The Beautiful World of Weird Cartridges! | Uncle Derek Underground | SSFF
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- Опубликовано: 2 июн 2024
- Happy Year-Ending Holiday Time! Here's an extra cozy episode of our new Patreon-exclusive show FOR FREE! Support SSFF on Patreon for only $2 ► bit.ly/SSFFpatreon. Or don't! Just watching and subscribing already helps the channel so much ☠ ► go.stopskeletons.com/subscribe. Thank you I love you all! See you in the new year!!
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Chapters
00:00:00 - What is Uncle Derek Underground?
00:02:55 - Hey I'm Derek It's Me Derek!
00:03:57 - NES and Famicom Carts
00:15:46 - SNES and Super Famicom Carts
00:25:05 - Master System And Genesis / Mega Drive
00:41:12 - The problem with labels
00:46:07 - Game Boy, GBA, and DS
01:16:42 - Pokemon Mini and e-Reader
01:22:36 - Game Genie
01:31:26 - Nintendo 64 and N64DD
01:38:53 - N-Gage and Turbo Grafx-16
01:49:30 - Thanks for watching!
In this special episode, we're uncovering the most bizarre and extraordinary video game cartridges ever created. From games with hidden features to cartridges that defy the norms of traditional gaming, we're showcasing the treasures that have captivated gamers and collectors alike.
Whether you're a retro gaming enthusiast, a curious collector, or just love a good gaming mystery, this video has something for everyone. We delve into the heart of gaming's quirky past, unveiling cartridges that have become legends in their own right.
Dive into the intriguing world of retro gaming with our exploration of the weirdest cartridges from iconic consoles like the Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo, Mega Drive, Game Boy Advance, Sega Genesis, and NES. Discover the unique, often bizarre history behind these classic games. This video is a treasure trove for fans of video game history and anyone fascinated by the quirks and oddities of the gaming past. Join us in uncovering the hidden gems and peculiar stories of these legendary platforms. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share your own weird gaming finds in the comments!
#stopskeletons #retrogames 
Игры
Re why the NES is front-loading and the Famicom is top-loading: It's totally aesthetic. They changed it for the USA because they wanted it to resemble a VCR rather than a game console. Video games had a bad name in the USA at the time because the game industry crash brought on by Atari was still fresh enough for retailers to be skeptical.
Is there really anyone who’s into retro gaming who doesn’t know that at this point?
Hence why Nintendo had such unconventional names for things:
Not a cartridge, a "Game Pak"
Not a game console, an "Entertainment System"
I’m actually shocked Derick was clueless on it.
@leeartlee915 you didn't.
@@leeartlee915me
I led a team of testers on Kirby Tilt 'n Tumble's localization, and had a blast. Most of us sat under tables while playing so we didn't get horrible fluorescent lights reflecting back at us.
We used a WideBoy 64 to record bug footage, and loved holding the entire console to control the game. One of my favorite contracts at Nintendo for sure.
Wow, working as a tester for a Kirby GBC game that used gyroscope to tilt Kirby.
"The kids call it "weigh an NES game", and claim to be making "bread" - Ice T on the very special episode of Law and Order based off a true story of skeletons fighting.
There are already three comments about this but I'll just add one piece of info in case it wasn't obvious: Since the Famicom was *only* ever made as a toploader, the carts could just be extended if they needed more space--and there were in fact several Famicom games that came in taller carts because they didn't fit in the standard size. In contrast, because of the way the NES-001's frontloading mechanism works, they had to make _one_ size of cartridge and have that be good enough for the entire life of the system. Thus, they made it extra-large so they'd have plenty of room if they needed to fit more stuff in it. I believe there are some NES carts that come close to filling all the space but I don't think there were any retail games that actually used _all_ of it.
There were some that were just Famicom games wedged into region converters 😂
@@KopperNeoman Yup, the most common, was, I think, Gyromite. Other early games did this too, like Clu Clu Land and Excitebike.
