A Look Inside The Super Nintendo Cartridges And Video System

July 31, 2024 by Maya Posch 22 Comments

Despite being effectively sold as a toy in the 1990s, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) was pretty bleeding-edge as far its computing chops were concerned. This was especially apparent with its cartridges, such as in this excellent summary article by [Fabien Sanglard].

In addition to the mask ROM that stored the game data and (optionally) battery-backed SRAM to store save data, a wide range of enhancement processors existed that upgraded the base SNES system with additional processors for more CPU performance, enhanced graphics and so on. Imagine sticking a game cartridge in a PlayStation 4 today that boosted CPU speed by 5x and gave it a much better GPU, this was the world of SNES games.

On the other side of the video game cartridges was the video output system, which seems easy enough in today’s world of digital HDMI and DisplayPort output. In the 90s video output did however mean NTSC and SECAM/PAL, which means playing nice with frequencies, different resolutions (lines) and squeezing as much as possible into a single frame in a way that works with the game console’s rendering pipeline. As a result of this the PAL version of Super Mario World has a larger vertical resolution than the NTSC version (240 vs 224 lines), even if it’s still squashed into the same 4:3 format. For the physical video output side, European gamers were spoiled with an AV connector to (RGB) SCART output, while the rest of the world dealt with some variety of RF composite or S-video.

Although the SNES’s successor in the form of the N64 would not take cartridges to the same extremes, it was this flexible architecture that gave the SNES such an amazing game library.

A SNES Music Player You Can Control With A Browser

August 8, 2021 by Lewin Day 3 Comments

Listening to chiptunes on an emulator or software-based player is fine, but sometimes you just gotta have that real hardware charm. [Kazhuu] is one such enthusiast who feels this way, and set about building a hardware player for SNES chiptunes that can be controlled from a browser.

The build relies on an Arduino Micro to control the SNES Audio Processing Unit (APU), featuring the Nintendo S-SMP as produced by Sony and designed by Ken Kutaragi. Yes, the father of the PlayStation designed the capable wavetable synthesis chip in the Super Nintendo, and it’s that same hardware that [Kazhuu]’s project interfaces with modern hardware.

With the Arduino’s IO lines hooked up to the APU, song data can be piped out to the Arduino over a serial connection to a PC. This can be handled by a Python script, or more intuitively via a browser-based front-end. This uses WebUSB in order to take input from the browser and then send data out over the USB-serial connection to the Arduino.

It’s a neat demonstration of both working with vintage Nintendo sound hardware and how to code modern browser applications to work with embedded systems. If you’re a SEGA kid, though, you might prefer this build instead. Video after the break.

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SNES Drone Aims To Rock The SPC700

September 8, 2019 by Lewin Day 7 Comments

Way back when, home computers and consoles didn’t have the RAM or storage space for full-length recorded audio tracks. Instead, a variety of techniques were used to synthesize music on the fly. The SNES was no exception, using the SPC700 Wavetable Synthesis chip to bust out the tunes. [Foxchild] wanted to use this chip as a standalone synthesizer, but didn’t want to hack up a console to do so. Thus, the SNES Drone was born!

Instead of gutting the console for the juicy chips inside, à la most SID based builds, the SNES Drone takes a different approach. It consists of a cartridge which interfaces with a stock SNES console, making the install easy and non-invasive.

The build is in an alpha state, with the oscillators in the SNES generating continuous tones, with frequency and volume controlled by potentiometers mounted on the cartridge. Having physical controls on the cartridge makes the build feel more like a real synth, and promises to look awesome on stage for a chiptune performance.

[Foxchild] is looking for others to get involved to help get the project to the next stage, so if you’re interested, reach out on the Hackaday.io page. We’ve seen other projects to liberate the awesome chip sounds of yesteryear, too. Video after the break.

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Portable SNES Chiptune Player

August 30, 2017 by Lewin Day 8 Comments

Chiptunes are the fantastic, bleeping musical renditions of the soundchips of retro consoles past. Performers of the art overwhelmingly favour the various flavours of Game Boy, though there are those who work with such varied machines as the Commodore 64, Sega Genesis, and the Nintendo Entertainment System. A little more off the beaten track in the chiptune scene is the Super Nintendo, but [kevtris] has struck out and built a chiptune player for SNES-based music.

The heavy lifting is handled by an FPGA, which emulates the SNES’s S-SMP sound processor, and handles loading the music from the SPC-format files. Being chiptunes, these files store both the instrument data as well as the note data for the music. Audio output is clean and crisp, as heard in the test video.

The laser cut case lends the device a great aesthetic.

Case design is where this project really shines. Laser cut clear acrylic is combined with a bright LCD character display and some LEDs which create an effect not unlike a glowing magical block from your 90s platformer of choice. It’s combined with some slick capacitive buttons that avoid the need to drill holes for bulky traditional buttons. [kevtris] goes through the case design, showing how it all fits together with a combination of screws and standoffs. Being built out of a series of essentially 2D slices, the case is stacked up one layer at a time.

What really stands out about this project is the fit and finish. There’s plenty of microcontroller and FPGA projects out there that can hum out a tune, but the attention to detail paid to the case design and the neatly laid out PCB really add polish to a project like this. For a different take, why not check out this chiptune player built around a Raspberry Pi?

[Thanks Morris!]