A deep dive into the hardware inside Super Nintendo cartridges, covering the CIC copy-protection chip, SRAM save systems, and the various enhancement processors (ECs) that boosted game capabilities. The post catalogs all 13 enhancement chips used across 72 SNES games, including the SA-1 (a 10.74 MHz co-processor), the Super FX GSU-1/GSU-2 (used in Star Fox and Doom), Capcom's CX4 (Mega Man X2/X3), the DD1 decompression chip (Star Ocean, Street Fighter Alpha 2), and several others. It also covers PCB layouts for notable games, ROM size data for 3,378 titles, and the challenges these chips posed for emulator authors — some chips weren't properly emulated until 2012.
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