@@KopperNeomanYeah I know... that was in the video we're commenting on :)
@@OptimumTaurusthe whole list was shown in the video. Did you watch it? xD
I want to say later carts like Castlevania 3 come pretty close to filling the two-cart-tall space in the plastic
When I think of weird NES cartridges I’m always reminded of the Strong Bad’s cool game for attractive people dev blog which was written in character as strong bad. In one entry he expresses his frustration that his digital only game can’t have a switch on it like MiG-29 for the NES
Codemasters' J-Carts were so-called because you could connect extra controllers to them, which were typically known as 'Joypads' in the UK (as opposed to Joysticks). Codemasters were actually quite an innovative company. Through the early 80s to early 90s, the UK videogame market was dominated by 8-bit home computers such as the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC 464 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. The vast majority of software for these machines was issued on audio cassette, and Codemasters made their fortune by publishing small, pretty good quality games at budget prices on cassette (often with completely overblown titles, like Advanced BMX Simulator for what was basically an ExciteBike clone. But they did also produce an audio CD, containing dozens of their games for the ZX Spectrum, with a special audio to joystick port cable. This allowed for rapid loading of games from CD, but unfortuantely didn't catch on. It was also right at the end of the 8-bit Micro's hayday, as consimers in the UK and Europe were moving over to the new, much more powerful 16-bit computers like the Amiga, Atari ST, PC and Apple Macintosh, as well as consoles.
One of their biggest hits in the UK home micro market was Dizzy, which spawned multiple sequels. The Dizzy games all reviewed extremely well, and usually appeared in the charts for months on end, as they were hugely popular (so naturally, Codemasters sought to bring them to the US on the NES, as the NES would allow them to publish games without the massive risk of piracy that cassette and floppy disk games brought. Of course, Codemasters balked at the obscenely unfair and restrictive practices Nintendo of America demanded they sign up to in order to publish their hugely popular games on the NES. But rather than comply, Codemasters simply broke the lockout chip found in NES cartridges, and published without Nintendo's permission. In order to have the muscle to produce games for the US Market, they teamed up with Galoob, giving them the technology that became the Game Genie, and walking away with the Micro Machines licence. Nintendo took Codemasters and Galoob to court, and lost - leading to changes in Nintendo's dealings with 3rd party companies and much less restrictive and unfair practices.
This was fascinating dude thanks for posting
@@stillhorny9488 You're welcome.
Great writeup, thanks. What truly is impressive about these J-carts is how well multiplayer play is thought out in the game design. Multiplayer options were seemingly tacked on to nearly complete games in the 90s, and this execution added to the jank in these games (letterboxing on the smaller CRTs of the time, difficulty identifying your player, frame drops, etc.) It's clear four player options were considered from the get-go and is really fun with a group.
4 player micro-machines or NBA jam is probably the best multiplayer experience on the system IMO, and is still immersive today.
What you mean you could plug another controller into the game cart?
@@joenowak7212 You could plug two Mega Drive/Genesis controllers into a J-Cart. It was a way of giving you a multitap for four players in total, without the need for an extra adaptor, which was perfect for Micro Machines, or Pete Sampras' Tennis - both of which had four player modes. It's in the video at the 30 minute point.
Those "please wait this amount of seconds between startup and shutdown" type stickers are there primarily for a form of piracy circumvention where they'd send concentrated electric pulses into the console to try and stun the lockout chip long enough for the game to run, if I'm remembering right
Was coming down to say this
Not sure if it would damage the console to mess around with the power during this phase, but it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case
The reason for the power-on weirdness on some unofficial NES games is due to the original front-loader's lockout chip. Since it was juryrigged onto a hardware spec that wasn't designed for one, its mode of operation was to actively reset the system on fail and passively allow it to boot on pass, whereas most such mechanisms actively help the system boot on pass and passively let the system hang on fail. The fact that the NES lockout chip does nothing on pass instead of on fail means that simply crashing the chip (such as with a well-timed voltage spike) is enough to bypass it. That's thus a common tactic for unlicensed NES games, but obviously it wasn't always a smooth process.
I have a RetroN 1, the old one, and it's also Game Genie incompatible. It _technically_ works, but the graphics of both the code entry screen and the games themselves get completely broken.
Genesis carts basically maxed out at 4MB (32k megabits, which is how they were typically advertised). Not too many games hit that max, but Street Fighter II was different. They managed to get an extra MB into that cart through the use of a custom mapper. 5MB or 40 Mbits. If I'm not mistaken, it's the only cart of it's size on the Genesis until post-2010 homebrews, some of which hit 8MB using mappers.
I thought 'mappers' were a Nintendo thing? I'm guessing sega just uses a memory controller for bank switching?
