> SYSTEMS USING CARTRIDGES WITH GI GAMES

When we write GI games, we mean chipsets sold by General Instruments in the 1970s which made the success of many pong systems. In these chipsets were "ready to run" games and pong manufacturers had almost only to put these chipsets into their system cases to make them work !

After the big success encountered by pong systems, people wanted to buy systems with more games than the ones implemented within their console. So manufacturers conceived cartridge systems that they called "Programmable Systems", i.e. consoles accepting different cartridges for "endless" fun... But while some did real research & development to conceive original systems (ex : Atari), most manufacturers made cartridge systems using GI chips, because this was the easiest and cheapest solution.

As these GI chips were first used in "normal" pong systems, collectors often call these systems "cartridge pong systems" though most of the games are not pong games at all... There a lot of different designed systems but they all play the same games...

> HOW TO RECOGNISE THEM ?

- The main fact is that there are always 10 buttons to make game selections. This is because most cartridges had a lot of games in them, the maximum being 10 games for the "Sport" games cartridge (AY-3-8610 GI chip).

 

- Joysticks have 1 action button each.

 

- There are usually 4 or 5 switches typical of pong games settings (Power on/off, Speed pro/am, Player 1 difficulty Pro/Am, Player 2 difficulty Pro/Am, Automatic service on/off)

 

- There is also a Start or Reset button (often orange).

> THE GAMES

There are a maximum of 8 games which are differently labelled depending on the systems which used them. These games are :

> THE SYSTEMS

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