83 in Japan, and dropped here in 85 as Nintendo with a few consoles and a ton in the making, and the news being out about the next console, relaunching in 86 and despite all the hype the Nintendo initial launch was a disaster in 83, beacuse of all the cheap games that were made and flooded the stores, and 2 years later in 85 after a showcase and release of limited supply the next year in 86 the Nintendo was the most sold item in the US! My dad was a business promoter, and was in Japan in 83 and bought a Famicom system while he was there, because the meeting he went to was for Children's Palace, and the release of the Nintendo in the US! He said that all of their backers weren't convinced about the product so he brought it back from Japan and let them play it! They ordered 8 thousand units for each store which was capped at 1200 per store! He said that the people at the meeting couldn't stop playing it!! Anyways long story short I remember him talking about the Copy Cart, and he said it was going to be a flop!! He knew it from the start just like when everyone tried to convince him that Beta tapes were the future of video cassette's! LOL So by 1986 we had 3 different versions of the Nintendo Entertainment System in our home, and the Atari was put away forever!! He sold it with all the games at a yard sale for $70! I wish he would've saved it for me.... Still would be nice to have some of these old electronics as they are worth a ton now!
Pirated, imported & "grey" (pirate imports) Atari carts weren't uncommon in the UK in the early 80's. I knew a friend who had at least 10 games, none of which were available in the UK (including Popeye) at the time through legal methods. Quite often, they only worked in black & white as they weren't designed to work on a PAL tv. Pirated carts cost as much as the real thing (£25) and quite a lot of early video hire stores also hired out Atari carts (also Intellivision & Colecovision) so you could play a game for a few days then take it back. Hiring a cart cost about 3 to 5 pounds, so you could easily try out 5 games for the price of a new one.
We had the very same thing here in Canada. In about 1982 a shop near my school rented Atari 2600 games for $7/week. I got to play lots of titles that I would never have been able to purchase.
You didn't open the duplicator on camera, so the question I have: Is the cart blocker molded into the plastic on the duplicator case or is it something that is attached to the duplicator PCB in some way?
As far as I can tell it is actually molded into the bottom half of the duplicator and it's technically a bunch of separate fins each molded in to make it more of a hassle to remove. I may do some kind of follow-up where I open the duplicator up to show it - since I might be the only person willing to do so.
I never knew about the cartridge copier for the 2600. I remember that there was a program for the Atari 800 called cartcopy that would allow you to copy a cartridge to disk. It worked well but there were never that many games on cartridge for the atari computers. They mostly came on disk or tape from what I remember.
Any of my mates who would have been willing to let me open the cart to copy probably would have just given me the cart in question or at least swapped for one of mine I wasn't using. Still a cool product to look back ok. Nice video dude 🍺
The duplicator no doubt contains simple counter logic to read all 4K of address space from the source and write it to the copy cart. Given there is no write signal on the cartridge port, it is also doing something odd to write to the SRAM. Maybe it has the write signal on pin 24? 12 is the logic ground but the console has a shield ground on 24. The duplicator puts 5V on it instead, the copy cart inverts that through one of the gates on the 4011 and it would be the active-low /WE the SRAM needs.
Interesting to see that even back then people wanted to Copy Games. I remember a different System for the 2600, but it was bulky, and I assume also expensive, but it could hold serval Game. Can't remember the Name, sadly.
I didn't have o know about this but i did have a cart thatplayed games from cassette tapes. YOu put the cart into the 2600 then attached a audio cassaette player then purt tape in and turn it on then turn on the tape to play.
If it was earlier in the life of it it might have been a good way to rent games out, you go to the store, pick the game you want they stick in on the cart, then instead of having to return it, when you want a new game you just bring the cart back in and reflash it.
Similar idea to the Famicom disk system - I heard they had kiosks to do just that. I can't say I remember ever seeing Atari rentals growing up - NES was the first games I remember seeing in rental stores. Either way, interesting idea - wonder what would have happened :)
Neat product! I remember when the N64 was a couple years old, my younger brother bought a device online that plugged into the N64 console's cartridge shot and could store game ROMs, which was an incredible concept at the time when N64 games still cost like $70 apiece. Edit: in the mid-2000s, I softmodded my OG Xbox, which among other things allowed you to install a game's data on the HDD and launch it without the disc present in the disc drive. It was a nice way to engage in "ethical piracy" - I pay for a game rental, I copy the game to my Xbox's internal HDD and play it until I get sick of it, then I delete it to make room for the next game I rent.
Atari 2600 a blast from the past. I unfortunately never owned one since my parents couldn't afford or probably waste money on that. My neighbor had one and I would go to his house periodically because his parents bought him the fun stuff. Go Kart, Atari, etc. Brings back memories. I think as I got older I remember having that game console and a couple of games. Pitfall was my favorite one. I played most of those games, just can't remember the time in which I did. Since when it first came out I definitely didn't get on. Probably many years later. When it wasn't the WOW! factor to having your own arcade at home.
Thanks for sharing your memories - see, there was always that other kid that got all the cool junk :) I did like Pitfall, but my favorite was Beamrider. I never owned it, a friend had it and I'd play it at his place.
@@RetroFox Lol!!! I think everyone had a similar circumstance growing up. Beamrider, never heard of that one. I'll have to look into that. Thanks for the info. & video. Stuff I never heard of or just forgotten in the sands of time.
I bought this thing new and sealed from Ebay in the 90's for $10. The dude had many copies and didn't even know what they were for. I didn't know what I was buying either so I just sent my money order in and got it. The 90's is when I started collecting games and not even opening them.