@@BrendanRaymondKoroKoro Bank switching, mapper, it's all the same concept.
@@BrendanRaymondKoroKorothat’s what a mapper is
14:10 Dizzy was huge here in the UK. Fun fact for you: I can't remember which Dizzy game it was but it launched the week that the Legend of Zelda launched here. And it beat it to number one in the charts! Crazy huh
To be fair home micros were huge in the UK and it wasn't until the16bit consoles that console gaming really took off. And I could be wrong but the master system was more popular than the NES in the UK at least.
@@brendanroberts1310 definitely. Master System ruled in the UK. Due to Nintendos ridiculous prices and taking years to bring games over from the states. If they even bothered at all.
@@RedDev1l757I'm not surprised at all since you guys got the terrible slow versions of all NES games. I wouldn't want to play slow mo Zelda either.
@@RobotMasterSplash wasn't that much slower plus there was no internet or anything to tell us otherwise. So we knew no different. Also what Americans forget when they put us down for speed is that Pal games had a higher resolution. If a game was coded right there was no difference in speed at all between Pal and NTSC. It's just a lot of companies took the easy route. Cropped our games and slowed them down by like 10/15%
Derek, the Gameboy Camera was 52 grams - you read it upside down as 25.
Well I’m also dyslexic! I’m doing my best haha
I love that "How could you not love video games?" is essentially Derek's catchphrase throughout the video. More content creators should have catchphrases in their videos and streams like it, honestly.
The Sufami Turbo was a Bandai-made thing. I believe that they meant to have a large variety of games that could link up with one another, but the only ones that supported the option to use data from the cart in slot 2 while playing the slot 1 game were the two SD Ultra Battle games, which were one-on-one brawling games, and all of the SD Gundam Generation games, which were turn-based strategy games like the G-Generation series that came out on Playstation and elsewhere.
Derek is one of the few people who can make me stop the video to look up obscure crap. I'm all for that Tapwave Zodiac video.
The Genesis 4 player carts are absolutely wild. I can't believe I've never seen these before.
They're hilariously bonkers but also ingenious at the same time. Because a cartridge basically is interfacing rather directly with the components of the console (at least in those days) it would have been pretty trivial to effectively splice some extra inputs in there en route to the Motorola 68000 in the Mega Drive, at that point all you'd need would be the relevant game code on cartridge to process the inputs from those extra controllers
I've seen a few at various retro game shops in my city. I've been gaming for like 40 years too
I am the generation that grew up with these. I definitely had the micro machines 4 player cart. It was a direct response to the Nintendo multi tap in my opinion. I was always wary if the controller cords in a cart as you got the feeling that if someone tripped over the wires, or pulled the cord while holding the controller when getting excited at a win or loss, I felt that it could damage the cartridge slit and trash the console. It didn't, but the anxiety was still there!
Really regret not keeping mine, I had Micro Machines '96 when I was younger. That game had a built-in level editor too!
Kind of wished you delved more into the 8-bit Famicom side of things as there are TONS of weird cartridges that were officially licensed releases in Japan. Karaoke Studio, Nantettatte Baseball, and that transparent Salamander cartridge just to name a few. I'd highly recommend checking out RndStranger's video "A Guide to Every Famicom Cartridge Style" if you're interested in looking further into Famicom cartridge design.
Doesn't there exist a repro of a Famicom game that's two NES cartridges Frankensteined together?
Thanks for the rec!
The SuFami Turbo was officially licensed as indicated by the Logo in the corner. It was likely a way to help cut costs of manufacturing cartridges but the dual cartridge input allowed for some extra playability with some carts being compatible to allow for extra features. From what I've heard it's mostly been the SD Gundam Strategy games. Now those mini-cartridges these says (especially the ones without a language barrier) have shot up in price.
No mention of the Master System cards (like Hu Cards from turbografx) but they had a bunch of crazy card add ons too, including a VR headset!
1:29:33 - The Game Boy Game Genie was that big so that it could wrap around the top of the GB, making it 1 big whole unit, with enough room to put the game cart and, yes, the code booklet. (They also had stickers you could put on the back of the GB game carts, so you could have the codes right there visible (the carts went into the GG backwards).)
About the Code Masters J-cards. How the 8 player mode worked in Micro Machines 2.
