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How I Spent My Summer of 1982
Archive Link: https://archive.is/SoHL9 [archive.is]
The Making of Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600
Life is strange.
In the summer of 1982, I spent about three months creating a list of 4,096 numbers, meticulously ensuring that every single number was the right value, and in the correct place in the list. When I finished, the only tangible evidence of my work was that long list of numbers.
When the list was complete, after nearly 1,000 hours of work, the former Connecticut Leather Company¹ put the numbers (in order) into a computer memory chip and plastic case and sold it at stores throughout the country. And people actually bought it.
The list of numbers that I created was known to the public as the Atari 2600 version of the hit coin-op video game Donkey Kong. To create the list, I wrote a computer program in 6502 assembly language in about 3 months, with little sleep. With enormous pressure to submit final code in time for holiday sales, I finished the game with a push of 72 straight hours at my desk, after which I was told that I looked like a zombie.
