How to make a tangible SNES cart from a ROM file?

[jasonbar]

Hey-

After having a smashing birthday/gaming party (thanks to 4-player PS2 Tekken Tag Tournament, 7-player Death Tank Zwei, & 10-player Saturn Bomberman), I realized that the SNES Bomberman games support a mere 4 or 5 players.  I thought they hosted 8.  I went & bought 2 taps & 8 controllers just for SNES Bomberman.  Doy.   


In my search for justification for having all those SNES taps & controllers, I found this: http://gra.dforce3000.de/

Alas, this homebrew is available only as a ROM file download for an emulator.  I'm not into emulators (except MAME...) & wanted to know how I could get this game onto a real, honest-to-goodness, tangible, hold-in-my-hand cartridge.

Anybody got any experience with that?

Thanks,
-Jason

[Malenko]

you need a cart copier system, the two I remember were called Multi-Game Doctor II and Super Wild Card
good luck finding them.


I miss my Super Nintendo

[Ginsu Victim]

Someone had a few SNES copiers for sale on here mere days ago, but they were gone quick.

[HaRuMaN]

yeah, johnnya did, but they are gone.

[SavannahLion]

Would a DIY solution be viable? I've seen hacked NES cartridges modified for multi-game use.

[johnnya]

The demo can be burned onto ROMs and turned into a real cartridge. It is possible, but it is way beyond my experience level.

[abzman2000]

well roms are rom images so couldn't you take a standard cart (they probably vary slightly), an eerom programmer, at IC socket, and some other essential things (that are way beyond me) and do it, seems simple in theory

google brought me here:http://www.tototek.com/
(check hardware) seems to be out of stock though

edit: actually check here:http://www.romlab.prv.pl/

[SithMaster]

well roms are rom images so couldn't you take a standard cart (they probably vary slightly), an eerom programmer, at IC socket, and some other essential things (that are way beyond me) and do it, seems simple in theory

google brought me here:http://www.tototek.com/
(check hardware) seems to be out of stock though

edit: actually check here:http://www.romlab.prv.pl/

That second link leads to a very annoying site.

Are all carts the same though?  I'd imagine certain games would have different pcb layouts depending on the game.

[ChadTower]

well roms are rom images so couldn't you take a standard cart (they probably vary slightly), an eerom programmer, at IC socket, and some other essential things (that are way beyond me) and do it, seems simple in theory

If I were only doing a couple this is how I would do it.  Pull the rom chip from a similar cart and put in a socket.  Then get the proper eeprom and write the game so it, put it in the socket, and you might be good.  Or find someone with an eeprom writer willing to do it for you.

I'd be surprised if there isn't an SNES flash cart out there by now, too.  That will be spendy most likely.

[SithMaster]

This might be one.

edit-a pic of one linky

It doesn't work with games that needed additional chips, apparently.

[abzman2000]

That second link leads to a very annoying site.

annoying, maybe, but under snes I can see what appears to be all the information needed to hack together all sorts of different types of carts for the different hardware requirements. 

and the reason I posted the second link is because the flash cart looks to not be sold any longer

edit: a direct link to the snes page without the frame http://nintendoallstars.w.interia.pl/romlab/sneslab.htm

[Ginsu Victim]

I saw a CD-ROM based SNES 9 years ago called the GameStation.  IIRC it used original controllers and was $200.

The website was something real goofy like www.whatisthegamestation.com that goes nowhere now.

Yeah, I remember that one. When it was first revealed, I remember putting it at the top of my want list, but I've never seen one anywhere.

[SithMaster]

That second link leads to a very annoying site.

annoying, maybe, but under snes I can see what appears to be all the information needed to hack together all sorts of different types of carts for the different hardware requirements. 

and the reason I posted the second link is because the flash cart looks to not be sold any longer

edit: a direct link to the snes page without the frame http://nintendoallstars.w.interia.pl/romlab/sneslab.htm

Oh wow I didn't realize I had the same link you did.  My mistake.

Hey we should get atomsmasher to program a game for the snes and make a limited run of them available.

[Malenko]

there is a metric ---fudgesicle--- ton for sale in the B/S/T section right now.  Not mine

[johnnya]

I sold a broken copy of earthbound that the kid removed the chips from and put them on a donor board from some garbage game (like Madden or something), and it turned out to work, so I know you can do this type of thing as long as you have a correct board to transplant them onto.

[ChadTower]

Not all games have the same pinouts.  You'd have to verify that first.  There are a lot of commonality in every game but some games have more or less contacts on the edge than others.

[ChadTower]

Different pinouts on SNES cartridges? Really??   

I could see some cartridges having a bunch of traces to nowhere.

Or spaces with no trace at all.  I know there are lots of games for other systems that way.  Obviously whatever is on the edge has to match the system pinout but there is nothing forcing them all to use all of the pins.  I used to notice a lot that when cleaning carts from bulk buys.  I didn't understand PCBs back then so it struck me as weird.

