page_title: Game backup device
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Game backup device / History
caption_attribution_description: The Doctor V64, a dev kit/game copier for the Nintendo 64 gaming console. Made by the Hong Kong company Bung Enterprises Ltd and released in the 1996, the device attached to the N64 via its bottom expansion port. As originally sold, the device is meant to be a development kit, but can be converted into a backup player and game copier.
context_page_description: A game backup device, formerly usually called a copier and more recently a flash cartridge, is a device for backing up ROM information from a video game cartridge to a computer file called a ROM image and playing them back on the real hardware. Recently flash cartridges, especially on the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS platforms, only support the latter function; they cannot be used for backing up ROM data. Game backup devices also make it possible to develop homebrew software on video game systems. Game backup devices differ from modchips in that modchips are used in conjunction with systems that use generally available media such as CDs and DVDs, whereas game backup devices are used with systems that use cartridges.
  Video game companies consider these devices as a tool for reverse engineering to circumvent copying. Most of the devices are made in China, but they are available globally. Recently, action has been taken by companies such as Nintendo to remove these devices from the marketplace, but the easy dissemination of information and selling of products over the Internet has made it difficult to eradicate this problem.
context_section_description: The spiritual forefather of copier devices can be traced back to the Famicom Disk System, an official add-on device for the Japanese version of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Users quickly discovered ways to copy these disks with ordinary home computers of the time and transmit the copied data to others using the emerging electronic bulletin board systems. Nintendo attempted to counter the piracy problem by slightly modifying the hardware in newer revisions, but they were unable to stop the unauthorized copying. Later, the Famicom Disk System was discontinued, supposedly because cartridge technology had caught up in capacity, but the influence of rampant piracy cannot be discounted.
  When the Super Nintendo Entertainment System was released, Hong Kong based companies were quick to cash in on the same idea. They produced cartridges that fit in the video game console's cartridge slot, but were interfaced with a floppy disk drive through a connecting cable. The copier, as they were called, also had a passthrough slot into which a real game could be inserted. The device, once powered up, could be used to copy the cartridge's ROM data into files on ordinary MS-DOS formatted 3.5" floppy disks and thereafter to play the game from the same disks, without having to rely on the original cartridge being present.
  When these devices were introduced to the United States and Europe, video game enthusiasts quickly started swapping the copied games over bulletin board systems. Release groups formed to cater to the need of fresh games, and also to crack the protection that was employed to thwart copying in several games released after copiers became available. Release groups would also add their own intros to games, to advertise their BBSes and new releases, and sometimes include a trainer to optionally start on later stages or with more lives.
  The copier devices and dissemination of hardware information through BBSes made it possible to start developing software on the video game consoles. The software evolved from crack intros to demos, and finally to home-made games. The homebrew software development scene is still active on multiple contemporary platforms.
  Also the availability of such ROM binary dumps allowed the birth of Video game console emulators.
caption: Doctor V64 installed in a Nintendo 64.
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