--- title: The BBC Tetris Companion | daily.dev description: A hobbyist known as Leaded Solder is building a custom Tetris cartridge for the obscure BBC Bridge Companion, a 1985 TV-connected game console originally... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-bbc-tetris-companion-zvctxcmv5 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The BBC Tetris Companion | daily.dev og:description: A hobbyist known as Leaded Solder is building a custom Tetris cartridge for the obscure BBC Bridge Companion, a 1985 TV-connected game console originally... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-bbc-tetris-companion-zvctxcmv5 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ZvcTXcmv5.png og:image:alt: The BBC Tetris Companion og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The BBC Tetris Companion **[Hackaday](https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A hobbyist known as Leaded Solder is building a custom Tetris cartridge for the obscure BBC Bridge Companion, a 1985 TV-connected game console originally designed to teach the card game Bridge. The project involves reverse engineering the system's ROM cartridge header format, repairing the physical cartridge slot on real hardware, and adapting the PAL video output for a composite monitor. The console uses a Z80 CPU and a TI video chip with 16K of VRAM. The project is ongoing, with two parts published so far. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What hardware is inside the BBC Bridge Companion console from 1985? The BBC Bridge Companion contains a Z80 CPU and a TI video chip in its PAL variant, along with 16K of VRAM. Released in 1985 at £200, it supported nine ROM cartridges and ran its own initialization code before launching cartridge software, which required reverse engineering to determine the correct cartridge header format. _Retrocomputing hardware teardowns and homebrew cartridge projects surface regularly on daily.dev for developers digging into vintage systems._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The Joy Of Making Handheld Tetris From Scratch](https://daily.dev/posts/the-joy-of-making-handheld-tetris-from-scratch-itoqwqose) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Making A Retro\(ish\) Game Console From Scratch](https://daily.dev/posts/making-a-retro-ish-game-console-from-scratch-ltbc64ddx) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [What is it Wednesdays: Episode 003.2](https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-it-wednesdays-episode-003-2-0k9t5qtef) · Two Six Technologies · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Got an Atari 2600](https://daily.dev/posts/got-an-atari-2600-igiunalof) · Two Stop Bits · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#reverse-engineering](https://daily.dev/tags/reverse-engineering), [#retrocomputing](https://daily.dev/tags/retrocomputing) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-bbc-tetris-companion-zvctxcmv5) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The BBC Tetris Companion","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-bbc-tetris-companion-zvctxcmv5","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-bbc-tetris-companion-zvctxcmv5"},"datePublished":"2026-08-08T05:16:26.392Z","dateModified":"2026-08-08T05:17:17.288Z","description":"A hobbyist known as Leaded Solder is building a custom Tetris cartridge for the obscure BBC Bridge Companion, a 1985 TV-connected game console originally...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/d9749e59fda7280cae6e1c7de289418b?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/d9749e59fda7280cae6e1c7de289418b?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hackaday","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hackaday","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--JhDfhy70--/f_auto,q_auto/v1767541814/logos/hackaday","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-bbc-tetris-companion-zvctxcmv5","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"reverse-engineering,retrocomputing","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hackaday","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hackaday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"The BBC Tetris Companion"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-bbc-tetris-companion-zvctxcmv5#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What hardware is inside the BBC Bridge Companion console from 1985?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"The BBC Bridge Companion contains a Z80 CPU and a TI video chip in its PAL variant, along with 16K of VRAM. 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