Save wise. I pulled out my Miracle Warriors cart last night to find out that not only was the battery still working but my 10 year old save was still valid. As far as I know this is the oldest game I've got to have battery backed saves. Anyone know of anything older?
What about any Atari carts, or even I have a fairchild channel f or something or even the videopac....what sort of timescale/date were these at?
Penguin Land for the Sega Master System featured battery backed gameplay. I think that was from 1987 or even earlier.
I'm pretty certain that I bought my Zelda in the fall of 1987---I got my NES system in June of 87. Check the earliest issue of the Nintendo Fun Club newsletter which did a preview for the title and that issue came out in 87 as well. 1986 may have been the Japanese release date, but if I recall, it was released in floppy disk format.
I just wikipedia'ed it, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda and you're correct, Aug '87 in the USA and ofc the Japanese edition was for the FDS and so had no battery back up. I stand corrected! Apparently Lord of the Dungeon on the Colecovision was released in 1983 with a battery backup save system. Wooooo!
