The story of the three cartridges
Almost all fans of video games of a certain age are familiar with game cartridges and their principle of operation: you insert a cartridge into the console, turn it on and start the game. Less well known are cartridges that were not so simple, including a subset of devices designed to insert other cartridges into them . Let's look at three examples of similar intermediate devices: find out why the creators of such cartridges generally bother with adding extra cartridge connector, how such cartridges used games connected to them, and what advantages this unique design gave the players themselves.
The Game Genie was probably one of the first video game cheaters that a regular player on a home console would encounter. This tricky device was located between the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and the standard game cartridges, and gave players the opportunity to adjust the levels of difficulty, move forward in the game, or just experiment.
For children in the 90s, Game Genie seemed like real magic. First you inserted one of the game cartridges into the Game Genie. Then, not without effort (because it was rather difficult to insert), you connected the construction from the Game Genie and the games to the console and turned it on. But instead of the usual launch of the game, a mysterious screen appeared, asking to enter meaningless passwords 1 . Each password influenced the game in its own way, and no passwords were repeated in any game.
')
So how did the Game Genie fulfill the desires of the players? Game Genie versions existed for NES, Super NES and Game Boy, as well as for Sega Genesis and Game Gear. They intercepted data exchange between the console and the game cartridge. The internal work of the game console was controlled by bits and bytes, so the ability to overwrite the data transferred from the cartridge to the console allowed the Game Genie to perform incredibly powerful stunts.
Game Genie password entry screen on NES.
In fact, the entered password told the Game Genie what to do: replace one part of the game's program code, change the initial value of another data value in memory, or not allow the third part of memory to change. For example, if you insert Super Mario Bros in Game Genie . 3 , and then enter the password
The first version of Game Genie was developed in the late 1980s by the British company Codemasters. Although it was the first cheat cartridge for the video game console, it did not become the first cheat cartridge in history. Cheat cartridges originally appeared on the home computer market, and their first example was Action Replay 1986 2 3 . Initially, Codemasters was the developer of computer games for Commodore, so it’s likely that she drew inspiration from Action Replay.
Anyway, after several years of successful sales and a long legal battle with Nintendo, Game Genie cartridges disappeared when optical discs became the main storage medium in home consoles.
Noah's Ark Super 3D is ready to connect another cartridge.
The early 1990s were a good time for the gray market for Christian-themed video games. Most of the religious games of that era were low-grade imitations of more popular games with chaotic biblical references. Therefore, very few of these games are of interest to us 4 . Super 3D Noah's Ark was quite strange, and therefore received our attention.
First, Noah's Ark's Super 3D gameplay, oddly enough, was based on Wolfenstein 3 – D's super software first person shooter from id Software. Only instead of wandering through the dark corridors of the Nazi fortress, the players ran around the Noah's Ark, forcing them to fill recalcitrant animals with food.
The transition from Nazi to biblical subjects was rather confusing. When, after the initial release on PC, Wolfenstein 3 – D was ported to Super NES, Nintendo demanded that id make significant changes to the game's content. The original version of the game was too cruel for Nintendo, which saw its console as a product for young players, and therefore their parents, who, in fact, acquired the console. Company id complied, but was not pleased with this. Therefore, she made a charming sabotage and sold a license to the game engine Wisdom Tree 5 - an unlicensed Nintendo developer who created mediocre video games on religious subjects. Wisdom Tree just redraw the content and call the game its own. Instead of controlling the hung weapon with the American soldier, the players took on the role of Noah’s armed slingshot, subduing instead of the Nazis unruly goats and sheep.
Left: Wolfenstein 3 – D. Right: Super 3D Noah's Ark
Miraculously, getting the rights to one of the most powerful engines of the time, Wisdom Tree now had to find a way to publish Noah’s Ark Super 3D , but it was not easy. In the 80s and 90s, Nintendo had a strict set of rules that games had to follow (the same rules infuriated and id Software), and one of the points was a total ban on any religious content. Despite the ban, there was a small artisan industry of religious video game developers who were desperate to capitalize on the insanity of video games. They sold games to virtuous parents who sought to instill in children their values ​​through this new form of entertainment. However, all these developers are faced with one technical problem: Nintendo consoles did not run cartridges that did not have the Checking Integrated Circuit (CIC) proprietary security chips. The games that tricked the CIC chips of the original NES were spread fairly widely 6 , but Noah's Ark Super 3D turned out to be the only unlicensed Super NES game.