I assume those additional plastic ridges inside the cartridge may have been a late change in production, knowing that they could possibly face legal charges and having to design this in order to no longer be compatible with retail games, hence probably why it’s packed in with their own game
Great video, but very confused about the copy hardware. I get there's 2 ram chips, and a nand gate used for chip select lines, but don't you need some type of basic control logic that cycles through all 4K address combinations and latches them into the ram chips?? Thanks.
Possibly, though I still have to wonder how successful a cart that can only hold one game at a time and required batteries to do it would have been. I really think they envisioned people buying multiple copy carts at $16 (80s money) a pop to keep a small, copied library.
9:30 and as you see ram cartridge supports no bankswitch titles, so no 8k and 16k+ games, only 2k and 4k titles, so only early releases would work, but yeah this would work for any standard atari 2k/4k games like combat and shit, if you can fit the pcb in teh duplicator
13:10 asteroid is an 8k title with bank switching, the copier will ever only copy the first 4KB it sees, so wont work, plus atari cant read compressed files, its 8192 bytes when you decompress the .bin file why nowadays you shove a cpld and a microcontroller, and with flash eeprom no batteries needed, so you can emulate any bankswitching scheme, or make your own custom one, official 2600 carts went up to 64k, though there is not a max limit for cart sizes, just you only can ever read a max of 4k blocks at any time
I would have to guess this was a flop - I would not be surprised with the company itself went under or just got bought out. The crash happened, as well - so likely, the company just went under.
@RetroFox yes I agree I commented before watching the entire video, so it came out too late was expensive and pretty much at the end of the Atari's popularity, I meant I wonder why no 1 else used similar technology or even that company to make something for cartridge systems. I never even knew about it, good video thanks
Just a guess - but I think later systems, especially moving into the NES and on, probably implemented some protections to prevent just a straight cart to cart ROM dump. So, any device would have gotten pricey, probably beyond a price point that would sell in large quantities to the public, and may have been more complicated than just push a button.
huh I had never heard of this thing! interesting to see the workaround that prevented legit 2600 carts from being used on it unmodified, though. and I kinda figured the memory limitation would've prevented most later titles from even working on the thing.
not a subscriber (youtube algorithm recommended your video) but that’s some really cool vintage tech! it shouldn’t be too hard to clone the board, which might allow it to be upgraded to support the larger game cart sizes, or be changed to support flash ram chips instead of SRAM.. just a thought 👍
I think it would come down to if the Atari can address more than 4k or RAM. I'm not sure if the bank switching was done to use cheaper, smaller capacity chips or because there was a limit to how much the system could address at a time. From some of the other comments, it seems like it wouldn't be as simple as just making a cart with larger RAM - would be fun to see someone experiment with the idea, though!
7:39 "8316" is the date code, not the type of chip. It was manufactured during the 16th week of 1983. The 4011 is a quad NAND chip, and as I type that I see Peter S's pinned comment also says what kind of chip it is lol.
It's clear I should have reach out a bit to see if someone could ID the chip better before finalizing the video :) No worries, I appreciate that lots of people have spoken up with helpful info regarding that.
I know, right? My guess is they figured you'd copy a game, write the name in ink, then mark through and write on the next line when you copied another game. Like I mentioned, it threw me off as well as a kid because I assumed it would hold multiple games, too, because of those lines.
I've never tested - I would guess a good set (i.e. major brand) batteries would have to last a while but then, three AAs is quite a bit of power relatively speaking. You'd think a simple CR2032 coin cell would be enough. Someone smarter than me could probably determine the power draw of the RAM chips and guess. Far as upgrading the RAM - I'd have to think it'd take a rework of the board and controller chip. I'm guessing it might not be capable of doing the bank switching necessary to exceed the standard 4k. Again, someone smarter than me would have to chime in.
@@virtuosoification Holy crap I just watched this video! And yeah, doesn't take much voltage to keep RAM alive - Zelda saves expected to last til 2060 or something insane like that. Also yeah Asteroids was 8k with bankswitching.
@benheckhacks Are you able to tell from what was shown of the board if it's just bad/cheap design, extra power hungry, or would a set of 3 AAs last an incredibly long time in this?
I can only imagine. I think Star Master was the most complicated Atari 2600 game I owned back then with the switching between maps, hyperspace travel, and cockpit - everything else I had was arcade ports.
Just discovered this video, after buying the copying device on a polish marketplace portal, just out of curiosity. I am missing the cart, where the games get copied though.
I would imagine these things are pretty rare to begin with - finding the cart to copy to on its own is likely going to be tough vs keeping an eye out for a complete set. Aside from that, Part 2 has a good look at all the innards of both units - possible a board could mocked up and built through PCBWay if you have the skill and desire. Best of luck.
@@RetroFox What's interesting on my copy cart - it looks to me like the one i have does not feature the protection for copying regular cartridges. The slanted piece of plastic preventing the insertion of standard vcs cartridges is simply not there.
@@eraserVsilesia I would imagine most owners probably removed that in one way or another fairly quickly. Possible, too, that there's early models/ones made for other countries where they didn't have to worry about being sued. OR maybe you have a clone of it, if such a thing exists. Interesting either way.
I would guess nothing. My assumption is the normal game carts are read-only and wouldn't have chips installed or enabled to receive and write data to the rom chip(s).
Quite interesting that this exists, but at the same time quite useless that it only is meant to work with its own carts. This was at a time when copying games was quite the norm on computers... so being able to copy carts would have been cool too (If it allowed any cart that is). Mostly I could only see the advantage there if you were renting games and wanted the ability to keep playing the game.
Yeah, copying a rental could have been handy (though you'd still lack instructions), but I never knew of a rental store that had Atari games in that time period. Reading some forums, it seems like some existed, but it was a very niche thing. Seems like cheap(er) VCRs and the NES was when rental shops really became a widespread thing.
