Donkey Kong, programmed by Garry Kitchen for Coleco, adapts Nintendo's arcade game to the 2600 with only two of the four original stages — barrels and elevators, without the conveyor belts or the final rivets stage — a cut that fueled years of theories that Coleco had done it on purpose to make its own ColecoVision version look superior. Kitchen himself debunked that legend: he had only three or four months to deliver, and had to work with a 4K cartridge instead of an 8K one due to Coleco's cost decisions. Even with those limitations, the conversion was a massive commercial success and helped make Donkey Kong a household name in homes without an arcade nearby; today it's remembered both for its solid gameplay and for the controversy — now clarified — over its missing levels.
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