Multi-cart NES

NesScotland · Post by **NesScotland** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:53 am

This is my first post on this site so go easy on me.

After stumbling across this amazing forum lots of ideas have been buzzing about my head. Im loving the stuff i have seen other people do with the portables etc.

After a lot of contemplating (instead of working - think i might be addicted) i asked my self what is it i actually want to create.

I have come to the conclusion that my PC emulator is sufficient for my NES needs when i feel like a bit of 8-bit fun however there are probably 10 games that i truely love playing and what better way to play them than on original hardware.

I have trawled through the the 27 pages of posts in the 8 bit section and havnt found the answer to the following question. (Apologies if i missed it). Couldnt find it with search either.

Basically i am looking to find out if it is possible to internally "hardwire" multiple carts to a nes connector with some sort of switch built into the nes case to switch between them (even if the power has to be switched of each time) so that i could hardwire my 10 fav games into the sytem and never have to worry about switching carts etc.

I realise that there are space issues with this and the boards would probably have to be stripped out the cart cases etc to save on space, but even if there was only room for say Mario 1, 2 & 3 it would be quite nice to have a dedicated mario machine.

If i have missed this in the forum i apologise.

If the answer is a big fat NO then its back to the drawing board i think.

Thanks in advance.

Eddie

Kyo · Post by **Kyo** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:19 am

all you would have to do is switch ground

NesScotland · Post by **NesScotland** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:41 am

so all of the carts would be linked in series(or is it parallel?

) but there would be a switch to switch between the 10 grounds?

Im a noob, could you elaborate a bit please

Eddie

Kyo · Post by **Kyo** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:00 am

parallel, yes.
Basically, you'd only give ground to the cartridge you want to play

NesScotland · Post by **NesScotland** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:03 am

Cool thanks for the info.

Starting to realise this may be a bit tedious, 72 soldered points per cart etc.

Also im not that clued up with electronics so dont actually know how to make a 10 way switch to switch the 10 carts ground connections.

Has anyone ever done this type of mod ? Am i wasting my time ?

(Should i stop being lazy and just switch the carts manually lol)

Kyo · Post by **Kyo** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:12 am

there are 10-way switches. You usually twist them.

But yeah, swapping carts would probably be easier

NesScotland · Post by **NesScotland** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:16 am

Kyo wrote:there are 10-way switches. You usually twist them.

But yeah, swapping carts would probably be easier

Thanks again. Might just have to think of something else.

Sun-Wukong · Post by **Sun-Wukong** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:51 pm

You could just attach the 10 Cart Slots and he switch but leave them empty and have whichever 10 games you want, and still not be limited to just those.

arfink · Post by **arfink** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:23 pm

The ground switch idea would work OK as long as you made sure to switch all the grounds- the 72 pin has ground available in several places if I recall. Also, with this method you would have to turn off the unit to switch games. A logic circuit could be designed which, with the push of a button, would cut the power, switch ground to the next sequential cart slot, and then re-apply power. In fact, if I'm not mistaken that's essentially what they did with the big multi-slot units in stores in Japan, etc.

Kyo · Post by **Kyo** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:20 am

Naturally all ground pins would have to be switched. But yes, you're right. You would indeed need to power off the device to switch games.

A good alternative would be making an eeprom with all 10 games, and just having a software switch

NesScotland · Post by **NesScotland** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 7:49 am

Kyo wrote:A good alternative would be making an eeprom with all 10 games, and just having a software switch

This sounds more like it but unfortunately beyond my capability.

Eddie

misjah · Post by **misjah** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 9:51 am

Here`s my Idea, and I think the simplest way....there are only 2 ground pins on cart slot, you can connect them to make one ground that goes to switch selection. All other pin are connected in parallel and connected to board directly. I don`t know if there is a 10-way switch but you can combine switches with less position. For switching between carts you can simply hold reset button and switch or reset after switching. This safe enough for NES, there will be only messed up picture. It looks something like this:

Kyo · Post by **Kyo** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 10:07 am

i already suggested that, and yes there are 10 way switches

b_w_johan · Post by **b_w_johan** » Mon Dec 22, 2008 5:35 pm

lol, or if you have â‚¬450 spare you can buy a M82 demo unit

made a post about it someone in NL is selling all his nintendo stuff i think

but why don't you buy a 100 in 1 cardridge? something like that exist... seen it somewhere...