What's the deal with those expansion ports on Nintendo's older systems?
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/27664
In a day and age where USB ports are prevalent on our game systems, expansion ports on video game consoles definitely harken to a gaming yesteryear that players can only look back on in awe. What once used to be a staple on many console releases is now a thing of the past.
In previous Nintendo consoles, these expansion ports were portals to improve hardware, open up new possibilities for gameplay, and even to give the hardware additional features that were just not possible with the original release. Now we look back on past Nintendo hardware and not only examine how Nintendo used these mysterious ports, but also the kinds of devices that utilized them. From this, we have a picture of the company's past as well as some insight on where Nintendo are taking their hardware in the future.
First up is the Famicom and NES. Unlike the NES, the Famicom came with hard-wired controllers. Any extra controllers and peripherals could be plugged into Nintendo's first expansion port, which was located at the front of the machine. This port was used to host light guns, 3D shutter glasses, keyboards, extra controllers, and other items. Many system expansions plugged directly into the cartridge slot, such as the Famicom Disk System and the Famicom Modem. The Sharp Twin Famicom, a system that combined the Famicom and Disk System into one machine, added an additional three expansion ports, but these remained unused.
The NES shipped with an expansion port on the bottom of the console. On multiple occasions, modems were planned to be connected there. However, the NES expansion port never received a commercial application. Originally, the port was covered by a snap-in cover, but later model systems actually had a plastic tab covering the port completely. The port was still there, but the plastic actually had to broken off to access the port. The lack of expansion port utilization outside of Japan was an ongoing trend that started with Nintendo's first system.
The Super Famicom takes us on a story of CD drives and further connectivity. Like the NES, the Super Famicom and SNES designed included an expansion port marked EXT. The well-known SNES CD would have used this port, and the Satellaview did make use of it, but only in Japan. The SNES did see a very limited use of the port as a connection point for the Exertainment exercise bike.
The Nintendo 64 brought us the Expansion Pak and the Disk Drive, one for each port. Continuing the trend, the EXT port, which resides on the bottom of the N64, would only be used in Japan for the N64DD, which was cancelled early and never saw a worldwide release. The memory expansion port on the top was necessary for certain games that needed the extra power, and this saw worldwide use.
The GameCube upped the number of expansion possibilities to three. Featuring two serial ports and a hi-speed port, the GameCube had the most expansion possibilities, though one serial port remained unused. The options were limited, but this time, all expansions were released worldwide. The Hi-Speed port was home to the Game Boy Player attachment, while the larger serial port could house a modem or LAN adapter.
With the advent of the Wii, Nintendo decided to standardize their hardware connections, including two USB ports and an SD card slot. The Wii U includes the same interfaces, indicating a likely end of Nintendo's mysterious ports.
Next, we take an in-depth look at all of the system expansions. We will cover one system each day.
I believe it was so Nintendo could change/add any extra code to the motherboard/processor. That's probably why they were never needed after launch of the console. It was just easier for development and all that.
That's just my thought.
I'm not a game dev but wouldn't it make sense to have the production model also be the Dev Kit with just an addon that plugged into the special slot?I believe it was so Nintendo could change/add any extra code to the motherboard/processor. That's probably why they were never needed after launch of the console. It was just easier for development and all that.
That's just my thought.
Then why would they include it in the production model and not just the dev kits?
I've heard there are revised GameCubes floating around out there that are missing the second serial port, but I've never seen one (never really spent a lot of time looking though).
But you must add one to your collection. How does it not bother you that you do not own one of these mythical revised Gamecubes? It's like I don't know you anymore.
Found a neat site that shows all three hardware revisions of the GameCube...
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/vg/nintendo.htm (http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/vg/nintendo.htm)
The GCN went through three revisions, although only one really changed the bottom ports. A semi-educated guess would be that the second revision is limited to the "Limited Edition" Platinum consoles. As I don't have any Platinum GCNs (not counting the Q, of course) or any -101 units, that would explain why I haven't come across one. I'll have to be on the look-out now. :D
Oddly, tracking down an official component cable for the system was MUCH more expensive than the console itself.
Oddly, tracking down an official component cable for the system was MUCH more expensive than the console itself.
Don't look at my five sets then. :D Four of which I scored from GameStop for under $5. :D
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By the way, did you notice the component port is labeled "Digital Out" even though component is analog?
I think the only Platinum systems with the Digital Out are the original releases that were marked "Limited Edition" - it's my guess (without any hardcore evidence) that when the Platinum system became standard was when they removed the Digital Port (and revised the base). Could likely be wrong though.
I've read many times that Game Boy Player is kinda laggy. Is this true?
Now that internet speeds are faster, we should try to get a Double Dash Warp Pipe tournament going.
If by "come up with a hack," you mean "write an operating system..."
Would it be possible to write a GCN emulator for the Wii? Is the Wii actually powerful enough for such a thing?No, at 1.5x specs of the GC, the Wii is far too weak to emulate the GC (a rule of thumb used to be that you'd need at least 10x power, and that would be with speed hacks). Instead, you'd need to rewrite the GC BIOS to take into account the additional hardware and emulate the LAN adapter. However, that additional hardware part is non-trivial because you'd have to write drivers for the Wii security and I/O systems, which the GC BIOS doesn't know exist. Going in the other direction, you might be able to run the GC game as Wii software, with hooks patched in memory to deal with the network and any Wii-isms. In either case, it would involve massive architecting that would be hard even if all of the technical information was publicly available.
No, at 1.5x specs of the GC,
We should really try a Warp Pipe Mario Kart match up. Who's in?Maybe if I can find all my stuff.
Oh wow, Warp Pipe and the LAN adapter. Never got a version of Warp Pipe to work right... something about the lappy I was using at the time... so long ago.That annoyed me about PSO. When you found a group that wanted to play the game then it was great. I'm glad the Monster Hunter Community isn't super chatty like the PSO one was.
Never could get into PSO. Played it a few times but it seemed to mostly be people standing around chatting. No thanks. Plus it was a SEGA game and SEGA games *suck*! ;D
The Wii U has USB ports, which is the modern version of expansion ports (unfortunately, Nintendo didn't do much with them on the Wii).
If the Wii U had a a spot for an internal HDD then it it would be the modern day equivalnet of the N64 memory expansion pack and port.
Any game which would require a RAM upgrade could come bundled with the RAM upgrade. That's how it was with the N64 games which required the RAM Pak. I'm not sure how much a RAM module would cost, but hopefully it could be manageable.That's partially it. I mean Capcom is citing a slightly bigger cart for RE:Rev as the $10 premium reason. Which is bull but, think if you had to pack in something else. Not to mention if its popular we as gamers have 10 or so of them. Not good for the environment.
Didn't Sega teach us that add-ons are a bad idea,