
Lock 'n roll: a tale of three cartridges - markchristian
https://writing.markchristian.org/2019/03/04/lock-on-cartridges/
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samcheng
Game cartridges are pretty cool. Unlike a modern game download, the cartridges
could extend the functionality of the base system, allowing console
manufacturers to extend the life of their consoles.

My favorite example is Star Fox for Super Nintendo, a cartridge that came with
a GPU, allowing 3D graphics.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_FX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_FX)
This was in 1993, five years before GPUs became mainstream on PCs.

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markchristian
Definitely. Cartridges really were amazing; I think that's ultimately going to
end up being the organic thesis of my web site.

Something I discovered while researching this post: Sega had their own Super
FX-y thing with the Sega Virtua Processor. It was only used in one game
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtua_Racing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtua_Racing)),
but the thing I find most fascinating about it is that Sega contemplated
releasing just the Virtua Processor itself—you guessed it, as a lock-on
cartridge.

(Unfortunately, this fact didn't really fit in anywhere, so I'm just dropping
it here.)

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eropple
Not a GPU, but that reminds me a bit of the Camerica Deck Enhancer. Talk about
weird stuff...

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markchristian
Yeah! That's on deck (no pun intended) for my April blog post. (I'm trying to
do one of these each month for 2019.)

~~~
pinewurst
Don’t forget Catapult Entertainment’s X-BAND - a lock-on modem cartridge for
Genesis and (later) SNES that added remote multiplayer to games by patching
them on-the-fly.

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sfev
I remember having another type of cartridge - one that let you plug a UK and a
US “shape” cart into so you could play the US cart on your UK machine. Like
the “Noah’s Ark” cart it’d use the region code from the UK cart to boot up the
US cart on your UK (PAL) machine. IIRC the UK cart had to be the SuperFX type
for some reason

I used one to play SFII: Turbo months before it came out over here.
Unfortunately it wasn’t very well made and knocking the machine while in use
would cause the game to cut out & restart, which happened quite a lot during
intensive 2p matches!

~~~
benj111
There were a few variations.

For the nes you could get an adaptor that took a nes game (for the lockout
chip) and a famicom game, allowing you to play famicom games, that didn't have
lock out chips. A few pirate/ unlicensed games went this route also.

I've seen a similar thing for the snes. I believe the super famicom had a lock
out, so cant remember if this was required for those.

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Nr7
The MSX computers regularly had two cartridge ports. Some cartridge games by
Konami had extra features and cheats that could be triggered by inserting
certain other cartridges to the secondary port.

Here is a list of them:
[http://www.msxblue.com/manual/romcombis_c.htm](http://www.msxblue.com/manual/romcombis_c.htm)

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Insanity
I don't remember which one I used. As a kid I had one for the gameboy and you
could use it to cheat on the old pokemon games.

It was fun to play around with but winning the game by cheating never
entertained me that long :p

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StavrosK
That was the GameShark.

~~~
Insanity
A quick search on DDG images confirms this :D Thanks!

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alias_neo
I had that Sonic & Knuckles cartridge as a child.

Sadly I never had Sonic 3 so I never experienced the "Real" game, but it was
fun plugging in Sonic 2 and other games.

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michaelmior
I didn't experience the first two, but I remember being amazed by Sonic &
Knuckles. I can't imagine the technical wizardry that went into these devices
given the constraints at the time.

~~~
rubinelli
This You Tube channel details some of the amazing tricks they used to create
those seemingly impossible effects.
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi29TNPrdbwJLiB-
VcWSS...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi29TNPrdbwJLiB-
VcWSSg-3iNTGJnn_L)

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grawprog
I blame the game genie for killing my nes. I never started getting the
flashing grey death screen until I got one.

Then again...it could have been because I was a careless child.

~~~
wolrah
As the other response notes, any kind of flashing screen issues relate to the
10NES lockout chip not communicating properly with the cartridge. Disabling
the 10NES would solve the flashing part, but if you're getting it with a solid
color screen instead of the opening second of the game you have a few other
pins that aren't connecting well either.

The front loader NES has a design flaw that makes the cartridge slot wear out
over time and the pins stop making good connections. It wouldn't surprise me
to find out that the Game Genie aggravates this flaw because of the way it
sits in the slot, but every front-load NES is doomed to eventual failure if
it's actually used.

Fortunately there are cheap replacements available and it's a pretty trivial
job to install them. It's basically just a C-shaped bit of plastic and metal
that connects to an edge connector on the NES motherboard and then loops
around to face the cartridge slot.

