The Starpath Supercharger (1982) was a groundbreaking expansion peripheral for the Atari 2600, originally released in 1982 under the Arcadia Corporation name (soon changed to Starpath Corporation to avoid brand confusion with the Emerson Arcadia 2001). Designed by Bob Brown, the Supercharger dramatically extended the Atari 2600’s capabilities by adding 6KB of RAM—a massive leap over the console’s native 128 bytes—and enabling games to be loaded from standard audio cassette tapes. The long cartridge plugged directly into the 2600, with an attached cable that connected to any cassette player’s earphone jack. Games were shipped on cassette, with a small ROM prompting users when to press “Play.” This setup allowed for much larger, multiloaded games with more complex gameplay and improved graphics than standard cartridges. Many Supercharger titles, such as Escape from the Mindmaster and Dragonstomper, pushed the boundaries of what the Atari 2600 could do. In late 1983, facing financial difficulties, Starpath was acquired by Epyx in what is now considered an early acqui-hire—a move primarily aimed at gaining access to Starpath’s skilled developers and advanced programming techniques. The merger helped fuel Epyx’s success in the mid-1980s, especially in the development of Summer Games and other technically sophisticated titles. Despite the format’s limitations and slow tape load times, the Supercharger remains a cult favorite and a technically impressive footnote in console accessory history. A limited set of twelve games were officially released, with later preservation efforts compiling them onto audio CDs like Stella Gets a New Brain for continued access and archival.

While an absolutely genius piece of hardware, we’re not interested in remanufacturing this. The games that were available for Supercharger are all available for licensing though, and there’s a vibrant fanbase who wants to see these titles re-emerge.