{"id":1104,"date":"2015-01-22T11:35:56","date_gmt":"2015-01-22T16:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=1104"},"modified":"2015-01-22T13:12:51","modified_gmt":"2015-01-22T18:12:51","slug":"the-invention-of-the-video-game-cartridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/1104\/the-invention-of-the-video-game-cartridge","title":{"rendered":"The Invention of the Video Game Cartridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Untold Story of the Invention of the Game Cartridge<\/a><\/p>\n

Three and a half years ago, I started writing a history of the Fairchild Channel F, the world’s first commercial game console to use software cartridges. As part of the research, I first interviewed two Fairchild veterans to follow up on my 2009 interview of Jerry Lawson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As I kept digging, the rabbit hole of history went deeper and deeper, and the story turned out too complex and nuanced to properly research for whatever venue I was planning at the time. Budgets were tight, and the economics didn’t work out, so I had to shelve it.<\/p>\n

Just last year, I picked up where I left off and did the rest of the legwork, summoning primary source documents from around the world (special thanks to ICHEG<\/a>) and interviewing over 15 people who worked for Alpex, National Semiconductor, Fairchild, Atari, and RCA to piece together the most accurate portrait of the birth of the game cartridge that I could possibly manage.<\/p>\n

The result was finally published last night<\/a> — in a somewhat abridged format — on FastCompany.com with my friend and longtime collaborator Harry McCracken editing the piece.<\/p>\n

What I have created sheds light on a heretofore completely unknown segment of video game history (especially regarding Alpex), and it is my hope that I have done so in a way that does justice to the achievement of those involved some forty years ago.<\/p>\n

I am grateful to everyone who helped with my research — especially Ron Smith, the mechanical designer of the Channel F, who provided me with countless documents and a patient ear for all of my questions, and Wallace Kirschner and Lawrence Haskel, who decided to talk to the press for the first time ever for my piece.<\/p>\n

There is more to the story than could fit in the article, but don’t despair — it will probably end up as part of a book.<\/p>\n

I hope you enjoy the piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three and a half years ago, I started writing a history of the Fairchild Channel F, the world’s first commercial game console to use software cartridges. As part of the research, I first interviewed two Fairchild veterans to follow up on my 2009 interview of Jerry Lawson. As I kept digging, the rabbit hole of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,21,9],"tags":[1023,1024,1016,1021,375,374,979,88,1022,788,373,1019,1017,1020,1018],"class_list":["post-1104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video-game-info-and-history","category-news-current-events","category-retrogaming","tag-1023","tag-1024","tag-alpex","tag-cartridge","tag-channel-f","tag-fairchild","tag-fastcompany","tag-freelance-work","tag-game-history","tag-harry-mccracken","tag-jerry-lawson","tag-lawrence-haskel","tag-raven","tag-ron-smith","tag-wallace-kirschner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}