I wonder how hard it would be to make a modern clone of one of these. Obviously these days it wouldn't be practical given that flash carts exist for real hardware and software emulation for the atari is so easy a thermostat could do it, but I still think it would be cool.
There's probably some hobbyists that would be bored enough to do it just because - but, like you mentioned, there's flash cart options, emulation, and things like the Retron77 that would be way more worth the time and/or money/or free. Seems more like Copy Carts are just an interesting relic of the past but not too useful with those better options. :)
This channel is so retrospectively awesome 😺👍, you deserve a retrospective channel subscriber from Vantaa, Finland 🇫🇮. In fact, i still own the original hardwares of the Commodore 64 (tapes / disks) and Amiga 500 and play them 😺👍🕹️. I also draw my own furry comic arts 🖋️🖊️✏️🖍️ - sometimes, i draw the furry fan arts of the Commodore 64 and Amiga games 😺👍🕹️. Thank you 😸😺👍🕹️.
@@RetroFox No problem 😺👍🕹️. I also wish, i had the original hardwares of the Atari 2600, Atari 800XL, and Atari 1040ST. I admit, that i am a retrospective tomcat 😺👍🕹️.
The 4011 chip in the cartridge is a quad NAND gate used to invert the polarity of address bit A12 and combine that signal with the chip select line. That produces chip selects for each of the two 2K SRAM chips, one which enables on the top 2K from $1800 to $1FFF, and one for the 2K below that from $1000 to $17FF. Back in those days I had a DIY copier setup using a home made cartridge slot to DIP 24 cable adapter which took the place of a 2732 EPROM and plugged into an EPROM programmer card in an Apple ][. Cartridges turned into files on disk and then back into EPROMS which went into a ZIF socket on a hacked cartridge PCB. Those were the days... (until you inserted a chip backwards).
Thank you for the extra detail on that chip! Your home-grown setup sounds neat (aside from the mentioned danger of plugging in wrong). Really appreciate the story!
@@RetroFox It's the kind of mistake you make once and then you're extra paranoid going forward. I've never done it (fortunately), but I've seen others do it enough that I was pre-paranoid :D
@@RetroFox great video
@@legendsflashback thank you!
@@Scyllinice even making this video, I kept double and triple checking I was inserting the PCBs I extracted from the game carts the right way because I was paranoid about inserting those backwards and damaging something.
I had no idea a cartridge copying device for the atari existed up until now. Usually when you hear about stuff like that, things like the Famicom Disk Writer kiosks come up a lot or similar devices for the SNES and N64. Great video!
Thank you so much! There really doesn't seem to be much talk about this thing out there. I do have one of those Super Famicom 'backup' devices I should do a video on - but the floppy drive is dead. If I ever get it working, maybe that'll end up in a video, too! :)
There was a tape based copier for the 2600, a mate of mine had one in the early 80`s. It was a cartridge that you put an original game on top, powered on the console with the switch on the back set to save and it dumped it to tape. The switch could then be flipped so you could flash the tape image into the carts ram without the original cart. It lost its memory every time the console was switched off. No idea if it was a commercial product or a hacked together thing but it worked very well and loaded up a game pretty fast.
I know there was a commercial tape loader for the 2600 (starpath supercharger?) but that only loaded its manufacturers custom games and couldn't copy anything.
@@meetoo594 That seems like a better option than this one. You should be able to at least back up two games per tape (one on each side), then you don't have to worry about the battery dying and losing everything.
@@meatpockets From what I remember he could fit loads of games on a single c90 tape and used the tape counter to locate the one he wanted. The games were 8k max so didn't take up much space or take long to load.
The trouble was, by this time most people had sinclair spectrums or c64s so the 2600 looked a bit crap and we used to rip the piss out of him for it lol. Combat was always fun though.
@@meetoo594 This device was featured as a DIY project in an electronics magazine ca. 1984.
There was another commercial cart copier apparently manufacturered in small quantities, but Atari got an injunction to prevent its sale before it ever reached the retail marketplace. I do not immediately recall the name, but it was the subject of a major lawsuit in the early-1980s.
Great video! I had no clue something like this existed for the 2600, very cool. Thanks for the well thought out video!
Thanks! That's why I wanted to do at least some kind of video. Seemed there wasn't much out there on it - especially in video format.
I remember as a kid, us having around 25+ 'ET-The Atari Game' cartridges with handwritten labels with names for other games written on them, and they did infact contain the handwritten games on these cartridges. The console belonged to my older brother who was around 15-16 at the time and I was around 5. I spoke to him recently about this, and he said he remembers acquiring them from a friend's uncle who used to work in the electronics industry, who had managed to get hold of around 5,000 copies of the ET game before they all ended up in landfill (plus a lot of other cartridges) that he was hoping to cannibalise for chips etc. Also, he remembers he said he paid NOTHING for any of them. Anyway, it turns out that he knew what he was doing because he started to supply his nephew with ET cartridges containing newer or better games, and in turn, my brother ended up with a lot of them too. All I can assume is he had set up some sort of rom flasher to do this? It would of been nice to have still had these repurposed cartridges to try and work out what was done but the console and cartridges got sold on, on around 1987, to pay for a new Nes console. Does anyone else have info that can shed some light on how this was done?
Your best bet for an answer might be to post the question in the Atari Age forums - seems like that is the go-to place for that kind of knowledge.
I've only worked with fixing broken NES cartridges, but I believe the same methodology would mostly work with Atari cartridges. I'm definitely no expert and I wasn't born until 1984 anyway :D.
If you had access to an E(E)PROM programmer and a pin compatible EPROM, it would be relatively trivial to desolder and resolder an EPROM in place of the original mask ROM. Sounds like his friend's uncle would have had access to the tools at the time.
