Video Game 3150 (old multicart with switches)

Discuss hardware-related topics, such as development cartridges, CopyNES, PowerPak, EPROMs, or whatever.

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zoinknoise
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Video Game 3150 (old multicart with switches)

Post by zoinknoise »

check out this primitive multicart. it's a 31-in-1 with no menu. instead, you get five BIG slide switches! who needs a menu?
IMG_4578.jpeg
all the games are typical NROM multicart fare. a diagram for selecting a game is printed on the front, and very useful as long as you can read Chinese. it also has screenshots of each game on the back for illiterates like me. one source i found says this cart is by Bit Corp.
IMG_4583.jpeg
which mapper is this cart? YOUR FINGER!
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in all seriousness, this cart actually shows how these early pirate games were sometimes made with real quality. (it's probably from the late '80s.) the custom shell is well-tooled and sturdy. it's also held together with a screw, instead of horrible plastic snaps. in that way, it's BETTER than most official Famicom cartridges. eventually the pirates would switch to plastic snaps just like official carts, and the carts would be made with increasingly thinner plastic as time went on.
IMG_4607.jpeg
Joe
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Re: Video Game 3150 (old multicart with switches)

Post by Joe »

But there are 32 options.

What happens if you pick ↓↓↓↓↑?
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Individualised
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Re: Video Game 3150 (old multicart with switches)

Post by Individualised »

That SMB title hack I haven't seen before. Mind showing a proper screenshot?
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zoinknoise
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Re: Video Game 3150 (old multicart with switches)

Post by zoinknoise »

Individualised wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 5:46 pm That SMB title hack I haven't seen before. Mind showing a proper screenshot?
sure!
IMG_4675.jpg
it's not an exact match with the label, but close enough. i notice the mountain in the background is a bit corrupted.
Joe wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 5:39 pm What happens if you pick ↓↓↓↓↑?
actually, it brings up SMB, as seen above.
lidnariq
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Re: Video Game 3150 (old multicart with switches)

Post by lidnariq »

This is mapper 360. (I'm a little salty about this allocation.)

The four diodes detect when the "top" four of the five switches are all set to ↓, and then one of the two 74'00s then permits A14 to go from the card edge to the ROM, instead of being according to the fifth switch.
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Individualised
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Re: Video Game 3150 (old multicart with switches)

Post by Individualised »

Makes you wonder why they went through the effort - wouldn't the space for just 1 more small NROM game be less expensive?
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Re: Video Game 3150 (old multicart with switches)

Post by lidnariq »

They decided that they had to include SMB1, evidently, instead of 32 16KiB NROM games
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Individualised
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Re: Video Game 3150 (old multicart with switches)

Post by Individualised »

Ohhh. I forgot SMB1 was 32k PRG. Makes a bit more sense now.
NewRisingSun
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Re: Video Game 3150 (old multicart with switches)

Post by NewRisingSun »

Carts like this are the reason why in the early 1990s, some multicarts advertised "Games Screen-Selectable" in English or Chinese on their cartridge label.
kmg
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Re: Video Game 3150 (old multicart with switches)

Post by kmg »

zoinknoise wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 6:05 pm
Joe wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 5:39 pm What happens if you pick ↓↓↓↓↑?
actually, it brings up SMB, as seen above.
So it brings up SMB and it looks the exact same as ↓↓↓↓↓ and works without glitches? Without clarification the mapper 360 wiki entry implies that it would bring up SMB with horizontal mirroring (you'd see various bricks on the the 1 Player Game row of the title screen among other fun stuff). Also, the wiki entry probably needs further clarification that ↓↓↓↓↑ does in fact bring up SMB.

Edit: Oh, never mind about the mirroring. It looks like per krysiobal's earlier post (viewtopic.php?f=9&t=17399) about this board it's SW1 that's controlling mirroring. Still the wiki page could use some clarification.
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zoinknoise
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Re: Video Game 3150 (old multicart with switches)

Post by zoinknoise »

yes, i can confirm both ↓↓↓↓↓ and ↓↓↓↓↑ bring up SMB with correct mirroring.

i didn't know that krzysiobal had already documented this cart; i didn't find that post while searching the forums.
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Re: Video Game 3150 (old multicart with switches)

Post by kmg »

zoinknoise wrote: Sun Nov 06, 2022 11:35 am i didn't know that krzysiobal had already documented this cart; i didn't find that post while searching the forums.
I rather like these switch-based carts so I don't mind the repeat :)

Interesting that yours doesn't have the little Video Game System gnome image on the left under the switches. So that's the Bit Corp mascot? Also here's a tumaguro blog entry with the same cart: http://gxemu.blog67.fc2.com/blog-entry-238.html. Based on chip markings I guess your cart without the little gnome dude is later than the other two examples.

I wish more of these older switch-based carts would turn up. There are the two documented in the wiki that are in the krysiobal post I linked to before. But then there's also the 16-in-1 in the tumaguro blog which I think is undumped? For some reason I thought there were more of them for the Famiclones in the 80s, kind of like how Bit Corp made quite a few for the 2600.
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