Games & Preservation

Backing Up Intellivision Games

Mattel’s 1979 Intellivision — the console that started the great console war with Atari — kept its games on plain, unencrypted cartridges. A reader copies one out directly; the only wrinkle this early generation shares is that you also dump the console’s two small firmware ROMs from hardware you own. Start with the legal ground rules: own it, dump it yourself, keep it private.

Media
Cartridge — unencrypted ROM.
Hardware
Open Source Cartridge Reader + Intellivision adapter, or a dedicated Intellivision reader.
Output
.int (also loads .rom / .bin).
Typical size
4 KB – 24 KB.
BIOS
Required. Dump the console’s exec.bin and grom.bin from your own hardware and upload them once.
A Mattel Intellivision console with its keypad controller
The Mattel Intellivision. Its cartridges hold unencrypted ROM a reader copies byte-for-byte. Image: Evan-Amos, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

What You Need

  • An Intellivision-capable cartridge reader. The Open Source Cartridge Reader (OSCR) reads Intellivision carts with its adapter; dedicated readers exist too. Prebuilt OSCRs come from Save the Hero Builders.
  • Isopropyl alcohol and swabs — clean the cartridge edge before reading.
  • Your own console, once, to dump the two firmware ROMs (see below).

Dumping, Step by Step

ROMIntellivision cart1USB dumperreads the ROM2Game.int4–24 KB3OWL media library+ EXEC & GROM — plays in the browser
The Intellivision dump: (1) the cartridge holds plain ROM, (2) a USB dumper reads it, (3) you get a tiny .int — which plays once the console’s firmware is installed. Diagram: NDEVR.
  1. Clean the contacts with isopropyl alcohol.
  2. Read the cartridge in the reader — these ROMs are tiny, so it is instant.
  3. Verify. Compare against the No-Intro database to confirm a clean read.

EXEC and GROM

★

Two firmware ROMs — from your own console

The Intellivision boots from two built-in chips: the EXEC (the system routines every game calls) and the GROM (the built-in graphics font). The emulator core needs both to run anything, and both are copyrighted — so, like the cartridges, you dump them from a console you own rather than downloading them. Read them off your console as exec.bin and grom.bin, then upload the pair once (a small .zip containing both) in the OWL player’s Intellivision emulator settings. Every Intellivision game you add afterward uses them.

Playing Your Backup

Upload Game.int to your OWL media library and it lands in the Games collection. With EXEC and GROM installed, the Intellivision core runs it in the browser — keypad overlays and all — save states synced across your devices inside your own end-to-end encrypted storage, firmware included, visible to no one but you.