One look at Noah's Ark's Super 3D plug-in cartridge is enough to understand its history. Dissatisfied that the NIC CIC chip could be sabotaged with ease, Nintendo created a stronger version of the chip for Super NES. To bypass the CIC chip in Super 3D Noah's Ark, it was required that the player first connected the regular licensed Super NES cartridge to it from above, and then inserted Super 3D Noah's Ark into the console. A clever scheme allowed CIC signals to be transmitted through an unlicensed cartridge to a licensed game, causing the console to believe that the licensed game was running.
It was a masterful solution to a creative problem, and despite the rather unusual appearance, the cartridge supplement coped with its work. It may seem surprising that such a strategy did not spread 7 , but the Super NES never attracted much attention from the religious games industry. At the same time, illegal biblical games for the NES continued to be produced even after the release of official games was stopped 8 .
Sonic & Knuckles with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 connected to it.
Last we look at Sonic & Knuckles - the game of 1994 for the Sega Genesis, complementing the original Sonic the Hedgehog series . Unlike the two previous cartridges we examined, Sonic & Knuckles is fully functional in itself and contains six levels of a classic platformer. At first it doesn't even seem to be anything special - its cartridge looks a bit strange, but it is completely different from the first two. But instead of the top label, like on regular Genesis cartridges, this one has a flip cover, under which is a connector for another Genesis cartridge.
This cartridge has a few tricks up its sleeve. Depending on the game connected to it, you can see three results. With most Genesis games connected, players could play variations on bonus levels from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 with blue balls. Sonic & Knuckles read the ID of the second cartridge and, depending on it, changed the scheme of bonus levels. Players could experiment with different games and find different sets of levels; for example, if you connect ToeJam & Earl , you will get a set of very difficult levels, if Altered Beast , then you will be luckier.
With Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the situation was more interesting. Sonic & Knuckles read the data from the Sonic 2 cartridge and replaced Sonic with the character Knuckles, without changing all of Sonic’s abilities. This meant that players could play a new character in a game that came out several years before this character was invented.
However, the real star of this show was Sonic the Hedgehog 3 . By connecting this game (released just eight months earlier than 9 , the player received Sonic 3 & Knuckles - a new gameplay that flows smoothly from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 levels to Sonic & Knuckles levels. This combination was considered the “real” version of the game, and its unusual strategy the release was the result of tight time constraints - Sega released the first half of the game as soon as it was ready, and later in the same year released the second half as a plug-in cartridge 10 .
Despite the fact that players had to buy two cartridges to play the full version of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 , the connection trick seemed so new that it was worth it. Unfortunately, Sonic & Knuckles was the only plug-in cartridge of this type.
Video game cartridges were a very remarkable information carrier 11 , full of surprises and providing ample opportunity to create ingenious additions. These cartridges are just a small example of the complex and surprising history of bizarre hardware hacks and intermediate equipment that allowed them to overcome the limitations of consoles and provide players with a unique gameplay. In the second part, we will look at the older brothers of the connected cartridges: video game cartridges, which themselves were separate video game systems.
Game genie
The Game Genie was probably one of the first video game cheaters that a regular player on a home console would encounter. This tricky device was located between the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and the standard game cartridges, and gave players the opportunity to adjust the levels of difficulty, move forward in the game, or just experiment.For children in the 90s, Game Genie seemed like real magic. First you inserted one of the game cartridges into the Game Genie. Then, not without effort (because it was rather difficult to insert), you connected the construction from the Game Genie and the games to the console and turned it on. But instead of the usual launch of the game, a mysterious screen appeared, asking to enter meaningless passwords 1 . Each password influenced the game in its own way, and no passwords were repeated in any game.
')
So how did the Game Genie fulfill the desires of the players? Game Genie versions existed for NES, Super NES and Game Boy, as well as for Sega Genesis and Game Gear. They intercepted data exchange between the console and the game cartridge. The internal work of the game console was controlled by bits and bytes, so the ability to overwrite the data transferred from the cartridge to the console allowed the Game Genie to perform incredibly powerful stunts.
