Accessories for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System
There are various accessories for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) .
Play Station (CD-ROM extension)
history
In early 1991, Nintendo planned to expand the SNES to include a CD-ROM drive called a Play Station. Sony had already developed the SPC700 sound chip and should initially also supply the drives. However, since the two manufacturers could not agree on the details of the license agreements for the games, the contract was canceled. Sony then used some of the hardware it developed to develop its own game console .
When Nintendo signed a contract with Philips to develop the drives, Sony threatened to claim damages, so Nintendo also terminated this contract. As compensation, Nintendo gave Philips the rights to the game characters Mario as well as "Link" and "Zelda" from The Legend of Zelda . Philips then launched its own game console, the CD-i . Four Philips games with the Nintendo characters were released, but all of them had only moderate success. Nintendo then rejected the CD expansion.
technology
| Last known specifications | |
|---|---|
| R.A.M. | 8 MB |
| Sub storage | 1 MB |
| ROME | 2 MB |
| Co-CPU | 32-bit RISC |
| CPU clock | 21.477 MHz |
| Cache | 8 KB |
| Access time | 0.7 sec. |
| Data transfer rate | 150 or 300 kB / s (between SNES and CD-ROM) |
| Colours | 16.7 million |
| CD-i compatible | Yes |
| PlayStation compatible | Yes |
| price | $ 299 |
Outwardly, the device was planned similarly to the 64DD , the corresponding extension of the Nintendo 64. It should be placed under the actual SNES and probably connected via an extra module. The actual CDs (with a capacity of 560 MB) would have been installed in so-called “cartridges”, in which a memory module was planned to save game states.
The expansion would also have improved the performance of the SNES. The CPU of the expansion had 32 bits and was clocked at 21.477 MHz - the CPU of the SNES, however, only with 3.58 MHz.
Satellaview (BS-X)
General
The Satellaview (BS-X; BS stands for broadcasting satellite ) is an additional device for receiving games, demos and information via a satellite. It was released exclusively in Japan on April 23, 1995 and used the St. GIGA satellite channel . The data was broadcast on the satellite channel from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. Japanese time, otherwise a normal television program was broadcast.
The main problem was that the data was only broadcast at certain times of the day. So you had to start the device at the right moment and then download the data to a special rewritable flash module. This module, the "BS-X Special Broadcast Cassette", was inserted into the module slot of the SNES and could store four megabits (512 kilobytes) of data. In addition, it could hold an optional eight megabit (1024 kilobyte) memory card.
In the satellite view there was a large recess in which a planned modem was to be installed. It was never released, so multiplayer games weren't possible either.
At the start of the program, Nintendo, Konami , Square , Taito and Data East had committed to create content (mostly advertising) for the project, but only Nintendo and Square stuck to their announcement.
The offers consisted of four groups:
- Electronic Magazine - There were demos and games here.
- Nation-wide game competition - This was where puzzles were to be solved and multiplayer games were planned for the future. However, the Satellaview was not a success, which is why the planned modem for multiplayer games never appeared.
- Data Present - This section had cheats, maps, tips and other interesting information.
- Town News - Information, news, etc. were distributed here.
The device cost 14,000 yen, and the flash modules cost an additional 4,600 yen each.
Specifications
The BS-X module of the Satellaview had an additional 512 kilobyte RAM in order to be able to display the graphic surface. However, this RAM was never used for any other purpose. In addition, an 8-megabit ROM was installed for the operating system (BIOS) and a 2-megabit flash memory for saved games. The memory cards for the BS-X module were rewritable and contained 8 megabits (1 megabyte) of memory.
