Back Of Super Nintendo

[Isabella Kells]

HelloAtariage! This is my first post. I collect retro video games, and I was wondering how many people have snes/super famicom backup devices. I recently bought a Bung Game Doctor SF6 for $150. It is great for playing homebrews as well as roms. Does anyone else have any other different backup devices?

I had more of these types of devices in the 90's than I can count. Super Magic Drives, Super UFOs, etc. They were cool and still are from a historical point of view. But, other than that, modern devices such as Everdrives have made them pretty much worthless. Nobody is going to go to these floppy disk relics to play roms and homebrew. We all want to live in the past in some sense...but not that one

I decided to pay a little more for a game doctor because I read somewhere that everdrives don't work properly. I heard that they have a design flaw- something about the system requiring a 5v circuit and the everdrive only being built for 3.3 volts. I don't know if that's true, but I didn't want to risk it. And I had a bunch of old floppies laying around doing nothing, so I decided to give them a use. Sure, it takes 3 minutes to load up Donkey Kong Country, but I don't mind- I just like using floppies.

Btw, did you have a particular favorite backup device?

This was true, but I believe the official everdrives have all been corrected. Any current models shouldn't have this issue, but the older ones might still be a problem.

However, I believe you can contact them in order to get this flaw fixed.

I decided to pay a little more for a game doctor because I read somewhere that everdrives don't work properly. I heard that they have a design flaw- something about the system requiring a 5v circuit and the everdrive only being built for 3.3 volts. I don't know if that's true, but I didn't want to risk it.

There was something going on with that years ago and it blew up into a thing.....that really turned out to not be a thing. IIRC it was one particular model at the time that while had no cases at all reported whatsoever of any console damage it ran like wildfire through the interwebs. That was years ago. Since, all everdrives are functioning properly and none cause any risk at all. I have used them for years....and still continue to use them to this day.

I would say if anything it is these backup devices from random Chinese manufacturers back in the day could be the cause of console damage over anything else. They have no "stamp of approval"...and documentation of how they operate is sparse or perhaps even non-existent. I would certainly trust Krikzz and his devices over one of these Chinese get-rich-quick relics

I recall having a Super Wild Card back in the day for my SNES and someone had to make me an adapter to allow my SNES to use a Genesis power supply in order to use it. That was because when it was used with a SNES power supply the screen would fade (power draw) with each click of the loading off of the floppy drive. That was bad news.

Bottom line are that current everdrives are not only safer (in my opinion over these old things) but much more convenient, reliable, and much more you can do with them. The only reason to own one of these old copiers is if you had one back in those days and are feeling nostalgic for it....or for collecting purposes if you are into collecting vintage pirate devices. $150 as a collectible was ok I guess. But if you spent $150 to actually use this over a modern everdrive for gaming...I hate to say it but it was not the way to go.

Probably wasn't the way to go, but you do these kind of things when you're obsessed with old tech. I did get it as a collectible, and I might get an everdrive some day. But hey, you can't argue with Jackie Chan. Thanks for the advice!

The problem I have with the SNES Everdrive is that mode 7 and games that use enhancement chips are not supported on the Everdrives that I am aware of. Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, FX-Zero and Jikkyo Oshaberi Parodius or any other chip enhanced game can't be played on my Everdrive yet they work fine on my OG Xbox SNES emulator.

Mode7 is a graphics setting option of the system, the everdrive would have nothing to do with that. Without Mode7 you'd have no ground on F-Zero, no rotating and pivoting backgrounds in Super Castlevania IV or Super Ghouls N Ghosts. The rest though, true, mostly, you can add a DSP to the basic kit so at least Pilotwings and Mario Kart are playable along with a few others.

Given the price of an everdrive being (was?) around $100, and then having to buy and tear up a SNES cart and do it or pay even more for someone to do the solder job of adding the DSP pushes it with price, but also time and effort factor into being a total waste of money against the SD2SNES/FX Pro...a second hand one of them can go around $150 anyway if $200 sucks too much for you. I figure it as this much, +50 ...that's like one, maybe two, maybe even under less than 1 value than most expansion chip cart game costs anyway. Kirby's Dream Land 3, Mario RPG, Parodius 3, etc it adds up or exceeds very fast.

Looks good, looks like a legit re-used shell too, but the ONE immediate glaring wrongness of that is the label flap with the ugly big unprofessional looking white printed name of the game when it should be a color mini of the one on the front of the sticker.

That's better, and honest showing the board. I just don't remember the game ever saving anything so I have to wonder about that last picture. Cart shell isn't a cheapo with plastic mold including fake screws, sticker looks right at a distance since it's not close. Not a bad deal at all for something that looks perhaps 1:! ideal from the outside.

I have an MGH (Multi Game Hunter). The one I had, bought in 1993, worked for SNES and Genesis. The SNES side broke so I sent it back, they fixed the SNES side, but the Genesis side came back broken. Keep in mind I take very good care of my stuff so these things can be poorly built. I held onto it and bought a used one on ebay for $15, missing the adapter to hook it to the Genesis. Since mine had both adapters, I now have one of each (One for Genesis and one for SNES I mean)...And they both work. But, I rarely use them and instead I bought a bunch of original carts mostly before the prices went through the roof... Then I bought a SD2SNES and an Everdrive X5 and never looked back....Also Everdrives for NES/Turbografx/Famicom/GBA + a Harmony Cart for Atari, a Dragonfly etc...They are miles ahead in terms of reliability and ease of use. You might look into them.

I remember back some years, but I think this century, that people were hacking these things to do as you thought. I've seen where custom firmware or adapters were used to enable either the use of a zip drive or even burned CDs since it is as you said standard PC parts there as far as the drive/bay connector goes.

Now I'm talking some old UFO device from China here, and also before 1995 too, my best friend had one of them and it used standard PC parts and normal formatted floppy disks. The annoyance came from when a SNES game was over 1MB in size and they'd need to be split over a couple disks. I don't remember how that was figured out, other than borrowing someones game and using the menu to copy a cart and it would bust it into pieces and spread it evenly over a couple disks. I would think there had to be some old pre-windows 95 style DOS/Win 3.X tool in the day that would allow you to do it on a PC and stuff it on there too, or dice up early rom dumps all the same.

WARNING: DO NOT attempt this if you are unfamiliar with soldering & dealing with power & circuits in general. ALWAYS wear SAFETY GLASSES when doing any soldering or working with any tools for that matter. Never leave the power adapters of these old systems plugged in. I'm not responsible for any harm you might do to yourself, others, or house by attempting this modification.

I purchased an old SNES from a facebook friend knowing that it didn't power on but soon as I received it I saw that the power post at back of console was broken off. I've always hated that design because it limits the options on power adapters to such a degree that it's borderline silly. Now with this one I had to figure out a way to get power to the console & using the original style adapter was out of the question now.

3a8082e126