How to Design & Build Your Own Custom TV Games (1976)

Book Cover

This is the full, freely accessible PDF of David L. Heiserman's 1976 book How to Design & Build Your Own Custom TV Games. A foundational work from the early era of DIY video game engineering.

Originally published by TAB Books, this guide helped hobbyists understand the underlying electronics behind their televisions and game systems long before the home-console boom.

Download Full PDF






  • Memory Machine - "Making Your Own Video Games, 1970"s Style" personal essay about discovering and later building from How to Design & Build Your Own Custom TV Games
  • Memory Machine - "Pinball - Making Your Own Games, 1970"s Style (part 4)" documenting a full build and debug of the book"s pinball-style game
  • The Video Game Library - curated entry describing the book as "the complete book about TV games" and summarizing its design focus
  • Memory Machine tag page collecting all "Making Your Own Video Games, 1970"s Style" articles centered on Heiserman"s TV Games book
  • Reddit r/diyelectronics - build log for a composite video generator PCB based directly on the book"s TTL circuit
  • Reddit r/programming - discussion of pre-code Pong-style games that cites How to Design & Build Your Own Custom TV Games as a pure-hardware example
  • BallyAlley Groups.io - Astrocade enthusiasts" list where the book is discussed as an unusual, system-agnostic TTL TV-games reference
  • Facebook electronics group post recommending How to Design & Build Your Own Custom TV Games as a resource for building your own video game
  • US Patent US4572509 "Video game network" - cites How to Design & Build Your Own Custom TV Games as prior art for video-game circuitry
  • AtariCompendium master book listing - historical bibliography including How to Design & Build Your Own Custom TV Games with full Tab Books details

    • If you'd like to support ongoing preservation of David's work, consider a small donation to Free-Ed.

    Donate