Hacker Runs SNES Games on a Normal NES

When you talk about video game emulators, you usually mean making a more powerful device imitate the workings of an older, simpler device. A modern PC can easily handle an NES emulator. But what if it was the other way around? This is exactly what modder Tom "Tom7" Murphy achieved.

Tom7 has managed a "reverse emulation" by getting an unmodified NES to run a playable SNES game. In this case, Super Mario World. In the video viewable below, Tom7 explains the technomagic required to make such an idea happen. While it's a bit hard to understand, it breaks down to having a specially-modified game cartridge with a Raspberry Pi 3 attached.

The Pi acts as a new PPU for the game cartridge. By going through this before connecting to the NES by a custom coded EEPROM chip, the game is processed into something that the NES can handle without becoming overwhelmed before being sent out to the console for "natural" processing. The only part untouched was the copyright chip so that the game isn't locked out by the system.



Of course, such a process has its limitations. There is an unavoidable latency issue. While the clever manipulation of scanlines allows for more colors in a 16x16 block, like a standard NES game, it's still limited to four palettes. For colors it is unable to display, it has to find the nearest color available. This leads to scattered pixels and off-color displays. There also is no SNES audio. Tom7 theorizes that getting audio into something manageable is possible, though it's not been shown at this time.