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How I Spent My Summer of 1982
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.
This is the story of how that list was created.
For background, Nintendo’s Donkey Kong (the arcade game) was a breakthrough in video game design, and one of the most successful coin-operated games of the early 1980's. To be clear, I did not invent Donkey Kong. The game was designed by the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto, who has gone on to be possibly the most successful video game designer in history. It was the first video game to feature Mario, who went on to fame and fortune in the Super Mario Bros series of games (though in Donkey Kong he was referred to only as Jumpman). Donkey Kong was one of the first video games to use cartoon-quality animation and storytelling to draw the player into the action. My role was limited to creating an Atari 2600 version of Miyamoto’s masterpiece.
Donkey Kong takes place in a construction site.¹ Pauline, the damsel in distress, and Mario’s girlfriend, has been abducted by a stubborn² ape. As Mario, the intrepid hero, your job is to save the princess from the impertinent primate. The arcade game is shown below.
In the first stage of the game, the object is to run and climb up the girders of the under-construction building to reach Pauline…