2 players would share one controller, 1 using the d-pad to stear and the 2nd would use the A and C button. Acceleration was automatically.
Tried it once, at a small gamer meet up. I brought the game and then people just brought controllers over and it was a blast 😅😁
That's wild. There's gotta be like a tiny # of people who've played the right side of a Genesis Controller in Micro Machines 2.
@@phychmasher Probably been fights about it. I have tried playing with both sides in that mode. It is very tricky.
Most of the time people just end up banging into each other and the one that gets away scores a point. 😁😂
The NES was designed as a front-loader to make it seem less like a video game console and more like an appliance in the vein of existing AV equipment such as VCRs. This is also why you have to push the cartridge down and why there's a closing lid. Why was all of THAT important? Partially for aesthetics to make it more likely parents would be OK having one in the living room, but it was actually mostly a gimmick that was part of a larger strategy to "fool" retailers into stocking the system at all (before it was a smash hit and everyone wanted one). After the video game crash in the 80s, American retailers were reticent to stock a new (foreign?!?!) game console, thinking Americans had lost interest in home video games. Nintendo put a LOT of work into convincing retailers "No no no, we're not just a *video game* system!" which all evaporated as soon as the system actually hit the market and became the hottest thing in entertainment overnight lol Fun fact: ROB was also designed as a part of this scheme, and the NES's success is (counterintuitively) also the reason why no more ROB games were produced and ROB himself only shipped with the system's initial launch.
It's also in the name. Nintendo Entertainment System. "No no no, it's not a video game system, it's an ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM! SEE!! Then again the Atari was also the Video Computer System (Atari VCS). Hmm. We also went full circle with the new Atari VCS actual being a glorified PC running Windows/Linux.
Exactly but the idea behind some of it and R.O.B was to look more like a toy along the lines of a mattel product.
You have to love the video game crash of 1983, because it literally just messed with the US, everyone else was fine. In 1983 the NES was already coming out in Japan, top loader, marketed as a game system lmao
R.O.B. was a Trojan horse to get the NES "through the gates" so to speak.
@@TheTechnicalMiracle And also why it was also referred to as "control deck".
Seeing a new video from Uncle Derek and Producer Grace always makes the day just that much better.
Oh, yeah. The Sufami Turbo was bonkers! It was mostly anime licensed games that could trade data between them (if the games were set up for that). Mostly Bandai stuff, and there’s a ton of Gundam stuff on it.
Fascinating! I had another weird GBA cart, the RAM expansion for the DS browser “game”. It too had a bit you could unscrew to change size for the original DS or the DS lite snug fit.
Uncle Derek Underground has Michael MJD vibes. For some reason I'm feeling more engaged with this calmer content. I'd hope to see a blend of HVGN era Derek and this chiller vibe.
I was thinking the same thing as I was watching
Regarding the TGCD cards, the Super System Card is needed to run those Super CD-Rom^2 games , along with a system that can read those. Only exception is if you have a Turbo Duo or something similar, since that card is already with the system. There's also an Arcade System Card that plays the very few Arcade CD-Rom^2 games. I'm still learning more about the TurboGrafx/PC Engine myself too!
Very recently the Analogue Duo was released, a fully accurate FPGA console that replicates the Turbo Duo. Original consoles are delicate, over $500, and require extra equipment to use with modern displays, so this is a huge win for everyone who's interested in the PC Engine experience. Highly recommended.
Im actually jealous of how good of a video idea this is
It might be good but visually boring to see imho
I absolutely love these videos where its just Derek getting increasingly excited and more and more obscure and involved with something utterly inconsequential to anyone else. But Derek is absolutely thrilled by it and his enthusiasm is infectious.
I can understand someone not enjoying it, but I wasn't bored once.
@@medes5597 Yeah, honestly I've not seen any of the SSFF patreon content, but I much prefer this to (most of) the regular stuff. Just casual dives into obscure topics.
Happy New Year! I hope you never feel too pressured to play the youtube game with posting constantly, your videos are always worth the wait and we will be here. Really digging it all.
"I think in full volume, it's about the same mass as the GBA."
And mathematicians everywhere cried.
Good
Happy New Year, Derek!
I'm pretty sure the extra pins the NES carts have were made for the expansions and the lock-out chip.
