this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
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[–] WagnasT@piefed.world 66 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I think the coolest part of this era was the ICs were developing so fast that in a short amount of time there were more powerful chips on the fucking cartridges than in the base system, so as new games came out they extended the capabilities more and more.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 6 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Things you just categorically could not do with a game running from a disc instead of a cartridge, BTW.

[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

Cartridges were awesome and should come back. They gave you something fun to collect too. You could see all your games

[–] Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

When you think about it, it's not much weirder than plugging a GPU into a PC. It has a more powerful processor and requires it's own power supply. Imagine having to plug in your SNES cartridge.

Except GPUs dont have game ROMs on them. Maybe someday they will.

[–] Godort@lemmy.ca 45 points 1 day ago (1 children)

there were more powerful chips on the fucking cartridges than in the base system

The SA-1chip is an insane thing to exist.

Some engineer(presumably on a coke binge): What if we just took the whole SNES CPU and put a second one in the cartridge.

Mad scientist: Make the one in the cartridge run 4 times faster.

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I didn’t know Xzibit worked for Nintendo.

All I remember was that there were zero Game Genie codes for Super Mario RPG because that cart used so much custom hardware the Game Genie didn’t know how to interface with it.

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I remember the first officially modded game I played, the Sonic and Knuckles cartridge for the Genesis.

[–] Dozzi92@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Yes, just putting any game I had in to see if something happened.