SNES multi-cart selector, is this possible?

[Macabre]

Hi! I'm building an arcade box with a few games permanently built in. Seven (7!) of these games are on the snes, and my first idea was to use seven snes mini consoles (a very expensive and space-consuming idea), but then I found this;

http://cgi.ebay.com/Super-Nintendo-NEW- ... 27b5c296ef" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And was trying to figure out what the individual pins were from here;

http://www.caitsith2.net/snes/flashcart ... .html#cart" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



My idea was to see if there was any sort of voltage pin that I could abuse as an On/Off switch, and tie all seven of my cartridges to two systems (two is mandatory as its based around the bomberman series with 4-multiplayer support, with color coded controllers for the characters - some of the snes games have the 3rd, 4th, and 5th character's colors different, so i'm having to split it up ).

I can see that when facing the cartridge, pin #5 is a ground, and am assuming that Vcc stands for the voltage pin at #27.

Will the cpu clock pin need to be worked with?

Is it even possible to make a multi-cartridge reader/switch for the snes with this idea? I know that there was an official (very rare) genesis/megadrive cart selector made available to some kiosks, but don't know how it worked.

In my project, to select games, the entire setup is to be powered off. I'm more worried about excess voltage going to some of the cartridges not in use, and corrupting the game or what is being played.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[jdmlight]

In my project, to select games, the entire setup is to be powered off. I'm more worried about excess voltage going to some of the cartridges not in use, and corrupting the game or what is being played.

First post of the new year! assuming central time zone

Anyway, you could try using Ben's solid-state A/V switcher, since you're not concerned about having the system off to switch carts. Each switcher IC can handle 8 pins, so you would need to have multiple IC's per cartridge.

I would think that this would be the simplest method.

[Macabre]

Thats a pretty cool idea! I appologize in advance for the comming slew of questions;

I can see that with the IC I'll have to connect enable a+b, is that for each IC chip that I use for this setup? (as in one wire to rule them all? )

I'll have to line 8x of those chips up to accommodating all 62 pins on the snes cart? Or is it possible to keep some of the pins of each cart permanently attached to the snes, and only work a few of those pins into this solid-state switcher?

I won't need to do anything special for the ground & power going from the snes to the cartridge pin on these chips?

I'm betting I can connect the ground to each IC chip by bridging them? Will I need to supply Vcc to each chip individually, or can I also just connect each IC chip ground to the next IC chip's Vcc?

Would it also be advisable to stick with the guide & 8bit chips, or would searching for larger chips like that 24pin one be a waste of effort?


Thanks again for the cool idea!! I'm a bit of an electronics newb, so I don't know a lot of the common sense stuff I might have just asked~