Build a NES on SNES adaptor (like Tristar...)

[Wong]

I was wondering if anybody had tried this. Let me explain. I have a snes that I have loved faithfully since the day I plugged it in. I also have the super gameboy, which is quite cool for playing those few old skhool gameboy titles I loved from back in the day (since I gave my old gameboy away years ago). However, I do not currently own a NES. But, after discovering this website and getting the idea to try portablizing my beloved old SNES, I got to thinking... if they can make an adaptor to play old gameboy games on the snes, why can't some enterprising soul build a NES adaptor that will play on the snes (and not have to spend tons 'o dollars on a tristar adaptor). That way instead of having to set the two systems side by side, you could just stick your nes cart in the adaptor and plug that into the snes, and there you go. I had a hunch that the power would have to come from the snes wall transformer straight to the adaptor and then out to the console (anybody ever use one of those nanitek gamesaver things? Like that), but how would somebody direct the outputs from the nes board into the cart slot for the snes to read? Is this idea doomed to failure before it gets off the ground (at least from a home hacking standpoint)?

[SgtBowhack]

There are ways to do it, but you could also just make a teeny NES that fits under the SNES, uses power and video pass-throughs and get the same result. The Tri-Star really is a piece of crap. All it does is take power from the SNES (which you can do just as easily by making a passthrough adapter for the power) and pass video from the SNES if you're playing an SNES game. You could even make Y-adapters for the controllers so you could use the SNES pads on the NES or SNES depending on which one was on. This would save you from trying to send the controller signals from the SNES to the NES.
The problem with trying to integrate it the way the Tri-Star did is, it involves having a ROM to interface with the SNES (which can be dumped from a real Tri-Star, no doubt) and you still need to pass the video through. It can be done much more simply (and you can save power too!) by just having them both plugged in and turning only 1 on.
It's a very interesting idea, but it's a bit silly to do in implementation, I think.

[Wong]

Well, the idea of just plugging a "nes in a cart" into the snes to play appeals to me. Apparently not to anyone else (doh!). I know it's not "strictly" a portable nintendo, but it seems to me to share similar concepts. But if I read you right, it would be possible to wire the power into the cart, then pass through to the snes console. I've read that the snes uses like one more volt overall in its power supply than the snes (some dude put his nes, snes, gba, game cube, etc... all in one big wooden case). It's just a question of whether the nes motherboard can be made to send it's input/output through the cart slot. Anybody ever try it?

[SgtBowhack]

Like I said, that would be the hard part. And you don't actually see benefits from doing so. If anything, it could mean needing to put the data from the controller into some software buffer and then doing some weird stuff to send it across the cart slot. Doing so would not only be difficult, there is also a possibility for poor control. For example, I own a Famicom-GBA adapter. This adapter hooks on the back of my GBA and lets me play Famicom games. The control on it is awful. I can barely make it through the first stage of SMB without dying, because sometimes Mario will simply refuse to jump, or will jump only a very little bit. These are problems that will appear with such an adapter, and the amount of fine tuning required to remove such problems is likely going to outweigh the urge of anyone to do this.

In short, there are a lot of things you may not be considering. This thing would not be "convenient" in the least. As I said, there are more conventional ways to use the same power supply, controllers and video out, and this would cause much less in the way of headaches

[Wong]

I didn't know about the control problem with the Famicom to GBA thing, but that is a good point. Yeah, it seems like a good idea (to me) when viewed in light of the super gameboy adaptor, but really probably not do-able on a minimalist techie basis (haven't even started work on my own portable yet, although I am gathering supplies). Thanks for the help!

[S q u e e !]

Come on wong! Just register already!

[Lucretius]

Come on wong! Just register already!

You're starting to sound like Jack...