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Why did Atari not just use a signal analyzer to get the key? Also, why was there a copy of the code at the United States Copyright Office?

• ndiddy 2y ago
  > Why did Atari not just use a signal analyzer to get the key? The 10NES chip was a bit more complicated than that. Basically the way it worked was that there was a chip in every NES, and another chip in every cartridge. On reset, the chip in the NES randomly picks 1 of 16 bitstreams, and tells the chip in the cartridge which bitstream it chose. Each chip then starts continuously sending the chosen bitstream to the other chip. If the chip in the NES sees a discrepancy between the generated bitstream and the bitstream it received, it will reset the NES. This is the cause of the famous NES "blinking red light". > Also, why was there a copy of the code at the United States Copyright Office? If a copyright holder registers their copyright, it amplifies their rights (such as granting them a higher amount of damages in an infringement lawsuit). Registering the copyright for a piece of software involves submitting the first 25 pages and last 25 pages of the source code, or the entire code, whatever's smaller. The 10NES chip used an extremely simple 4-bit microcontroller with only 512 bytes of ROM, so the copyright office has the entire source code.