Gaming Hacks

Run Homebrew Games on the Atari 2600

How do you play a homebrew 2600 game on the actual console hardware?

One of the coolest things about the current emulator and homebrew scene for the Atari 2600 is the amount of new development going on—recently coded, freely distributable games of various kinds. (See the Section 1.7.2).

What’s not so peachy is that it’s tricky to play these new games on the genuine hardware, especially with cartridges involved. There’s no straightforward way to put the homebrew title on your 2600, but there are a few ingenious pieces of hardware, often custom-made by others or do-it-yourself that can transfer code to your classic console.

Yes, you can run that Atari 2600 game as God originally intended it—on the 2600 itself.

Oldest of the Old

As discussed earlier, the Atari 2600 itself has a vibrant homebrew scene oriented around sites such as Atari Age (http://www.atariage.com/). It’s definitely not straightforward to play homebrew games on your 2600, but there are options.

Starpath Atari 2600 Supercharger

Released when the Atari 2600 was still being produced, this rare but ingenious utility allows the player to load third-party-developed games via cassette tape. The cart doesn’t save anything, so you need to load the game again every time you power up your 2600, but it’s still a great hack. There were specific games produced this way (for example, the Supercharger version of Frogger was much closer to arcade perfect than the regular cartridge version because the ...