As for the bigger cartridge format, it was redesigned because after the videogame crash in US caused by Atari, they redesigned the console to look more like a VCR rather than a videogame console, since the idea was to distance themselves as much as possible from the Atari 2600 and the others consoles from that time.
Also why they had that stupid robot thing in America. To make it look like a toy rather than a games console.
By the time the nes got to my neck of the woods (which never had a video game crash) it looked horribly outdated visually, they really should have released a console that looked more like the famicom and less like a toddlers toy.
@@meetoo594 Yeah, in my country people were still playing with Atari clones until the NES clones became a thing in the early 1990s. Sega definetely had their share of the market officially here too, but it was way more expensive.
A fun fact is that every NES clone here was a top loader, so the bigger cartridge never made much sense until I saw an official NES lol
@@HoroJoga The nes bombed so hard here I never actually used one or knew anyone that had one. Sega ruled the console market here but most people had c64, spectrum,amstrad, st or amiga computers thanks to all that sweet sweet pirated software.
@@meetoo594 you're british right? Those computers were never a thing here in Brazil. We had MSX but it was very niche.
@@HoroJoga Yup British. You have some amazing Sega machines in Brazil, quite jealous we never got any of those cool master systems here.
We had MSX here but I never saw one for sale anywhere. Ataris 8 bit computers were also sold here but noone bought them due to them being more expensive than the c64.
So the HuCards (or "TurboChips" as they were called in the US) are kinda funny, because they're actually like 100% identical between regions, however in order to make them region locked, NEC scrambled the pins so that a wrong-region card would read as garbage. Thus, the adapters are just re-arranging the pins to make them compatible.
And yes there were three classes of CD game: CD-ROM², Super CD-ROM² and Arcade CD-ROM². The difference was only in the _system card_ you used with the CD unit (the Super and Arcade System Cards came with extra RAM and stuff I think). The "Duo" systems came with compatibility for regular and Super games out of the box.
IIRC the internal wiring of the carts was even the same, they just scrambled the bits before manufacturing the rom chips
@@keiyakinsYeah it wouldn't make sense to do it the other way. From a circuit perspective though those are kinda the same thing it's just a question of whether the "rewiring" is on the semiconductor die or off it.
But yes they very likely used the exact same packaging and external wiring, and just shuffled things around on the actual ROM mask.
The Sufami Turbo apparently was licensed by Nintendo but Bandai had to do all the work/manufacturing for it. Supposedly you play it with two games installed and the second game acts as more memory for the first?
No, it was more like a Gameboy in that certain games could interact with each other a la Pokemon.
Sufami Turbo (Super Famicom Turbo) is a really fun rabbit hole to dive into. The left slot was the actual game that boots up, but it can access the 2nd slot in its memory banks, so games can share data. It's kind of like how a DS game could access the rom banks of things in the GBA slot, but a decade earlier. The SD Gundam games all came with different scenarios, and different Gundams you could play as. However, by plugging a different game into the 2nd slot, you could access the playable Gundams from the 2nd game in the 1st game's scenarios.
There is another retro youtuber by the name of Lady Decade who has a good video going over a good summary of it all.
@@McAster99Don’t go there. There are better youtubers than this non-gamer which resort to shameless clickbait text, images and lies to profit.
It supposedly cost them less to manufacture their own carts than to pay royalties to Nintendo
Naturally it allowed games that came out in twos to unlock stuff from one in the other, like with Ultraman and Ultraseven
So happy to see new content coming from you guys again… I was starting to worry.
48:16 Yes! I'm technically a "2010's kid" for the most part but I LOVE clear and translucent plastic!!! I mostly just see them in LEGO pieces nowadays, not tech, which is a little sad. It looks so awesome!
It scares me that 2010s kids are on the internet 💀
@@nitinanku Want even more of a scare?
I'm currently 16 years old.
@@BinglesP I’m not following… you’re a 2010s kid but are 16?
@@nitinanku Yes. I was born before the 2010's, but most of my "childhood" took place throughout the decade. So, that's why I said I only 'technically' was.
I've been a fan of this channel since the first HVGN and I'm so glad it's still alive.
This is so interesting to see different weird carts! Thank you for keeping up the great work!
Happy holidays Derek! You are one of my favorite RUclipsrs and I look forward to every video you make!
