How do video games that run on systems without internal memory save?

Question

Like for example, how would a gameboy cartridge save game data? What is the internal process that saves the game?

In: Technology

Answer 1

Basically a chip and a battery powering that chip.

GameBoy games were obviously quite primitive compared to today’s video games so “saving” a game may only require a few bits of data, i.e. current level and number of lives. So to persist those bits would require extremely little power.

Obviously an internal battery (and game state) like this would have a limited lifespan, but it’d be years, and far longer than what the original developers would have expected from its players.