[SavannahLion]

Different pinouts on SNES cartridges? Really??   

I could see some cartridges having a bunch of traces to nowhere.

Or spaces with no trace at all.  I know there are lots of games for other systems that way.  Obviously whatever is on the edge has to match the system pinout but there is nothing forcing them all to use all of the pins.  I used to notice a lot that when cleaning carts from bulk buys.

I'm scratching my head on your comment there Chad. When someone tells me that Cart A had a different pinout than Cart B, I'm thinking something along the lines of say... the address and data pins are on entirely different pins. But when you're talking about missing pins, I wouldn't really call that a different pinout. Just a cart with unused pins. Technically I guess they're different pinouts. I guess in my mind, saying something has a different pinout implies that either cart A and B is incompatible with the console when it seems to be more like comparing two VGA cables where one has Pin 12 missing. It's still a VGA pinout, just that some dick lopped off Pin 12.

I didn't understand PCBs back then so it struck me as weird.

Yeah, I remember finding a couple of shattered cartridges back in the day. I spent hours tracing the leads trying to figure out what did what. 

When I was twelve, I would've given almost anything to have someone in my podunk piece of ---Cleveland steamer--- town with electronics knowledge teach me the secrets of their sect. Best I could find was some loser ---smurfs--- let me sit there and watch them install stolen software on customer PC's.

[ChadTower]

I'm scratching my head on your comment there Chad.

Clearly you understood it after Jim had me clarify what I meant.  What's to scratch?

Your example makes the one with a pin12 lopped off a VGA compatible pinout.  VGA includes pin12 so it is no longer straight VGA.

[SavannahLion]

I'm scratching my head on your comment there Chad.

Clearly you understood it after Jim had me clarify what I meant.  What's to scratch?

It's the chosen phrase of saying "different pinout." You're basically saying that because some SNES carts are missing specific pins that that is considered a different pinout. I'm saying that I don't really understand why it would be considered as such. A different pinout generally seems to imply incompatibility, that's not the case here. If I build a cart that accesses only 1/2 the address space available to me, then half the address pins are disconnected and the cart simply uses a subset of the specified pinout. In other words, Pin 40 is never going to double as a data pin, it will always be an address pin regardless of whether or not the cart has it connected.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Cart B uses a subset of the pinout?

[ChadTower]

Two pinouts are the same only if they are identical.  If one is a subset of the other it is compatible.  I didn't make this stuff up.   

[SavannahLion]

Two pinouts are the same only if they are identical.  If one is a subset of the other it is compatible.  I didn't make this stuff up.   

Damn it, I'm saying you did!! 

Moving along, I had this idea in my head and wanted to see if anyone else came up with one. Work crippled my Google searches, but I did find NES PowerPak. Now that would be sweet for the SNES.

Unfortunately, the $135 price tag is damn near staggering for an NES cart (and even if one existed for the SNES).

Maybe as a community project? 

[northerngames]

http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?t=24695&sid=daf532b662afab1c39e564cd53044517 

[ChadTower]

Moving along, I had this idea in my head and wanted to see if anyone else came up with one. Work crippled my Google searches, but I did find NES PowerPak.

Of course, I don't know anyone who has ever actually seen one of those, and I know a lot of console collectors.  I'm not sure it was ever actually produced.

[2600]

Of course, I don't know anyone who has ever actually seen one of those, and I know a lot of console collectors.  I'm not sure it was ever actually produced.

I've got one and I've read posts of more then a few people having them.  A NES multicart is a lot more complicated then a SNES one I believe.  Didn't SNES only have like 2 or 3 different versions of carts where the NES had a crapload.

[joebells]

snes had those special chips though for some games like the fx chip and such for yoshi, starfox, and megaman and of course others

[SavannahLion]

snes had those special chips though for some games like the fx chip and such for yoshi, starfox, and megaman and of course others

I only know of a few. SFX, DSP, and SA-1. So I went looking around. Looks like you're right. There's quite a few custom chips involved.

Well, according to Wikipedia, there are 71 game titles that use custom chips. Some seem to be safely disregarded and a few might be resolvable, narrowing the potential unavailable list down a bit. With 785 US titles, having less than 10% of the titles unplayable might be an acceptable loss.

But that loss might be assuaged. With the power gain in CPU's since the 90's. Maybe a modern CPU might be able to pull off emulating some of the custom chips on the fly. Meh... I'm just day dreaming. The amount of research into the vast SNES/Famicom library would be near staggering, then the R&D into designing such a cartridge would be.... well, one can probably turn it into a career choice if the economy wasn't taking such a dump.

Reading up on the custom chips, I think I have a better understanding on why the Game Genie never supported the extra 16 pins.

[jasonbar]

There's a guy @ Digital Press who did a bang-up job for me.  He does great work!

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1491613&postcount=39

Thanks,
-Jason