Had my first new years kiss to this video, thanks man
The crazy thing is the TurboDuo and PC Engine CD, with the Super System cards etc (or the Arcade Cards) were plenty successful in Japan. But NEC just confused people here and didn't know how to market it or get the ease of use to line up with a library that drew in the US market. But man, the PC Engine CD library is rad, I would love to get the OG hardware for it (I have a PCE but not the Duo/CD addon lol) or the Analogue Duo honestly.
They've already sold 2 waves of the Analogue Duo and I got mine, you'd better get on that mailing list for restocks.
Your videos are always a comforting delight.
Yoo, this video was great. Thanks for sharing it with us! And I hope 2024 is better for you
UNCLE DEREK YOU'RE TOO GENEROUS WITH THESE SUPER LONG FORMAT VIDEOS!
Really excited. It is so weird to see the RUclips game changed and where it would have been a 5 parts series a few years ago. We often have big 2 hours big boy video (I personally prefer smaller chunk of videos but whatever)
Love how chill this video is thanks Derek
Been a Patron for years, and havent made the time to check out UD Underground. I have been missing out!!! This show is so much fun, absolutely excited to catch up and get all that SSFF lore. Yall rule, happy new year to UD and Producer Grace!! ❤
Thanks for sharing this on RUclips, so I can share this with others.
The dreaded triple comment to say that the carts at 23:28 are midi controlled carts. You just need to get your hands on a midi enabled instrument and plug the cart into it. You can probably source a cheap keyboard from a thrift store with some midi ports on the back that will be capable of controlling the carts.
There are rockband instruments with midi out iirc.
I think my keytar for the ps3 does
Hope your Christmas was good and I'm glad to see a new upload from the beat Derek there is 😁
The TurboGrafx-16/System Cards are pretty straightforward, relative to their Japanese counterparts. The System Card is a just a BIOS for the CD drive and-more importantly-extra RAM. The Super System Card is just a BIOS revision and EVEN MORE extra RAM, hence the thicker card (which was also used for Street Fighter II' and Populous in Japan). The Duo includes the BIOS and the Super System Card RAM in the system itself, so it just plays everything.
In Japan it gets weirder because of the Super CD-ROM², the Arcade Card, and a little bit of extra confusion from the SuperGrafx. The Super CD-ROM² plugs onto a basic PC Engine and gives it the RAM and BIOS upgrades of the Duo, without the cards. The Arcade Cards add EVEN MORE MORE extra RAM. But the PC Engine+CD-ROM² and the Duo/PC Engine+Super CD-ROM² have different amounts of base RAM. So there's an Arcade Card Duo, for Duos (and Super CD-ROM² units) and the Arcade Card Pro for CD-ROM² units. The Pro has more RAM and was more expensive (and is, again, a thicker card).The first few Arcade CD-ROM² games actually have a large infographic on the back that describes what you need, with barely any space for actual game promo. The SuperGrafx is a failed upgrade to the basic PC Engine, with more power. It can also support the CD drives and System Cards. Essentially, no CD game knows if its hooked up to a SuperGrafx. A couple of PC Engine HuCards do, and take advantage of the SuperGrafx. There are also a handful of CD games that can take advantage of higher level System Cards, but are designed to play with, and marketed for, lower level ones. Mostly you just get error screens if you try to use lower level cards with higher level games.
Japan also had some unlicensed ero games on both HuCard and CD. The CD games actually came with their own boot cards too. The cards all look normal though.
I appreciate these lower production videos. Reminds me of early youtube. Thanks SSFF
The NES was supposed to be like the VHS player which was rapidly gaining popularity in the U.S. while the Famicom was booming in Japan. So to bring the NES to the states they decided to make it look more similar to home television electronics in general. That's why the color scheme is grey like a lot of the 80s tapedecks.
I remember thinking recently that it had been a while since I saw a new SSFF video pop up in my feed, and now we get two in one month?! Sometimes the gettin really is good
Great to see new vids, this was fantastic, ill have to check and maybe up my patreon for more of this \o/
Didn't even know this show existed! Lol. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Derek! Hope you and Grace are well!
Happy holidays! Thanks for the post-xmas treat!
