These days it’s not unusual to read stories about game collectors buying rare game cartridges for thousands of dollars. But what is in those cartridges? Typically just code and data stored in one or more ROM (Read Only Memory) chips. In my last story, Fixing Gran Trak 10, I documented the first arcade game to use … More Finding the First Videogame ROM

This project started with an email from my old friend David Oliver. He had sold his warehouse in Seattle and all his games had to go. Dave and I worked together as programmers on some of the early versions of Microsoft Word for Windows in the 1990s. Back then we shared a passion for pinball … More Fixing Gran Trak 10

It all started with a project I was working on called “Fixing Gran Trak 10” about the first car racing arcade video game from 1974. I had completed the electrical repairs and was trying to interview as many people as possible who were involved with making the game. One of the interviews was with Ron Milner. Ron’s … More Chasing the First Arcade Easter Egg

Ed, I see that you may be right; Color Gotcha might just have been one of the first if not the first color video game.  – Al Alcorn  4/28/2016 TLDR – Printed circuit board from the long lost first color arcade video game found, repaired and first pictures and video posted online. A few months ago I was … More Fixing Color Gotcha

“Nolan came to me one time and he said, ‘On a TV set, when you turn the vertical hold on the TV, the picture will go up, and if you turn it the other way, it goes down. Why does it do that?’ I explained it to him. It was the difference between the sync … More Fixing Computer Space