Games
Here is a list of some of the games that were broadcast on BS-X:
- BS F-Zero 2 - Grand Prix (Nintendo)
- BS Zeruda / Zelda no Densetsu (BS ゼ ル ダ の 伝 説) (Nintendo)
- BS Zeruda / Zelda no Densetsu: Inishie no Sekiban (BS ゼ ル ダ の 伝 説 古代 の 石 盤) (Nintendo)
- BS Super Mario Bros. 3 (Nintendo)
- BS Super Mario Bros USA (Nintendo)
- Wrecking Crew '98 (Nintendo)
- Excite Bike (Nintendo)
- BS Dr. Mario (Nintendo)
- BS Cu on Pa
- BS Golf Out
- BS Marvelous
- BS Chrono Trigger Character Library (Square)
- BS Chrono Trigger Jet Bike Special (Square)
- BS Let's Pachinko
- BS Shubimano
- BS Special Tee Shot (Nintendo)
- BS Sutte Hakkun (Nintendo)
- BS Dragon Quest (Enix)
- BS Famicom Wars
- BS Panel de Pon - Event Version (Nintendo)
- BS Panel de Pon - Event Version 2 (Nintendo)
- BS Panel de Pon - Event '98 (Nintendo)
- BS Yoshi no Panepon (Nintendo)
- Treasure Conflict (Square)
- Radical Dreamers (Square)
- Dynamai Racer (Square)
- Tatoeba K-kun no Tabouna ichinichi (Square)
- Wario's Woods (Nintendo)
Super Game Boy 1 + 2
Main articles: Super Game Boy and Super Game Boy # Super Game Boy 2
With the help of the Super Game Boy it is possible to play Game Boy games on the SNES. If desired, these games, which are actually black and white, can be colored.
The Super Game Boy 2 was released at the same time as the Game Boy camera. It is identical to the first Super Game Boy, but also has a Game Link connection, which enables the connection to another Game Boy system (or Gameboy printer) for multiplayer games.
NES games
Main article: Tristar (Nintendo)
The Super 8 / Tri-Star was an adapter that allowed the old NES games to be played on the SNES. A total of 3 types of modules were supported, NES games (North America and Europe), Famicom games (Japan) and games for the SNES and Super Famicom (Japan, Europe, North America). The adapter has not been licensed by Nintendo.
Great scope
As a light gun, the Super Scope was a replacement for the gamepad in the form of a rocket launcher or a bazooka, which is similar to the zapper for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was published in the USA in 1992, and in Europe and Japan in 1993. Instead, it was never officially sold in Germany. The actual device is wireless and is powered by six Mignon batteries. The associated infrared receiver is connected to the console.
The player lays the device on his shoulder while playing and looks at the television screen through an attachable target tube. There are three buttons on the Super Scope: a fire button and a pause button, as well as a cursor button on the handle, which, however, was only actually used by very few games.
The following games are compatible with the Super Scope:
- Super Scope 6 (came in a bundle with Super Scope) with six games: Blastris, Lazer Blaster, Confront, Interceptor and Mole Patrol * Battle Clash
- Bazooka Blitzkrieg
- Lamborghini American Challenge
- Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge
- Terminator 2: The Arcade Game
- The Hunt for Red October
- Tinstar
- X zone
- Yoshi's Safari
Multitap
The Super Multitap is an adapter that, connected to controller port 2, enables four controllers to be connected. Together with a controller on port 1, if supported by the game, up to five players can play at the same time. The device licensed by Nintendo was sold by the manufacturer Hudson Soft together with Super Bomberman , later also individually. However, the first part only supported four players at the same time, five players were only possible from Super Bomberman 3. Other manufacturers later also built multiplayer adapters; the DOCS Multi-Play Adapter, for example, has four connections. Most of the 50+ games with multitap support had up to four players, some up to five, and more were unusual.
Major SNES games with multitap support:
- the complete Super Bomberman series (4 or 5 players)
- Micro Machines (4 players)
- Secret of Mana (3 players)
- Street Racer (4 player split screen)
- WWF Raw (4 players)
- International Super Star Soccer Deluxe (4 players)
- Smash Tennis (4 players)
SNES mouse
Main article: Super NES Mouse
This two-button mouse with ball mechanism was first delivered in 1992 together with the music and painting program Mario Paint , but could later also be purchased separately. Mario Paint is also one of the few really well-known games that support the SNES mouse; other games with mouse support often only appeared in Japan.
The Super Game Boy could also be operated using the mouse in the menu, which was unnecessary, however, as this function offered no new options and was hardly more convenient than using the gamepad.
