I’ve always been slightly bothered by the updated graphics in Super Mario All-Stars, but at the same time I can’t deny that it’s a fantastic cartridge to have around. Hacker Callan Brown apparently felt the same way, and decided to do a little investigation into perhaps remedying the situation. The result? A sweet megacartridge with an old-school way of selecting which game you want.
Brown looked at the circuit layout and found that with a little work, he could wire it up so that the reset signal not only reset the console, but switched which part of the cartridge’s memory was being read. Normally it would just start from the beginning (that’s why it’s called, you know, reset) but the memory-managed ROM he installed on the cartridge could tell it to start from a different point, so that every time you reset, it boots a different game. Excellent!
The titles on board are Super Mario Bros 2, 3, Lost Levels, and a ROM hack of SMB3. No SMB1, for some reason. Still pretty sweet. All the instructions and diagrams you need to replicate this thing are right here. You could even do one with all the Mega Man games, or… well, anything.
Brown notes that the next thing he’s working on is an “arcade-quality” Arkanoid controller. Hell yes.
[via Hack A Day]
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