The Checking Integrated Circuit (CIC) is a
lockout chip designed by
Nintendo
is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards ...
for the
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...
(NES)
video game console
A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to ...
in 1985; the chip is part of a system known as 10NES, in which a 'key' (which is stored in the game) is used by the 'lock' (stored in the console) to both check if the game is authentic, and if the game is the same region as the console.
The chip was designed in response to the
North American video game crash of 1983
The video game crash of 1983 (known as the Atari shock in Japan) was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985, primarily in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including ma ...
, which was partially the result of a lack of both publishing and quality control; the idea was that by forcing third-party developers to have their games go through an approval process, Nintendo could stop
shovelware
Shovelware is a term for individual video games or software bundles known more for the quantity of what is included than for the quality or usefulness.
The metaphor implies that the creators showed little care for the quality of the original sof ...
from entering the market. Improved designs of the CIC chip were also used in the later
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eu ...
and
Nintendo 64
The (N64) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo. The successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was released on June 23, 1996, in Japan, on September 29, 1996, in North America, and on March 1, 1997, in Europe and ...
, although running an updated security program which performs additional checks.
The lockout chip was controversial, with several developers opting to release their games without Nintendo's approval by using work-arounds; the most well-known of these was
Tengen (a subsidiary of
Atari
Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, Ca ...
), which copied the CIC chip, resulting in their games running without issue. In response, Nintendo sued Atari for
copyright infringement
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...
.
10NES
The 10NES system is a
lock-out system designed for the North American and European versions of the
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...
(NES)
video game console
A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to ...
. The electronic chip serves as a digital lock which can be opened by a
key in the games,
[Patent Arcade]
Case: Atari v. Nintendo (N.D. Cal. 1993) [C,P] Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America, Inc. 30 U.S.P.Q.2d 1401 (N.D. Cal. 1993) (Atari II)
" Accessed on July 12, 2006 designed to restrict the software that could be operated on the system.
The chip was not present originally for the original Famicom in 1983, leading to a large amount of unlicensed cartridges in the Asian market.
They were, however, added for international variants as a response to the 1983 video game crash in North America,
partially caused by an oversaturated market of console games due to lack of publishing control. Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi said in 1986, "
Atari
Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, Ca ...
collapsed because they gave too much freedom to third-party developers and the market was swamped with rubbish games."
By requiring the presence of the 10NES in a game cartridge, Nintendo prevented third-party developers from producing games without Nintendo's approval, and provided the company with licensing fees,
a practice it had already established earlier with Famicom games.
Design
The system consists of two parts, a
Sharp Corporation
is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products, headquartered in Sakai-ku, Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. Since 2016 it has been majority owned by the Taiwan-based Foxconn Group. Sharp employs more t ...
4-bit SM590
microcontroller
A microcontroller (MCU for ''microcontroller unit'', often also MC, UC, or μC) is a small computer on a single VLSI integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs ( processor cores) along with memory and programmabl ...
in the console (the "lock") that checks the inserted cartridge for authentication, and a matching chip in the game cartridge (the "key") that gives the code upon demand.
If the cartridge does not successfully provide the authentication, then the CIC repeatedly resets the
CPU
A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, a ...
at a frequency of 1 Hz.
This causes the television and power LED to blink at the same 1 Hz rate and prevents the game from being playable.
The program used in the NES CIC is called 10NES and was
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
ed under .
The
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the ...
is copyrighted; only
Nintendo
is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards ...
can produce the authorization chips. The patent covering the 10NES expired on January 24, 2006, although the copyright is still in effect for exact clones.
Circumvention
Nintendo Entertainment System
Some unlicensed companies created circuits that used a
voltage spike
In electrical engineering, spikes are fast, short duration electrical transients in voltage (voltage spikes), current (current spikes), or transferred energy (energy spikes) in an electrical circuit.
Fast, short duration electrical transients ( ...
to shut off the CIC before it can perform the authentication checks.
A few unlicensed games released in Europe and Australia (such as
HES games) came in the form of a
dongle
A dongle is a small piece of computer hardware that connects to a port on another device to provide it with additional functionality, or enable a pass-through to such a device that adds functionality.
In computing, the term was initially synonym ...
that would be connected to a licensed cartridge, in order to use that cartridge's CIC lockout chip for authentication. This method also worked on the
SNES
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eu ...
and was utilized by
Super Noah’s Ark 3D.
Tengen (
Atari
Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, Ca ...
’s NES games subsidiary) took a different tactic: the corporation obtained a description of the code in the lockout chip from the
United States Copyright Office
The United States Copyright Office (USCO), a part of the Library of Congress, is a United States government body that maintains records of copyright registration, including a copyright catalog. It is used by copyright title searchers who ar ...
by claiming that it was required to defend against present infringement claims in a legal case.
Tengen then used these documents to design their ''Rabbit'' chip, which duplicated the function of the 10NES.
Nintendo sued Tengen for these actions. The court found that Tengen did not violate the copyright for copying the portion of code necessary to defeat the protection with current NES consoles, but did violate the copyright for copying portions of the code not being used in the communication between the chip and console.
Tengen had copied this code in its entirety because future console releases could have been engineered to pick up the discrepancy. On the initial claim, the court sided with Nintendo on the issue of patent infringement, but noted that Nintendo's patent would likely be deemed obvious as it was basically with the addition of a reset pin, which was at the time already commonplace in the world of electronics.
An eight-person jury later found that Atari did infringe.
While Nintendo was the winner of the initial trial, before they could actually enforce the ruling they would need to have the patent hold up under scrutiny, as well as address Tengen's antitrust claims. Before this occurred, the sides settled.
A small company called RetroZone, the first company to publish games on the NES in over a decade, uses a multi-region lockout chip for
NTSC
The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...
,
PAL A, and PAL B called the ''Ciclone'' which was created by reverse engineering
Tengen's ''Rabbit'' chip. It will allow games to be played in more than one region. It is intended to make the games playable on older hardware that uses the 10NES lockout chip and the two other regions, although the
top-loading NES does not use a lockout chip. The Ciclone chip is the first lockout chip to be developed after the patent for the 10NES had expired.
Since then, there have been a few other open source implementations to allow the general public to reproduce multi-region CICs on AVR microcontrollers.
Because the 10NES in the model NES-001 Control Deck occasionally fails to authenticate legal cartridges, a common modification is to disable the chip entirely by cutting pin 4 on the Control Deck's internal 10NES lockout chip.
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Towards the end of the SNES lifespan, the CIC was cloned and used in pirate games. Often, the clone CIC chip would be rebranded with an inconspicuous brand/part number to prevent detection by authorities. Alternatively the aforementioned method of using a licensed game's CIC chip was possible, as it was used in the SNES version of ''Super Noah’s Ark 3D'' and ''Hong Kong 97''.
Super Famicom
Image:CIC F411A 01.jpg, CIC chip on SFC mainboard
(F411)
Image:D411 01.jpg, CIC chip on SFC cartridge
(D411)
See also
*
Regional lockout
A regional lockout (or region coding) is a class of digital rights management preventing the use of a certain product or service, such as multimedia or a hardware device, outside a certain region or territory. A regional lockout may be enforced ...
*
Lockout chip
References
External links
* Kevin Horton.
The Infamous Lockout Chip" Accessed on August 22, 2010.
*
discussing Tengen lock chip
Ciclone lockout chipInformation fro
RetroZoneDisabling the NES "Lockout Chip( 2009-04-29) (rev. 0.5 26-Dec-97)
Source code to compatible key
{{Nintendo hardware, NES
Hardware restrictions
Nintendo chips
Nintendo Entertainment System