It looks like a 2532 EPROM would have been the easiest choice.
Flash/EEPROM was not invented yet. So no flashing for sure.
Surely the carts contained either PROMs or EPROMs. Someone had to program a PROM or EPROM, then replace the ROM on the ET board with the EPROM OR PROM using a soldering iron then put it in the cart and close it up.
It’s also possible the carts just had boards from other carts in them of course.
If it had EPROM then the chips inside could be reprogrammed. But you had to erase them with a special UV light first. So that probably meant desoldering them first. A big hassle. And that’s all expensive equipment and parts. Used carts would likely be cheaper than the chips alone.
SRAM is not a likely possibility since you’d need batteries too.
4K EPROMs (2732A) were the first ones that were pin compatible with ROMs IIRC. So soldering them onto ET boards would be relatively simple.
That's so cool!! I never knew something like this existed.
I remember seeing this thing advertised back in the day! I didn't know anyone who bought one, because we were all moving from consoles to computers that year anyway. I'm just shocked to learn it ever got distributed.
BTW: I've been able to heat and remove labels (mostly from old Colecovision carts, which also have the screws under the label) by setting my heat station to 100 and using a lot of patience to heat the labels at the edge and slowly peel them up. I've done it with 4 carts so far with no issue.
I don't currently own an adjustable hot-air station - maybe some day but I still would hate to attempt it unless it was necessary. For this purpose, it was just keep a look out for already damaged label/rough carts to test with as there are sadly many that have not been treated well.
@@RetroFox might be a leap but if you own a 3d printer you can use the heated bed at 60c and some patience for the same result.
You called the issue. Asteroids was an 8K ROM bankswitched cart. The 2600 could only address up to 4K ROM carts directly, but that was exceeded by adding bank-switching circuitry and other enhancements to the carts themselves. That circuitry could vary by manufacturer, and by cart, so it makes sense the copy cart is limited to 4K, as that would work universally without needed to guess and accommodate many different possible bank-switching methods.
Fascinating video! Not only was this a topic that I don't believe anyone else has covered, but the way you presented it was interesting as well! It didn't feel so much like a "review", per se, moreso like you were casually showing off a neat piece of your collection that not many people have heard of. I'm looking forward to whatever you have in store for the future!
Appreciate the compliment! I was of multiple minds on how to present it - just get right to the point or at least give a little backstory. Seems like people are enjoying it. Thanks!
Just know the algorithm sent me here and your content looks great 👍🏾
Thanks for letting me know! Glad you enjoyed the video. :)
freekin awesome its amazing youve held onto it this long enough to do a video about it
I wasn't the kid that got a lot of things, so I tended to hang on to the things I did get. :)
Guess sometimes the YT algorithm does something right 😃. Very interisting video (btw, the closest thing I have is a Doctor V64jr, so maybe that's why I ended up here). Keep up the good work!👍
Much appreciated! Glad the video is showing up for some people. Must be doing something right :) Thanks!
Cool! Remember seeing these advertised in magazines back then. Never knew they had that propriety cutout preventing other carts from easily being plugged in.
Yep, Asteroids is definitely over 4k. It was one of the first games to use bank switching. To allow more memory.
Thanks for posting.
Ah ha! So my guess was right. Thanks for confirming my suspicion regarding the size. As far as the cutout, yeah I'm sure they left that little tid-bit out. It'd be interesting if someone that bought one originally spoke up about that part - if they modded it, sent it back, or what.
I had no idea this thing existed and I collect for several Atari systems. Great video!
It really does make me wonder how many are still out there.
The 4011 IC is a quad 2-input NAND gate logic chip; 8316 is probably a date code for the 16th week of 1983, which makes sense if it came out in 1983.
Someone on Mastadon was telling me the same. I guess I really should have put a picture of the chip out there first and asked so I could get that detail better.
Reminds me of my childhood. Keep in mind that over here in England, the NES didn't arrive until '88 and didn't do well as most folks already had systems, with consoles not taking off until the Sega Mega Drive arrived a year later.
We used computers, most commonly Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC at the time, though there were users of older systems such as Atari and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. The media these systems used for game storage(again, at least here in England) was audio cassette, and every couple of weeks, me and my friends would pool our money together, buy several games from the £1.99 budget section of Boots the chemists(yeah, they sold computer games back in the day for any youngsters) whilst one of us would hit up Dixons for a pack of blank tapes. We'd head back and have some "fun" with my dad's hi-fi system. Each game was usually 3-5 minutes long, so we could get around 5-10 games on each blank tape depending how lucky we were with load times.
I'm sure that's what the intention of this device was.
I think so - it's just that that being able to hold one game and the $16 per extra copy cart wasn't as appealing as the cheap costs of blank cassettes that could also (as you said) hold 5-10 games. Plus, far as I know, these things weren't in local markets like a pack of blank cassettes. So they really didn't seem to think the whole plan through. :)
@@RetroFox Oh yeah, no doubt it goes in the bad idea bin, makes me wonder why they didn't use tapes.
Just stick 2 3.5mm jacks onto the main unit and have it plug into the mic and earphone sockets of an ordinary tape player(this is the method used by Sinclair computers, the first of which is from 1979) for loading/saving games to the RAM on the cart.
Thanks for this! I had never heard of this device before. It’s interesting how many things there are left to discover about this stuff.
Cool channel mascot, nice CRT, weird vintage tech: the algorithm is putting in work showing me good channels for once.
FYI the 8316 marking isn't a chip name, it's the date code. It means the chip was made in the 16th week of 1983.
