Eli5: how exactly did game developers put their game on a N64 cartridge? And how did the pins on the cartridges allow you to play the game once inserted into the game system?

Question

Also, how did they mass produce said cartridges with said game on them?

Bonus question: same question with cd’s

In: 7

Answer 1

It all starts with Encoding: There is a way to save both text and number in only 1 and 0s. For example 0001 would be 1(4-bit interpretation if you want do dive into it more) 0010= 2 0011=3 and so on. The game console can read this encoded text and numbers and do what the game developer wants it to do. For example “draw a white line from the top left corner to the bottom right corner”. Or “Rotate the line clockwise around the center point of the screen”. Of course a mario is a bit more complex to draw then a line so for that we use pictures. One way to do this, is simply savimg all of the pixels (essentially little dots of colour) that combined make Up Mario and draw them again where we want mario to be on the screen.
Now as to how the game developers put that code on the machine: Inside the Cardridge is a memory chip (Imagine a usb stick). Once you put the Cardridge in, some of the pins start connecting power to the Cardridge and once it is powered up the console and the Cardridge can “talk” with each other using encoded text. So the Cardridge says: “Hey N64, Draw mario in the middle of the screen.”
Console: “What does mario look like?” Now the Cardridge sends the little color dots that make Up Mario and the console shows it on the screen.
CDs work the same way just instead of a usb stick it has little bumbs on its surface. If there is a bump it is a 1 if not it is a 0.
As for mass production CDs can be copied since they have phisical bumps. As for N64 Cardridges they save the game on the USB-Stick before building the Cardridge around it.