Game Genie password entry screen on NES.
In fact, the entered password told the Game Genie what to do: replace one part of the game's program code, change the initial value of another data value in memory, or not allow the third part of memory to change. For example, if you insert Super Mario Bros in Game Genie . 3 , and then enter the password
LEUXKGAA , then you will enter the world 1-1 and Mario will turn into a Mario Raccoon.The first version of Game Genie was developed in the late 1980s by the British company Codemasters. Although it was the first cheat cartridge for the video game console, it did not become the first cheat cartridge in history. Cheat cartridges originally appeared on the home computer market, and their first example was Action Replay 1986 2 3 . Initially, Codemasters was the developer of computer games for Commodore, so it’s likely that she drew inspiration from Action Replay.
Anyway, after several years of successful sales and a long legal battle with Nintendo, Game Genie cartridges disappeared when optical discs became the main storage medium in home consoles.
Super 3D Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark Super 3D is ready to connect another cartridge.
The early 1990s were a good time for the gray market for Christian-themed video games. Most of the religious games of that era were low-grade imitations of more popular games with chaotic biblical references. Therefore, very few of these games are of interest to us 4 . Super 3D Noah's Ark was quite strange, and therefore received our attention.
First, Noah's Ark's Super 3D gameplay, oddly enough, was based on Wolfenstein 3 – D's super software first person shooter from id Software. Only instead of wandering through the dark corridors of the Nazi fortress, the players ran around the Noah's Ark, forcing them to fill recalcitrant animals with food.
The transition from Nazi to biblical subjects was rather confusing. When, after the initial release on PC, Wolfenstein 3 – D was ported to Super NES, Nintendo demanded that id make significant changes to the game's content. The original version of the game was too cruel for Nintendo, which saw its console as a product for young players, and therefore their parents, who, in fact, acquired the console. Company id complied, but was not pleased with this. Therefore, she made a charming sabotage and sold a license to the game engine Wisdom Tree 5 - an unlicensed Nintendo developer who created mediocre video games on religious subjects. Wisdom Tree just redraw the content and call the game its own. Instead of controlling the hung weapon with the American soldier, the players took on the role of Noah’s armed slingshot, subduing instead of the Nazis unruly goats and sheep.
Left: Wolfenstein 3 – D. Right: Super 3D Noah's Ark
Miraculously, getting the rights to one of the most powerful engines of the time, Wisdom Tree now had to find a way to publish Noah’s Ark Super 3D , but it was not easy. In the 80s and 90s, Nintendo had a strict set of rules that games had to follow (the same rules infuriated and id Software), and one of the points was a total ban on any religious content. Despite the ban, there was a small artisan industry of religious video game developers who were desperate to capitalize on the insanity of video games. They sold games to virtuous parents who sought to instill in children their values ​​through this new form of entertainment. However, all these developers are faced with one technical problem: Nintendo consoles did not run cartridges that did not have the Checking Integrated Circuit (CIC) proprietary security chips. The games that tricked the CIC chips of the original NES were spread fairly widely 6 , but Noah's Ark Super 3D turned out to be the only unlicensed Super NES game.
One look at Noah's Ark's Super 3D plug-in cartridge is enough to understand its history. Dissatisfied that the NIC CIC chip could be sabotaged with ease, Nintendo created a stronger version of the chip for Super NES. To bypass the CIC chip in Super 3D Noah's Ark, it was required that the player first connected the regular licensed Super NES cartridge to it from above, and then inserted Super 3D Noah's Ark into the console. A clever scheme allowed CIC signals to be transmitted through an unlicensed cartridge to a licensed game, causing the console to believe that the licensed game was running.
It was a masterful solution to a creative problem, and despite the rather unusual appearance, the cartridge supplement coped with its work. It may seem surprising that such a strategy did not spread 7 , but the Super NES never attracted much attention from the religious games industry. At the same time, illegal biblical games for the NES continued to be produced even after the release of official games was stopped 8 .
Sonic & knuckles
Sonic & Knuckles with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 connected to it.