Admitting this to the universe, but I stole many Atari games from a store as a kid, I would open the cartridge take the PCB out and ... because this is Quebec, it was by law obligated to have bilingual information in the box, so Atari would include a French manual that I kept, and French sticker to place over the English one if need be, I would simply use that sticker to cover the screw mischief and return the cart as damaged. The Store I got these from was a catalogue superstore store that never bothered to check anything and would simply return the money, which I used to purchase the next game. Nobody reads these anyways. :) Bonsoir!
Old-school copier devices like this are my THING, thanks for the cool vid.
Something that I've always wanted, but still don't have. Very cool video, dude!
Thanks! Yeah, it's just chance I happen to have one. Only time I've ever seen one in person is the one I have.
Great video! Never heard of this and wasn't expecting a disassembly breakdown with the video
Thank you! Stay tuned, plan is to do a disassembly of the duplicator as well.
I enjoyed seeing the teardown of the SRAM cart. If you don't want to risk breaking the copier by popping it open, I understand, but I'm gonna sub in any case.
I have two theories for what's inside: a) an early microcontroller, maybe a TI TMS1000, that counts through the addresses, strobing the /WRITE line on the ram cart cart (just one or two chips) b) A handful of off-the-shelf 74-series logic chips.. three 4-bit binary counters (maybe 7490's), some misc gates to generate signals and detect end-of-sequence, and for system clock, either a 555 timer with a couple resistors and a cap, or a more rudimentary 2-transistor oscillator with a couple resistors and a cap.
I'm probably going to do a teardown of the Duplicator - seems enough people really would like to see it. And it should be documented for the future.
A buddy and I copied games with cassette recorders. We both had Starpath Superchargers, and every month or so we would each buy a different game then copy them.
If this cart was reinvented where an SD card were put inside imagine having all the 2600 roms playing on real hardware!
I think that exists.
@@keithfulkerson by chance do you have a link for that. I know Stone age gamer doesn't have that.
@@victormercado4478 look up the uno cart. I think it's like 40 bucks
I never had a Vidco Copy Cart and from what you have said about it I would have been extremely disappointed if I did have it. A friend of mine who deals in buying and selling old video game consoles and cartridges has recently obtained a Vidco Copy Cart, but now that I know about the advantages and disadvantages of having it I will definitely say no to buying it from him. Thank you very much.
First time seeing your content. Very chill and relaxing atmosphere, dunking on 2600 Pacman, and 9V batteries. What's not to love?
Thanks - happy you enjoyed it :)
I like your style, great video! Hope to see more.
Bro this video was so epic.. thank you for the time and effort you put into this project ❤
Glad you enjoyed it!
I'd have loved this as a kid, my family were too poor to afford new games, so we'd have to rent them from the local TV repair shop.
But as for the lock out thing stopping you from copying games, could it also be there to stop larger games with additional chips from being copied and damaging the copy cart, games like Pitfall 2 Etc... (or even 7800 games thinking about it)
I believe a lot of the Atari 2600 library were 4k and less games. In either case, it physically blocked insertion of all except those special ZiMag carts with the cutout. I think they ultimately expected you would modify the device or open carts - probably the former - they just had to make it enough of a hassle (guessing) to keep from getting sued.
Regarding the ET bit around 1:20.... It seems like most people still dont know that you dont exit a pit in ET from the top. Always exit from the bottom.. and you wont fall back in.
As a kid, I only ever played the game at a friend's place, so I never got much time in with it to really learn it and my friend wasn't any better (best I can recall). In recent years, another friend did a full playthrough of the game and explained the pit thing and collecting the pieces. The game gets a bad rap, but that's mostly because of AVGN and folks not understanding it is comedy. It's actually decent, but I wanted to throw in the joke with a disclaimer.
Great video and thanks for not putting any music in the background
Weirdly enough, my father came home one day, with a paper box and took out a console. I was born 1981 (i am from germany, by the way) and of course i didnt know what this is.
He plugged it in and then i saw my very very first video game. PONG.
I guess, this was during the time, the NES already existed, my family always had consoles very late.
What i am wondering about is, which console this was. It has only Pong (or at least the only game that was played) but had a light gun.
Sadly my father didn't remember either, after all since then 35 Years (or more) had passed.
Great video. I love video games, modern and retro games, but the classic games and consoles have some appeal i can't explain.
Sounds like one of the many machines that used the pong on a chip ic. I had one made by binatone. They usually had pong, squash (like pong but both players were on the right with walls on 3 sides), football (pong with 2 bats for each player one in front of the other) and 2 lightgun games that were usually just a few white squares bouncing around a black background for you to shoot.
There were a lot of these machines, some had paddles built into the console and some had them on cords like modern controllers. The lightgun was just a photodiode and a switch inside a gun shaped shell and could be fooled by pointing it at a lamp or turning the TV brightness up.
Nintendo,Atari,Binatone,Grandstand and a ton of others made these things from the mid 70s onwards.
Yeah, I couldn't guess what system that was based on the description. There were so many Pong console, probably less with a light gun. You might check out the AVGN pong consoles video - I think he shows at least one or two with light guns. Best bet would be to just Google search that criteria and see if any of the pictures look like what you remember.
Thanks and glad you enjoyed the video!
Nice. Would have loved to see inside the main unit too.
I may just do a follow-up to show the inside of the duplicator. I think a number of people would like to see it and it would be good to document.
Nice. Thx for this. ☀️
Great video! I hope you make more content like this in the future!
My gosh. I remember the 2600. It was actually my first game console back in the late 70's. It came with space invaders which I got so good at . I'd be 20 rounds in and still going. Of course, with that game... If you get out , you're doomed because the invaders would be too far to the right and would just crush you before you got over again.
By 1983 the Commodore 64 was out (far superior) anyway.
