You don’t need no ROMs with this USB SNES cartridge reader

If you’re like me, you play Super Nintendo in coffee shops all the time. Chances are, though, that you’re not like me, so a little explanation is probably in order. Emulators are one of my favorite things, and I often indulge in a little Super Mario Kart or Chrono Trigger while I’m working. Unfortunately, ROMs still occupy a sort of legal grey area: you can only have ROMs of games you own, but few people really know how to create a ROM, so you end up downloading some. And if a few wily ones you never owned happen to make it into your download folder, you could be in big trouble, young man.


Best avoid the whole mess and just use a DIY USB gadget like this one to dynamically generate a ROM from your actual cartridge whenever you feel like playing. Sure, you’ll have to carry around a stack of SNES games, but here in Seattle everybody does anyway.

The parts you need are listed here, but it actually sounds insanely complicated (I stopped reading after “thousands of little wires”). If you’re a freakishly dextrous tinkerer/retro gamer, this is the project for you, but everyone else should probably just stick with the traditional way.

Of course, if he gets this thing patented and sells it on some mod site, I’d buy one in a second, if only for the novelty.