Ooh, the Turbo stuff is really neat. The CD systems were all functionally identical in terms of hardware. The system cards were RAM upgrades that came with updated revisions of the system bios. Iirc, the Japanese-only 1.0 card gave the CD drive a 16K buffer, the CDROM² card (ver 2.0) had 64K, the Super CD card (ver 3.0) had 256K, and the Arcade card boosted the system memory to 2 megabytes.
The Duo didn't need a system card because its hardware incorporated the extra memory that you would've gotten from the Super CD card, but every system model could play every CD game as long as you had the right card. I have one of the original PC Engine CD drives from 1988 with the briefcase dock, and with the Arcade Card Pro, I can play all of the later stuff like Sapphire, Fatal Fury Special, and World Heroes 2 on it with no problem.
Edit: I forgot to mention the differences you noticed between your card and the one in the photo. The higher capacity cards were thicker than usual at the end that hangs out of the card slot. The Street Fighter 2 HuCard was a chunky boy, too.
Cool video, I'd never seen a lot of those handheld carts you showed! Happy New Year! 🍻
Despite him needing to clarify his scale isn't for drugs, id like to inform everyone that your drug scales will indeed work for this.
re nes and famicom carts: the pin difference is almost certainly just for region locking, and the space inside being used for the adapter boards was probably an afterthought
13:10
I don't remember which channel I learned this on, but the reason they tell you to wait and reset and wait is because there's a chip inside of the cartridge that is sending an irregular voltage to the pin that communicates with the lockout chip, which causes it to overload and turn off. For anyone familiar with doing little NES mods, disabling the lockout chip is actually no more difficult than snipping one of the pins so it's not actually needed for the device to run.
Basically they found out that hey if we shoot an unexpected voltage spike to the lockout chip it freaks out and turns off, except that doesn't always work so basically it is just pulsing down that line and when you hit reset it will turn on with the lockout chip disabled If it didn't disable it the first time.
Fun stuff
I love these more relaxed style video's!
Thanks for this. Needed it tonight.
great video, I really like content like this (free & long form, presentation style)
Watched this on patreon, and now watching it again. Enjoy, everyone!
I Love all of your videos and drop anything else to watch them. So as a big fan, please, don't push
yourself too hard. Take your time, and I will be there waiting for you.
Two episodes in a month! What a wonderful sight
Only glaring omissions I noticed were the DS rumble cart and the RAM expander for the DS Web Browser. Both went in slot 2.
Great video, I think the Pokemon games for DS that hard the IR transmitter should of got an honorable mention, I mean they look the same, besides the color, but extra tech for the pokewalker.
Also interesting that some Master System games came on cards like Turbo Grafix games, back in the 8-bit era
honestly this has actually inspired me to want to make my own video about my collection of weird JP GB carts, like the hudson GBKiss ones and the weird tamagotchi one
I was happy to see you pull out the 64 DD cart, those things always fascinated me
"uncle Derek underground" sounds like the name of an item shop in a western inspired jrpg like earthbound or delta rune and now I want this
One of my favorite weird accessory carts from when I was a kid: the SNES game saver cartridge. The intention of it was to be able to save your game anywhere - basically early save states. But the game cartridge gets plugged into it horizontally on the back. And on top of that, it's the only device I've ever seen with a cable that plugs back into itself.
The weirdest cartridge ever...is the 32X. And I suppose also with that logic, the Jaguar CD also counts :P
Loved this. Not sure why you think this would be an idea too weird for RUclips. I think a video on "the top 20 weirdest game carts" or something to that effect could be a million view video.
Very christmas and happy new year !!!
MAN! If it wasn’t for your video I would have never discovered Metal Storm and how amazing it is!
I loved this so much!!
As 2023 comes to a close, still my REIGNING, DEFENDING, UNDISPUTED, UNDEFEATED RUclips Channel.
Thank you Uncle Derek and Producer Grace for this gift ♥
1:35:40 "...change this to ounces" I literally shouted "NO!!!" haha
I collect NES and i LOVE when the carts still have the kids name on it from back in the day. I love those carts, it gives it a history.
This is awesome.