Im pretty knowledgeable on retro but i had no clue this was a thing until now. Neat video. Thanks
A very large percentage of 2600 games are larger than 4k. Many of the good later games are larger than 4k and have RAM on the cartridge. Atari developed the "SARA" chip which doubled the 2600's ram from 1kbit to 2kbit. Some 3rd party publishers have even bigger amounts of RAM on the cart, not to mention bigger ROMs. This would only be useful with game before 1981. I'm pretty sure Asteroids was the first game published by Atari which was bigger than 4k.
I would have been the king of the playground with this device. I never knew this existed.. great vid. 👍🏻
Thanks! 👍
Great video! Loved your perspective on this stuff
Thank you!
Thanks for sharing that! That was fascinating!
The 4011 is a CMOS quad NAND almost certainly to select the 2016 from the Address lines. The 8312 means it was manufactured 12th week of 1983. The BPC probably has something to do with the packaging and is unimportant.
For all the time I spent with Atari consoles between the 2600 and the 7800, I never had any idea that this existed!
Really seems to have flown under the radar.
@@RetroFox definitely. I don't consider myself an expert, but this is one of those "I thought I'd seen it all" type of things.
Famicom came out in 83 in Japan, and dropped here in 85 as Nintendo with a few consoles and a ton in the making, and the news being out about the next console, relaunching in 86 and despite all the hype the Nintendo initial launch was a disaster in 83, beacuse of all the cheap games that were made and flooded the stores, and 2 years later in 85 after a showcase and release of limited supply the next year in 86 the Nintendo was the most sold item in the US! My dad was a business promoter, and was in Japan in 83 and bought a Famicom system while he was there, because the meeting he went to was for Children's Palace, and the release of the Nintendo in the US! He said that all of their backers weren't convinced about the product so he brought it back from Japan and let them play it! They ordered 8 thousand units for each store which was capped at 1200 per store! He said that the people at the meeting couldn't stop playing it!! Anyways long story short I remember him talking about the Copy Cart, and he said it was going to be a flop!! He knew it from the start just like when everyone tried to convince him that Beta tapes were the future of video cassette's! LOL So by 1986 we had 3 different versions of the Nintendo Entertainment System in our home, and the Atari was put away forever!! He sold it with all the games at a yard sale for $70! I wish he would've saved it for me.... Still would be nice to have some of these old electronics as they are worth a ton now!
Yea I had a cart with the ziff socket and Deltona back in 85, about 40 games.
Pirated, imported & "grey" (pirate imports) Atari carts weren't uncommon in the UK in the early 80's. I knew a friend who had at least 10 games, none of which were available in the UK (including Popeye) at the time through legal methods. Quite often, they only worked in black & white as they weren't designed to work on a PAL tv. Pirated carts cost as much as the real thing (£25) and quite a lot of early video hire stores also hired out Atari carts (also Intellivision & Colecovision) so you could play a game for a few days then take it back. Hiring a cart cost about 3 to 5 pounds, so you could easily try out 5 games for the price of a new one.
We had the very same thing here in Canada. In about 1982 a shop near my school rented Atari 2600 games for $7/week. I got to play lots of titles that I would never have been able to purchase.
You didn't open the duplicator on camera, so the question I have:
Is the cart blocker molded into the plastic on the duplicator case or is it something that is attached to the duplicator PCB in some way?
As far as I can tell it is actually molded into the bottom half of the duplicator and it's technically a bunch of separate fins each molded in to make it more of a hassle to remove. I may do some kind of follow-up where I open the duplicator up to show it - since I might be the only person willing to do so.
GREAT VIDEO!!!
I didn't know about this, great video thanks!
I never knew about the cartridge copier for the 2600. I remember that there was a program for the Atari 800 called cartcopy that would allow you to copy a cartridge to disk. It worked well but there were never that many games on cartridge for the atari computers. They mostly came on disk or tape from what I remember.
Any of my mates who would have been willing to let me open the cart to copy probably would have just given me the cart in question or at least swapped for one of mine I wasn't using. Still a cool product to look back ok. Nice video dude 🍺
Yeah, I usually just borrowed back and forth with my friends as well. Thank you!
The duplicator no doubt contains simple counter logic to read all 4K of address space from the source and write it to the copy cart. Given there is no write signal on the cartridge port, it is also doing something odd to write to the SRAM. Maybe it has the write signal on pin 24? 12 is the logic ground but the console has a shield ground on 24. The duplicator puts 5V on it instead, the copy cart inverts that through one of the gates on the 4011 and it would be the active-low /WE the SRAM needs.
Interesting to see that even back then people wanted to Copy Games. I remember a different System for the 2600, but it was bulky, and I assume also expensive, but it could hold serval Game. Can't remember the Name, sadly.
8316 is likely the date code for the 4011BPC chip, which would indicate it was made the 16th week of 1983.
I didn't have o know about this but i did have a cart thatplayed games from cassette tapes. YOu put the cart into the 2600 then attached a audio cassaette player then purt tape in and turn it on then turn on the tape to play.
I believe you are referring to the Starpath Supercharger
Yep. That’s it. Escape from the mindmaster was epic.
No Atari but my cousin had all consoles from nes-Cube and sega- sega Dreamcast...
im curious what would happen if the battery ran low
If it was earlier in the life of it it might have been a good way to rent games out, you go to the store, pick the game you want they stick in on the cart, then instead of having to return it, when you want a new game you just bring the cart back in and reflash it.
Similar idea to the Famicom disk system - I heard they had kiosks to do just that. I can't say I remember ever seeing Atari rentals growing up - NES was the first games I remember seeing in rental stores. Either way, interesting idea - wonder what would have happened :)
Neat product! I remember when the N64 was a couple years old, my younger brother bought a device online that plugged into the N64 console's cartridge shot and could store game ROMs, which was an incredible concept at the time when N64 games still cost like $70 apiece.
