3 ms·

A bit of _as a game developer_ here: Game consoles shouldn't be special. If the NES and Genesis hadn't had their locks broken then we wouldn't have been graced

A bit of _as a game developer_ here: Game consoles shouldn't be special. If the NES and Genesis hadn't had their locks broken then we wouldn't have been graced with some of the greatest entries in their catalogue. Consumers won because anti-consumer digital locks were broken.

onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
Can you give more context? Were there locks on consoles and now there aren't? I'm not aware of this.
- artificialLimbs 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIC_(Nintendo) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIC_(Nintendo)
- dleslie 6y ago
  There were locks then and there continues to be locks, stronger locks, nowadays. IIRC, Codemasters and others discovered the magic numbers necessary to include in the header of the NES cart in order for it to boot, and went on to release unlicensed games; like Micro Machines. I'm hazy on the NES-specifics. EA reverse engineered the Genesis development kit and released their games in their own carts in large part because they refused Sega's licensing terms; in retrospect, it's similar to Epic/Apple today. Sega eventually caved. An old Game Informer article about EA and the Genesis: https://bluetoad.com/publication/?i=73272&article_id=773681 https://bluetoad.com/publication/?i=73272&article_id=773681
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    It's not even particularly that the locks are stronger now from a technical perspective, as that when the NES was current, DMCA 1201 didn't exist. It's a terrible piece of legislation whose primary effect is to be harmful to competition.
  - tenebrisalietum 6y ago
    > IIRC, Codemasters and others discovered the magic numbers necessary to include in the header of the NES cart in order for it to boot > I'm hazy on the NES-specifics. I'll fill you in. The ROM on NES carts doesn't have a header (the ROM files floating around on the Internet do but those aren't part of the cartridge data) - the NES has no firmware or OS. What it is is that the NES console, along with each cart, has a chip called a CIC that was only available from Nintendo, and only if you were a paid licensee. The CIC in the console resets the console constantly unless it handshakes with the CIC on the cartridge. There were ways to disable the chip; some things I've read say having something on the cart send a voltage spike would disable it. I think Tengen reverse engineered it and developed a compatible chip, they got sued. As far as the Sega Genesis, I do know a later revision of the Genesis motherboard had a boot ROM and also required the cart to write ASCII 'SEGA' to some I/O ports, otherwise the video chip would not work. The idea was that copying this without authorization was a trademark infringement, but I think a later lawsuit made that tactic legally worthless. Arcade boards of the 80's and early 90's have some interesting schemes. A number of Capcom games have decryption keys in a RAM that's powered by a 'suicide battery' and if the battery ever dies or is tampered with, the keys are gone and the board stops working.
    - dleslie 6y ago
      Rad, thanks! Video Game history is just amazing at times.
    - astura 6y ago
      >I think Tengen reverse engineered it and developed a compatible chip, they got sued. Oh it's a much better story than that! They failed at trying to reverse engineer it so they just straight up stole the source code instead https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIC_(Nintendo) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIC_(Nintendo) >Tengen (Atari’s NES games subsidiary) took a different tactic: the corporation obtained a description of the code in the lockout chip from the United States Copyright Office by claiming that it was required to defend against present infringement claims in a legal case.[4] Tengen then used these documents to design their Rabbit chip, which duplicated the function of the 10NES.[4]
helloycombinat 6y ago
If NES didn't have locks it would have went the way of atari (99% of games being utter crap with 0 quality control)
- dleslie 6y ago
  Obviously that's a matter of opinion; and the Atari Flashback consoles sold quite well... And, of course, not having a licenser did little to harm PC Gaming.
  - pfranz 6y ago
    I believe they're referring to loss of publishing control often cited as a reason for the video game crash of 1983 that the NES helped carry the industry out of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983#Loss_of_publishing_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983#Loss_...

onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago

Can you give more context? Were there locks on consoles and now there aren't? I'm not aware of this.

artificialLimbs 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIC_(Nintendo) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIC_(Nintendo)
dleslie 6y ago
There were locks then and there continues to be locks, stronger locks, nowadays. IIRC, Codemasters and others discovered the magic numbers necessary to include in the header of the NES cart in order for it to boot, and went on to release unlicensed games; like Micro Machines. I'm hazy on the NES-specifics. EA reverse engineered the Genesis development kit and released their games in their own carts in large part because they refused Sega's licensing terms; in retrospect, it's similar to Epic/Apple today. Sega eventually caved. An old Game Informer article about EA and the Genesis: https://bluetoad.com/publication/?i=73272&article_id=773681 https://bluetoad.com/publication/?i=73272&article_id=773681
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  It's not even particularly that the locks are stronger now from a technical perspective, as that when the NES was current, DMCA 1201 didn't exist. It's a terrible piece of legislation whose primary effect is to be harmful to competition.
- tenebrisalietum 6y ago
  > IIRC, Codemasters and others discovered the magic numbers necessary to include in the header of the NES cart in order for it to boot > I'm hazy on the NES-specifics. I'll fill you in. The ROM on NES carts doesn't have a header (the ROM files floating around on the Internet do but those aren't part of the cartridge data) - the NES has no firmware or OS. What it is is that the NES console, along with each cart, has a chip called a CIC that was only available from Nintendo, and only if you were a paid licensee. The CIC in the console resets the console constantly unless it handshakes with the CIC on the cartridge. There were ways to disable the chip; some things I've read say having something on the cart send a voltage spike would disable it. I think Tengen reverse engineered it and developed a compatible chip, they got sued. As far as the Sega Genesis, I do know a later revision of the Genesis motherboard had a boot ROM and also required the cart to write ASCII 'SEGA' to some I/O ports, otherwise the video chip would not work. The idea was that copying this without authorization was a trademark infringement, but I think a later lawsuit made that tactic legally worthless. Arcade boards of the 80's and early 90's have some interesting schemes. A number of Capcom games have decryption keys in a RAM that's powered by a 'suicide battery' and if the battery ever dies or is tampered with, the keys are gone and the board stops working.
  - dleslie 6y ago
    Rad, thanks! Video Game history is just amazing at times.
  - astura 6y ago
    >I think Tengen reverse engineered it and developed a compatible chip, they got sued. Oh it's a much better story than that! They failed at trying to reverse engineer it so they just straight up stole the source code instead https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIC_(Nintendo) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIC_(Nintendo) >Tengen (Atari’s NES games subsidiary) took a different tactic: the corporation obtained a description of the code in the lockout chip from the United States Copyright Office by claiming that it was required to defend against present infringement claims in a legal case.[4] Tengen then used these documents to design their Rabbit chip, which duplicated the function of the 10NES.[4]

helloycombinat 6y ago

If NES didn't have locks it would have went the way of atari (99% of games being utter crap with 0 quality control)

dleslie 6y ago
Obviously that's a matter of opinion; and the Atari Flashback consoles sold quite well... And, of course, not having a licenser did little to harm PC Gaming.
- pfranz 6y ago
  I believe they're referring to loss of publishing control often cited as a reason for the video game crash of 1983 that the NES helped carry the industry out of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983#Loss_of_publishing_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983#Loss_...