The really cool thing about SEGA Saturn cartridges is that the custom ones you mentioned can actually be created, by flashing a normal Action Replay cart with the Pseudo Saturn custom firmware [CFW], which doesn't just remove region locking, but disc security as well, which allows you to play "backup" copies of games without making any permanent modification to the Saturn console. So if you've got a Saturn and an Action Replay, with a CD-R and about an hour of free time, you could flash your own Pseudo Saturn cart to play other burned discs like homebrew and prototypes on real hardware, bursting open the floodgates of what you can play on your Saturn and sticking it to the ebay sellers asking $500 for a US copy of Burning Rangers
Fun note: EA games on the Genesis/MegaDrive were almost unofficial. Both companies couldnt reach a deal so EA made their own cartridges with the iconic yellow bit. EA didnt like Sega taking high a %, so they reach a deal with EA making their own cartridges.
DF Retro: Road Rash
They made the American version bigger because it looked more like a VHS for adults rather than a kid's toy.
I'm glad someone remembers Krazy Kreatures and its bland ending screen. I can't tell you how many times I've played it all the way to the end, and I've been waiting for Krazy Kreatures II ever since!
I'm surprised about the lack of mention of Robopon on the GBC, it was the first thing that popped into my mind from the title. Interesting video though, especially the part about the inside of the cartridges.
I remember that even back then I had a cartridge adapter for my NES
Uncle Derek, producer grace, launchpad, dollop, happy new year 🎉
1:12:45 When I worked for Ubisoft we had a library for employees to lend games and consoles from. Probably something similar here.
Hey derek, i know your channel may feel like its obscure right now, but the unique things you talk about have real value, and i believe that its all going to come back to you sooner or later. Your videos are gifts just waiting to get discovered.
Got an Analogue Pocket recently and the FIRST thing I did was copy the save data off my Gameboy Camera and export the save data so I could backup the photos I took on it DECADES ago... gawd i feel old
1:25:15 - The reason for the swivel thing on the SNES Game Genie was because the original game carts had an indent thing on the front for the SNES power switch to latch onto to keep the game from being pulled out while the system was powered on. Later carts got rid of that slit for some reason, turning it instead into just a hollow chunk of the cart, and making it ENTIRELY possible to just rip your game out while turned on.
People were snapping the ejector in their super nintendos by yanking out the cartridges so they got rid of the slit and had that weird slope
@b1llygo4t Quite frankly, with the amount of intentional force that would take to tear it out like that, I feel like they dese
8 player micro machines was a blast,
Played it a few times back in the day,
You were split into 4 teams, with each team sharing a controller,
One would use the face buttons, one the D-PAD (and it worked on the 3 button controller)
essentially the car would drive forward regardless, then you had (A) as left, (C) as right and (B) as break,
D-pad controls just used left, right and down to do the same,
Aim of the game was to be the last car left on the track, if your car hit the back of the screen you were eliminated, if your fell of the track you were eliminated,
I had a game shark for my gamecube. I loved messing around wirh the games i beat. Good memories and fun
absolutely love this content
Before watching, the two that immediately come to mind are Sonic & Knuckles and the SEGA Channel cartridge. One has a flip up top bit for Sonic 2 and 3 to slide into and the other has a coaxial hookup for your cable. Childhood memories, man.
Update as I'm watching: YUSSSS SONIC & KNUCKLES CALLED IT.
indeed a treat, thank you!
Happy holidays uncle Derek!
The EA stickers on Guitar Hero Tour look like asset tags. We use them where I work and most bigger companies do. The 7506306 number or whatever is on each sticker, each sticker has a barcode to make it easy to scan. Most companies use them to track who a device is assigned to and sometimes uses them to do invoices. Like charging certain departments for the hardware they have assigned.
In large part, the massive redesign was because they wanted the NES to fit in with VCRs and electronic stores and to give it a more high end look and feel instead of the pre NES kids toy target market.
As for the adaptor, it was because at the time, there was a major chip shortage, and some Famicom games were already in english, so instead of making a whole NES cartridge run they just made the converter to deal with it.
Also, side note the extra pins were intended for an extra copyright blocking method to prevent bootleg NES cartridges from being made.
But instead of including it, they decided not to implement the code. So that is something.
Happy new year, ASMR uncle!
In Australia for NES we had unlicensed carts produced by a company called HES, and for some of them the game was a full-sized NES cart with a riser on the front with a slot to attached another full-sized NES cart so it could pass through the lock-out chip. So you'd have a whole dang NES cart hanging out the front of your NES. A bunch of them also came in full sized rental VHS style plastic clamshell cases, which were kinda nice as they're rugged. Just.. also kinda huge.