Super Nintendo Score Master / Super-Advantage
The Score Master from Nintendo and the officially licensed Super-Advantage from Asciiware are arcade sticks. The design of the Score-Master is based on that of the Super-Famicom or PAL-Super-NES, the Super-Advantage is similar in its design to the North American Super-NES. The Score Master has a footprint of 26 cm × 19 cm. Due to their size, both arcade sticks are not held in the hand as is usual with game controllers, but they are either placed on a flat surface such as a table or the floor or held on the lap. The control pad of the standard controller is replaced by an arcade stick that gives it its name. Furthermore, both arcade sticks have the colored A, B, X and Y buttons as well as the shoulder buttons, which in both cases are not located on the back as with the joypad, but are arranged next to the colored buttons. A special feature for official Nintendo products is the series of switches with special functions: There is a switch to turn on a slow motion function for games and a turbo mode or continuous fire can be set separately for each "fire button".
Cheat modules
There were various cheat modules (also called cheat modules) from other manufacturers that were inserted between the SNES and the actual game module. The best known are Game Genie from Code Masters (successful in the North American market) and Action Replay from Datel (successful in Europe). They were set to a specific memory address and assigned a specific value to be falsified. If the corresponding memory address was queried, the cheat module sent the desired value. Cheat modules of this type correspond to a trainer in their functionality .
Copy stations
Many module copier stations were offered with which the ROMs of the modules could be read out on 3.5-inch diskettes . Since the ROMs were often larger than 1.44 MB , the floppy disks could be formatted in the UMF format, which means that up to 12 Mbit (1.5 MB) could be stored on a floppy disk. If a game was larger than 12 Mbit, it was saved on multiple floppy disks. Diskettes in UMF format could be processed with the copier station or a normal PC with the appropriate software, since the file system was DOS compatible. Later copier stations also supported ZipDisk and CD drives as well as hard drives. The splitting of larger games was no longer necessary.
The high price for the copy station (approx. 800 DM) paid for itself after just a few copies due to the very high module prices of 99 to 149 DM. The SNES copier stations remained, at least in Germany, a niche phenomenon. The Amiga 500 , also available for approx. 800 DM, offered gamers a little more options as a copy station.
Later copier stations also made it possible to save at any point in the game and write to diskette. So you no longer had to rely on the storage options or even passwords provided in the game.
There were basically two file formats for the images. They only differed in that one format had a header of 256 bytes in front of the data and the other did not. If you wanted to use an image in another copy station, it was necessary to remove or generate the header. There were simple DOS programs that did this.
The desired function - such as playing a game from diskette, formatting or copying diskette, reading out module, etc. - could be selected in a start menu. An original module had to be inserted in the slot of the copy station in order to simulate normal operating conditions for the SNES. Games with additional chips (e.g. Super FX ) could not be copied with the first devices because the copying stations could not emulate the chips. Later models were able to access the special chip of an inserted module and also use it for copied games. For example, all FX1 games ran smoothly with a Star Wing module.
The devices were only available to a limited extent in import stores and some of them were not easy to obtain. The conversion of image files required at least a basic PC knowledge, and therefore copier stations were not widely used at that time except among enthusiasts. There was, however, a larger scene that always came up with the latest game downloads on mailboxes.
Due to the outdated technology, the use of copy stations makes little sense today, as rewritable flash modules that can also record several games have been around for some time.
Import adapter
This is a game module adapter with the help of which regional boundaries between the European, American and Japanese versions of the SNES could be avoided. The adapters were plugged between the game module and the console, where they manipulated the country code or, due to the different shape of the imported game modules, enabled the module and console to be connected.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b N-Sider.com: SNES-CD Profile. Retrieved November 11, 2008 .
- ↑ Everything about the SNES from Nintendo ( Memento from September 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ http://www.supernes.de/snes-zubehoer-satellaview.html
- ↑ Discussion of Satellaview ( Memento of September 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ http://www.supernes.de/snes-zubehoer-satellaview.html
- ↑ Discussion of Super Scope ( Memento from November 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Game test by the magazine Video Games 8/93
- ↑ Accessory list at Nintendo.de ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
