So I started research about the planned but never got released CD add-on of Nintendo's snes some days ago. The only maschine ever made wasn't licensed by Nintendo . It was produced by bung under the name gamestation which actually is a cloned and modified snes . I also found this document about the CD drive but don't know if it's real. I added it to my dropbox. https://www.dropbox.com/s/enojh1du6af6zk0/SNES CD-ROM System - 1993.pdf?dl=0 So So what you think could we do this?or does anyone hold one of those gamedoctor gamestations?so we could rebuilt it?
If we can get it made, may I suggest using a DVD or Blu Ray drive instead of a CD-ROM drive? Gives devs more space for games that truly push the SNES hardware. I am all for this project but I don't know how to build something like this (yet). The closest thing to the SNES CD specs is the Sony PlayStation, which is a modified version of the SNES CD. Maybe someone can come up with some way of connecting a heavily modified PS1 to the SNES? Oh and one more thing, to the person that decides to undertake such a project, make it support online play with modern internet connections. Heck, throw in a WiFi card if necessary. A cool BIOS screen like on the Sega CD/Mega CD would be nice too.
It'd be nice to see a clone of the Floppy based backup systems, then you could go either floppy or USB with one of those USB floppy emulators.. Guess there is little point with all the flash carts around now days
There's really not that information in those docs, apart from naming a co-processor the majority of it seems to be just talking about what a CD-ROM drive actually is. Seeing as it mentions CD-i I'm guessing this document was produced around about the same time Nintendo stopped talking to Sony and started trying to partner up with Phillips. What is interesting is that it wasn't going to be 'CD format' exactly, rather a cartridge with a CD inside and hardware for game saves.
I have one of those Gamestations. The main board is a SNES clone similar to a FC Twin or Retro Duo, same chipsets. The floppy drive interfaces with the main unit for saves, and can also load games from floppy.
Are you serious? Why on earth would you ever need 4GB or 25GB+ for a SNES? The largest game was like 8MB or something.
Wow didn't thought about so much replys.thanks @LeHaM Do you think this would work with a GD7? I often saw these adapters but never got that idea. Sounds worth a try. Sonny_Jim Ok thanks for the info, I didn't had time yet to take a look at it .just saw and grabbed it . But there must exist some documents about it. I think I 've got to get my old psx from my parents house on weekend .And as soon as I find some infos about the internals. I will try to change this psx back to an Nintendo add-on.(-' @Ronnie Cool I own a GD 7 ,too. but no Gamestation. Do you know which CD Rom unit I should use best to hook up with the GD7?my research turned out Panasonic,oem,creative Model cr 562-b 563-b. By the way do you know where else than bung or tototek I could get GD7 ram chips from? because I'm from Germany and the shipping would be really heavy for this item. @Bad_Ad84 DVD or BD !?I hope he didn't ment that for sure. Maybe we could also do an internal SD mod. I found this just right now someone tryed this ten years ago http://cd7clone.50webs.com/ http://www.cherryroms.co.uk/forums/copier-and-hardware-forum/making-cd7.html
No reason the device couldn't be recreated other than, why? Most modern flash carts were designed by reverse engineering these old backup systems so this basically has already been done. But they've been improved on. Recreating this is like reinventing the wheel. With the goal being a rickety old wooden wagon wheel. Same goes for cloning a floppy based system. I have nothing against these old systems. I have many of them and still use some. If someone wants to buy a $5 GD and stick a $15 floppy emulator in it instead of forking out 100 bucks for a modern device I won't call them a fool. I'll even give you my image builder that makes splitting and copying games to SD a cinch. But if you're going to build something new why not do it right? GD RAM isn't a chip it's a small proprietary daughter board. Small and light enough for epacket. Don't know what it costs to germland but it costs me a little over US$2 to ship something like that to the US.
Maybe for MSU modded games? The music takes up quite a bit of space. Can't think of any other reason though.
I thought the thread starter wanted to recreate the unreleased SNES CD. That's why I said it should have a DVD Drive or a Blu Ray drive. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused.
Doing USB instead of SD on a flash cart would be easy enough. You'd think power might be an issue but, since no one has made appropriately sized HDDs in decades, everyone would just put their stuff on an SD and use a USB adapter. I have an 8G card in my v64 and every ROM ever released in every language might just fill it. I couldn't pick enough SNES games worth playing to fill the 1k disk images on my 2G Super UFO SD. My MGD 2G SD with every hucard ever made is 1/4 full. In short, a 32-64G SD would probably hold every ROM for every retro console ever made. For the CD consoles yes, I'm looking forward to more HDD support. I could easily fill a few hundred GB with DC games I actually play. For cart based I'd need a much more active imagination to come up with a reason to go USB.
CD is the answer. Then we'd need a way to save files. Also depending on the pinout and decoder chip, we could hook it straight to an IDE drive. But its not worth it and will take a lot of time programming the decoder chip.
I don't see the issue with SD to be honest... they're cheap and plentiful. There's no need for a huge 500gb hard drive for a SNES games considering you could have every ROM from every region and it would still probably be a few gb.