Last we look at Sonic & Knuckles - the game of 1994 for the Sega Genesis, complementing the original Sonic the Hedgehog series . Unlike the two previous cartridges we examined, Sonic & Knuckles is fully functional in itself and contains six levels of a classic platformer. At first it doesn't even seem to be anything special - its cartridge looks a bit strange, but it is completely different from the first two. But instead of the top label, like on regular Genesis cartridges, this one has a flip cover, under which is a connector for another Genesis cartridge.
This cartridge has a few tricks up its sleeve. Depending on the game connected to it, you can see three results. With most Genesis games connected, players could play variations on bonus levels from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 with blue balls. Sonic & Knuckles read the ID of the second cartridge and, depending on it, changed the scheme of bonus levels. Players could experiment with different games and find different sets of levels; for example, if you connect ToeJam & Earl , you will get a set of very difficult levels, if Altered Beast , then you will be luckier.
With Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the situation was more interesting. Sonic & Knuckles read the data from the Sonic 2 cartridge and replaced Sonic with the character Knuckles, without changing all of Sonic’s abilities. This meant that players could play a new character in a game that came out several years before this character was invented. However, the real star of this show was Sonic the Hedgehog 3 . By connecting this game (released just eight months earlier than 9 , the player received Sonic 3 & Knuckles - a new gameplay that flows smoothly from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 levels to Sonic & Knuckles levels. This combination was considered the “real” version of the game, and its unusual strategy the release was the result of tight time constraints - Sega released the first half of the game as soon as it was ready, and later in the same year released the second half as a plug-in cartridge 10 .Despite the fact that players had to buy two cartridges to play the full version of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 , the connection trick seemed so new that it was worth it. Unfortunately, Sonic & Knuckles was the only plug-in cartridge of this type.
Conclusion
Video game cartridges were a very remarkable information carrier 11 , full of surprises and providing ample opportunity to create ingenious additions. These cartridges are just a small example of the complex and surprising history of bizarre hardware hacks and intermediate equipment that allowed them to overcome the limitations of consoles and provide players with a unique gameplay. In the second part, we will look at the older brothers of the connected cartridges: video game cartridges, which themselves were separate video game systems.
Notes
- Hackaday has a short article on Game Genie , which is worth reading. The basic idea was that part of the passwords were identified as part of the game’s memory, and the rest of the code told the Game Genie what to do with it: either always keep the same value of a certain value, or change it depending on the current state. This is both a simple and ingenious idea.
- The first specialized device for cheating was Action Replay , released for Commodore 64 in 1986. Like the Game Genie, it spawned a series of variations for different computers and consoles, produced over the next ten years.
- The predecessor of special cheat devices was such hardware peripherals as Multiface , which provided enthusiasts with unprecedented access to the insides of their computers. It allowed users to do almost everything with the software running on their computer, including using cheats.
- If you are not embarrassed by obscene language and toilet jokes, then YouTube has the Angry Video Game Nerd channel, which presents a humorous review of quite a lot of similar games .
- Some people consider the history of selling Wisdom Tree's id Software license as apocryphal. It is difficult to confirm one or the other point of view, but this fact is included in the 2004 book Masters of Doom (p. 121). Anyway, Super 3D Noah's Ark is really based on the Wolfenstein 3 – D version for Super NES.
- Tengen became the most famous publisher of unlicensed games for NES (owned by Atari), but it did not get the approval of Nintendo by illegally performing reverse-engineering of the CIC chip for NES using the documentation submitted by Nintendo to the US Patent Office. A more honest (and interesting) example was Camerica : her strategy for bypassing the lock chip was to transmit buggy electrical impulses that temporarily cut the chip.
- The unlicensed Little Red Hood game, considered by many to be one of the worst projects for the NES, also used a similar circuit with a plug-in cartridge.
- The Sunday Funday was the latest game released for the console in North America, at least until the burst of interest in vintage gaming in the 21st century.
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was released in North America on February 2, 1994, and just 258 days later (October 18), Sonic & Knuckles appeared .
- For details, see the development section of Sonic & Knuckles in a Wikipedia article .
- In my blog this topic is often considered; See, for example, my previous article on the history of saving games . It tells how permanent memory was added to video game cartridges thanks to a small “pill” battery. There are countless other examples of the greatness of cartridges that I will ever consider.
Links
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/451948/
All Articles