
Jerry Lawson, a self-taught engineer, gave us video game cartridges - jgrahamc
http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/20/jerry-lawson-game-pioneer/
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chollida1
I think like most people, when I think of cartridges I think of Nintendo.

I always wondered why they hung onto cartridges for as long as they did.

One advantage of cartridges over discs is that you can put specialized chips
on the carts that each game can take advantage of.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_NES_enhancement_c...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_NES_enhancement_chips)

At the bottom of the above link you'll see a list of super Nintendo games that
used extra chips. The list is astonishingly long.

Of course this was back when most

1) things were done is software

2) these chips were cheap

3) RAM and data bus connections were much faster relative to the CPU than they
are now.

~~~
Htsthbjig
"I always wondered why they hung onto cartridges for as long as they did."

As far as I remember, people did not like optical media.

When Sega added a new optical attachment for their Sega Genesis, nobody bought
it.

Optical media required loading. Interactivity was lost. You had "Dragon's
Lair" kind of games that had tremendous quality but felt prefabricated.

It was only much later with he first PSP that people started using them, after
PC era of CD shareware like doom or dune. The advantages(immense amount of
memory, distribution easiness, and PIRACY) overcame their drawbacks.

~~~
scrollaway
> Interactivity was lost. You had "Dragon's Lair" kind of games that had
> tremendous quality but felt prefabricated.

That's a product problem though, not an engineering one. Games suddenly had
_all this space_ but nothing to do with it because graphic engines were, for
the only time in the history of video games, running behind hardware
capabilities. So we got those awkward "uncanny valley" type FMV
games/interactive movies and what not because those were the only ones that
justified the need for optical discs.

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enahs-sf
I still to this day don't understand why blowing on the cartridges would make
them work. It boggles my mind every time I think back to my childhood.

~~~
Htsthbjig
Simple. Hair and dust get to cover the electrical contacts of the cartridges.
Blowing removes it.

~~~
jetti
Actually it had to do with the moisture of your breath bridging the connection
between the carteidge and the system, however the moisture from your breath
also caused problems for the copper in the cartdridge.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Nah I think it just did damage over the long-run, and the act of reinserting
it a couple times helped to get it connected properly with or without moisture
from your breath. The blowing was just a ritual.

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thomasmarriott
THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE INVENTION OF THE GAME CARTRIDGE:

[http://www.fastcompany.com/3040889/the-untold-story-of-
the-i...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3040889/the-untold-story-of-the-
invention-of-the-game-cartridge)

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waterlesscloud
Some videogame systems still had shielding over the motherboards a decade or
more later. I know the Atari 5200 did. That might have been the last one I
took apart..

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kevin_thibedeau
The Magnavox Odyssey (1972) was the first console with cartridges to select
different games. The Channel F console (1976) was the first with ROM
cartridges.

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Torgo
Black or white, could you get a job as a self-taught engineer today?

~~~
d357r0y3r
Are we talking about engineering or "software engineering"?. I'm a "software
engineer", and what I actually do is web development, completely self taught.
There are about a million ways you could teach yourself the skillset that I
have.

I don't see how that compares to something like nuclear engineering or
chemical engineering. No one teaches themselves to build nuclear reactors, and
no one is going to get a job in that field as an autodidact unless they have
already worked in a closely related field.

~~~
catshirt
i'm not sure i get your point. are you trying to suggest that chemical
engineering cannot be self-taught? or that self-taught chemical engineers
cannot get work? either point seems suspect.

"No one teaches themselves to build nuclear reactors, and no one is going to
get a job in that field as an autodidact unless they have already worked in a
closely related field."

can you substantiate either of these claims?

~~~
sk5t
Some engineering jobs may require a PE
([http://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-
pe](http://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe)) certificate, which--
although it appears to vary from state to state--requires a four-year
engineering degree. Also, most companies in the position to hire a chemical
engineer to, say, design and implement a process to distill liquid oxygen, are
conservative enough not to entertain the idea of putting an uncredentialed
worker on the team. When you're building a plant with the unfortunate
capability to explode, poison, or asphyxiate a town, well, isn't it fair to
expect that the number of autodidact engineers doing significant work on these
projects is close to zero?

~~~
abduhl
Every state allows for substitution of experience for education.
Unfortunately, the substitution rate is generally on the order of 10 years of
experience or more counting similar to a 4 year degree from an accredited
program.

There are also very strict laws for anything that touches the public from the
engineering standpoint and also many insurance companies won't touch you
without licensure. This will catch up to software engineers some time in the
future I imagine and a licensed engineer will be required to oversee and sign
off on products just like in other engineering disciplines.

As a tangent, it is actually illegal to call yourself or portray yourself as
an engineer without being licensed by the state as such.

------
Leonardo45
I continue to to this day don't recognize why spitting out on the replacements
would make them work. [http://www.speedyessay.co.uk/essay-writing-
service.php](http://www.speedyessay.co.uk/essay-writing-service.php)

