I was the primary engineer at Activision and I designed custom development systems for each console. The C64 dev sys was a hollowed-out C64 (to use the keyboard) with custom circuitry inside. The system worked as a ROM emulator but with debugging hooks.

All of the development systems were very similar - a custom computer system that included the guts from the console so the games played exactly as they would in the wild. (No emulation.) The National Videogame Museum National Videogame Museum has many if not all of the circuit boards I created.

Then there is my Atari 2600 game Dragster (1980) - a game that can be “beat” in 6 seconds. Many people have told me they played that 6 second game for as many as 10 hours in a session, obsessively trying to shave a tenth of a second. A game doesn’t have to be long to be fun.

For me on the 2600 it is Pressure Cooker by Garry Kitchen hands down!

Big news! Log in to audacitygames.com at Noon Pacific on June 15th!

Sales of Alien Abduction went live today at Noon Pacific. Low serial numbers are selling out fast. audacitygames.com

Coming to mailboxes all over the world!

I will be at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo this weekend, Sept. 27-29, along with game industry OGs Garry and Dan Kitchen. (retrogamingexpo.com) Bring your classic games by to be autographed!

Very nice work. Thanks for sharing.

I found it to be like riding a bike (another thing I haven't done in 40 years)😉 In my career I have published around 100 games on two dozen different systems and platforms in two dozen different programming languages. Returning to the Atari 2600 and 6502 was a fond homecoming.