Edit: in the mid-2000s, I softmodded my OG Xbox, which among other things allowed you to install a game's data on the HDD and launch it without the disc present in the disc drive. It was a nice way to engage in "ethical piracy" - I pay for a game rental, I copy the game to my Xbox's internal HDD and play it until I get sick of it, then I delete it to make room for the next game I rent.
Atari 2600 a blast from the past. I unfortunately never owned one since my parents couldn't afford or probably waste money on that. My neighbor had one and I would go to his house periodically because his parents bought him the fun stuff. Go Kart, Atari, etc. Brings back memories. I think as I got older I remember having that game console and a couple of games. Pitfall was my favorite one. I played most of those games, just can't remember the time in which I did. Since when it first came out I definitely didn't get on. Probably many years later. When it wasn't the WOW! factor to having your own arcade at home.
Thanks for sharing your memories - see, there was always that other kid that got all the cool junk :) I did like Pitfall, but my favorite was Beamrider. I never owned it, a friend had it and I'd play it at his place.
@@RetroFox Lol!!! I think everyone had a similar circumstance growing up. Beamrider, never heard of that one. I'll have to look into that. Thanks for the info. & video. Stuff I never heard of or just forgotten in the sands of time.
I bought this thing new and sealed from Ebay in the 90's for $10. The dude had many copies and didn't even know what they were for. I didn't know what I was buying either so I just sent my money order in and got it. The 90's is when I started collecting games and not even opening them.
I assume those additional plastic ridges inside the cartridge may have been a late change in production, knowing that they could possibly face legal charges and having to design this in order to no longer be compatible with retail games, hence probably why it’s packed in with their own game
I'm sure the Copy Cart's 4k RAM was a limiting factor, as many carts were 8k or even 16k sometimes.
Great video, but very confused about the copy hardware. I get there's 2 ram chips, and a nand gate used for chip select lines,
but don't you need some type of basic control logic that cycles through all 4K address combinations and latches them into the ram chips??
Thanks.
Oh, that was the cart, not the copier. I now see you have a second video on the copier. Thanks!
Had you been able to copy any Atari cart and 5 years earlier, this thing would have been a huge hit.
Possibly, though I still have to wonder how successful a cart that can only hold one game at a time and required batteries to do it would have been. I really think they envisioned people buying multiple copy carts at $16 (80s money) a pop to keep a small, copied library.
7:35 4011bp is just a nand gate, 8316 means that chip was manufactured and left the factory on the 16th week of 1983
9:30 and as you see ram cartridge supports no bankswitch titles, so no 8k and 16k+ games, only 2k and 4k titles, so only early releases would work, but yeah this would work for any standard atari 2k/4k games like combat and shit, if you can fit the pcb in teh duplicator
13:10 asteroid is an 8k title with bank switching, the copier will ever only copy the first 4KB it sees, so wont work, plus atari cant read compressed files, its 8192 bytes when you decompress the .bin file
why nowadays you shove a cpld and a microcontroller, and with flash eeprom no batteries needed, so you can emulate any bankswitching scheme, or make your own custom one, official 2600 carts went up to 64k, though there is not a max limit for cart sizes, just you only can ever read a max of 4k blocks at any time
Brilliant I never even knew this existed, I wonder why they never made something similar for later cartridge systems
I would have to guess this was a flop - I would not be surprised with the company itself went under or just got bought out. The crash happened, as well - so likely, the company just went under.
@RetroFox yes I agree I commented before watching the entire video, so it came out too late was expensive and pretty much at the end of the Atari's popularity, I meant I wonder why no 1 else used similar technology or even that company to make something for cartridge systems. I never even knew about it, good video thanks
Just a guess - but I think later systems, especially moving into the NES and on, probably implemented some protections to prevent just a straight cart to cart ROM dump. So, any device would have gotten pricey, probably beyond a price point that would sell in large quantities to the public, and may have been more complicated than just push a button.
@@RetroFox oh yes I think you are right, NES had lockout chips
"I bought you Golf"
"I wanted Gorf!"
Interesting way of going about it. Kinda reminds me of the Supercharger in some ways but way less pirate friendly. 🦊
huh I had never heard of this thing! interesting to see the workaround that prevented legit 2600 carts from being used on it unmodified, though. and I kinda figured the memory limitation would've prevented most later titles from even working on the thing.
Now that’s what i fo consider extreamly forward thinking foe it’s time😁
Now this is very cool!
The first 4k of the Asteroids copy is there, but one of its very first instructions would basically be a “jump to nowhere”. Dishaster! 😂
not a subscriber (youtube algorithm recommended your video) but that’s some really cool vintage tech!
it shouldn’t be too hard to clone the board, which might allow it to be upgraded to support the larger game cart sizes, or be changed to support flash ram chips instead of SRAM.. just a thought 👍
I think it would come down to if the Atari can address more than 4k or RAM. I'm not sure if the bank switching was done to use cheaper, smaller capacity chips or because there was a limit to how much the system could address at a time. From some of the other comments, it seems like it wouldn't be as simple as just making a cart with larger RAM - would be fun to see someone experiment with the idea, though!
7:39 "8316" is the date code, not the type of chip. It was manufactured during the 16th week of 1983. The 4011 is a quad NAND chip, and as I type that I see Peter S's pinned comment also says what kind of chip it is lol.
It's clear I should have reach out a bit to see if someone could ID the chip better before finalizing the video :) No worries, I appreciate that lots of people have spoken up with helpful info regarding that.
Ah Atari, those were the good ol days
Nice fox plushie to!
The Atari certainly had it's moments and good memories tied to it.
