SNES Peripherals

The circuit board inside the device is not held down well and there is a circular hole on the right side of the case as some versions of the adapter have a switch that lets you select between the PAL cart and the imported cart.You would probably expect at least a single chip inside the adapter but as you can see in the photo that follows there is only a diode (possibly to prevent damage should either cart be inserted the wrong way) and capacitor (for decoupling):

Near the diode are 2 unused pads which could be for the cart selection switch but it would require other modifications too. The connector for the PAL cart is not even aligned correctly (although doesn't stop the adapter from working) and interestingly on the opposite side show is a square grid of conductive material almost like a prototyping area but without pre-drilled holes. From what I can see the adapter works by routing the CIC security chip connections from the PAL game to the SNES, leaving the CIC connections of the import game unconnected.

Gamester SNES Multi-play adaptor

This SNES multi-play adaptor from Gamester LMP is a compact design featuring controller ports for players 2 to 5 located on 3 sides of the unit as well as a switch to select between 2P/5P modes and an indicator LED below the 5P switch setting. The device can be viewed below:

Four screws hidden by the 'feet' once removed reveal that internally there are only a few discrete components with the major part of the circuit being handled by a PEEL18CV8P IC which is a programmable logic device having 8 macrocells having 10 inputs and 8 I/O pins. The circuit board can be seen as follows:

Hudson Soft SNES Super Multitap

A SNES multitap from Hudson soft, model HC-699, a rather large multitap accessory with support for 2P/5P modes with the controller sockets for 2P to 5P located on the front of the device, top the right of the mode selection switch, as you can see in the photo follows:

As for inside the multitap (see photo below) an outer plastic clip can be removed which holds in the switch (you can make out the contacts at the left of the circuit board) so be careful if you unclip it. The circuit board is labelled as 'Mitsumi Elec. Co., LTD.' and is home to a few simple components as well as the controller sockets, and there is a single chip, a HuC6205B, a custom chip or unknown specification. The multitap is rated at 5VDC at 6mA.

Nintendo PAL SNES controller

Looking a lot more similar to the Japanese SNES controller than the USA version the PAL controller (model SNSP-005) has a single D-pad, four coloured action buttons, a select and start button, as well as left and right shoulder buttons. You can view the controller below:

Inside the controller, as can be seen in the photo coming up, the circuit board has both the markings '(C) 1992 Nintendo Co., Ltd.' and 'Mitsumi' and you may also notice the 'Only-P' notices; 'Only-P' labels the 2 resistors only present in the PAL SNES controller which allows PAL controllers to work on NTSC machines but the opposite is not true. For more information please see: https://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=controls:snes_con_region_fix

The only other thing to point out is the single IC, a V520B, which is likely some form of 12-bit shift register to read in the state of the buttons and send the information to the SNES.

All content of this and related pages is copyright (c) James S. 2018