Thanks, perhaps it'll be the channel mascot :)
This was interesting. I had no idea this existed. I didn’t get an Atari until most people were moving onto Nintendo. LOL
Oh well.
Great video - thank you
If only a single can be copied, then why does the game have such a large label with 10 lines to write on?
I know, right? My guess is they figured you'd copy a game, write the name in ink, then mark through and write on the next line when you copied another game. Like I mentioned, it threw me off as well as a kid because I assumed it would hold multiple games, too, because of those lines.
yars revenge was awesome,one of my favourites
How long does a set of batteries last? I wonder if you could put larger ram chips on for larger games?
I've never tested - I would guess a good set (i.e. major brand) batteries would have to last a while but then, three AAs is quite a bit of power relatively speaking. You'd think a simple CR2032 coin cell would be enough. Someone smarter than me could probably determine the power draw of the RAM chips and guess. Far as upgrading the RAM - I'd have to think it'd take a rework of the board and controller chip. I'm guessing it might not be capable of doing the bank switching necessary to exceed the standard 4k. Again, someone smarter than me would have to chime in.
@@RetroFox ben heck would build something like described here
also i wonder if pat thenespunk has heard of these ????!
@@virtuosoification Holy crap I just watched this video! And yeah, doesn't take much voltage to keep RAM alive - Zelda saves expected to last til 2060 or something insane like that. Also yeah Asteroids was 8k with bankswitching.
@benheckhacks Are you able to tell from what was shown of the board if it's just bad/cheap design, extra power hungry, or would a set of 3 AAs last an incredibly long time in this?
A friend gave me Swordquest: Earthworld (missing the comic book) back in 1984. I kept trying to figure out how to play it and was so confused
I can only imagine. I think Star Master was the most complicated Atari 2600 game I owned back then with the switching between maps, hyperspace travel, and cockpit - everything else I had was arcade ports.
Now another video of the copier itself opened up......because without it we're all just kinda sittin' here blue balled.
the little girl on the cover art of dishaster is terrifying
Just discovered this video, after buying the copying device on a polish marketplace portal, just out of curiosity. I am missing the cart, where the games get copied though.
I would imagine these things are pretty rare to begin with - finding the cart to copy to on its own is likely going to be tough vs keeping an eye out for a complete set. Aside from that, Part 2 has a good look at all the innards of both units - possible a board could mocked up and built through PCBWay if you have the skill and desire. Best of luck.
@@RetroFox What's interesting on my copy cart - it looks to me like the one i have does not feature the protection for copying regular cartridges. The slanted piece of plastic preventing the insertion of standard vcs cartridges is simply not there.
@@eraserVsilesia I would imagine most owners probably removed that in one way or another fairly quickly. Possible, too, that there's early models/ones made for other countries where they didn't have to worry about being sued. OR maybe you have a clone of it, if such a thing exists. Interesting either way.
I'm curious as to what would happen to a regular cart if you put it in the copy cart slot...
I would guess nothing. My assumption is the normal game carts are read-only and wouldn't have chips installed or enabled to receive and write data to the rom chip(s).
@@RetroFox why guess when we can experiment?
Back when IP wasn't protected with an Iron Mallet
I never owned one of these. The rarest thing I had back in the day was a Starpath Supercharger.
within two years of the Atari 2600 being released, we were buying cheap games at the local drug store (Revco) for under $5.
you didnt show the insides of the copier cart, the one with connectors on both ends
Quite interesting that this exists, but at the same time quite useless that it only is meant to work with its own carts. This was at a time when copying games was quite the norm on computers... so being able to copy carts would have been cool too (If it allowed any cart that is). Mostly I could only see the advantage there if you were renting games and wanted the ability to keep playing the game.
Yeah, copying a rental could have been handy (though you'd still lack instructions), but I never knew of a rental store that had Atari games in that time period. Reading some forums, it seems like some existed, but it was a very niche thing. Seems like cheap(er) VCRs and the NES was when rental shops really became a widespread thing.
@@RetroFox Yeah, I only knew of renting NES and up. But it seemed like smaller towns and ma & pa shops offered older games like Atari.
I still use my atari 2600 regularly !!
Cool vid!
The Worlds 1st EVERDRIVE
I wonder how hard it would be to make a modern clone of one of these. Obviously these days it wouldn't be practical given that flash carts exist for real hardware and software emulation for the atari is so easy a thermostat could do it, but I still think it would be cool.
There's probably some hobbyists that would be bored enough to do it just because - but, like you mentioned, there's flash cart options, emulation, and things like the Retron77 that would be way more worth the time and/or money/or free. Seems more like Copy Carts are just an interesting relic of the past but not too useful with those better options. :)
Only holds/copies 1 game?
Yep - just one game at a time. I really think they believed you'd just buy multiple copy carts if you wanted to copy several games.
@@RetroFox ahhh ok, but at $50 plus batteries your better off buying $40 game 😆, but your practice theory makes sense
Cool product
Great theme tune, I've subbed and liked!
This channel is so retrospectively awesome 😺👍,
you deserve a retrospective channel subscriber from Vantaa, Finland 🇫🇮.
In fact, i still own the original hardwares of the
Commodore 64 (tapes / disks) and Amiga 500
and play them 😺👍🕹️.
I also draw my own furry comic arts 🖋️🖊️✏️🖍️ -
sometimes, i draw the furry fan arts of the
Commodore 64 and Amiga games 😺👍🕹️.
Thank you 😸😺👍🕹️.
Thanks so much for the compliment and subscription! :)
@@RetroFox No problem 😺👍🕹️.
I also wish, i had the original hardwares of the Atari 2600, Atari 800XL, and
Atari 1040ST.
I admit, that i am a retrospective tomcat 😺👍🕹️.