metalbabble.com/technobabble

There’s a lot to love about old Nintendo games, one of the geeky aspects that’s really fascinating is how developers back then made use of the small amount of memory they had to work with. Here are some interesting tricks they did to pack more into their games. Like the 8-bit music of these masterpieces that limitation only lead to more creativity!

The bushes and clouds are the same spites in the original SMB.

You’ve probably heard this one, but it’s true. take a look here: http://elrincondeleo.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/super-mario-bros.jpg Oh the mushrooms and goombas are pretty close too. You might also find it interesting that though the levels are relatively large, they are stored in very little space - because instead of thinking of every square and pixle of the map, the only thing that’s saved is a list of level objects, their coordinates, and their length. That’s why rows of coins and bricks are common.

RPGs often lumped floors, dungeons, towns, and buildings together in one map.

RPGs often stored their maps in a more traditional sense. (Like a list of sprites and locations: tree, tree, water, water, tree, etc) So they had to do other things to make the most of the low amount of storage. In games that had dungeons a lot of times these were put together in one overworld-sized map but spread apart far enough that you wouldn’t (normally) see the tips of other parts of the dungeon. A really awesome example of packing dungeons together can be seen in the original Legend of Zelda: http://www.theginblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/zeldaquilt.jpg and here’s the second quest: http://www.theginblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/zeldadungeonspelling.jpg

Sometimes, it was worth being inefficient.

Sometimes to get the WOW factor, games would throw in an really “expensive” bit of multimedia to wow players. For example, the musical “SE-GA” in the original Sonic (see here: http://tinyurl.com/2duey26) And in Sonic 3 there was even a quick FMV! Graphics alone take up some space, check out this neat visualization of SMB3’s actual bits… http://i.imgur.com/PG1fq.gif

But wait! There’s more!

There are many, many creative examples of how developers squeezed the most content into games. Everything from the creative re-use of sprites, to pallet swapping, to primitive compression… it’s pretty amazing really!

NEStoration: Breathe some life back into your old 8-bit pal.

Do you own one of those little grey boxes known as the NES? If so then you probably don’t use it much or if you do - use it painfully. The problem? The original Nintendos don’t seem to read cartridges any more. Everybody has their own technique - dumping isopropyl alcohol into them or just blowing all the corrosion off the pins.

Here’s the problem: The metal on the pins was prone to corrosion … you can usually scrape off or clean off this gunk, but your best bet is to actually replace the pins all together.

Here are your options for restoring a NES on the blink:

• First, try cleaning it! Use either isopropyl alcohol on cue-tips or buy a video game cleaning kit. If your problem isn’t very severe this might be your solution.
• Buy a new connector with all new pins on the internet. If you’re going this route, be sure to get a connector that is made of gold, or some metal that will not oxidize or corrode.
• Sand down the pins so they are fresh (and gain a few years of use before the corrosion rebuilds!) At least this route is free, just be careful!
• Get a top-loading “top-loader” NES that corrected this metal problem… uses the same metal as the SNES and 64… which works every time. Fun, but expensive: a top-loading NES can run you anywhere from $50-$150!!!

Below is a picture of my solution: I bought this gold pin connector on eBay for ten bucks. Yup this piece of hardware is the culprit! It works like a charm!

Surgery

The NES is fairly basic and easy to take apart - but please be careful and do so at your own risk!

First, make sure it’s unplugged. The case is held together with screws on the bottom of the unit. Simply flip it over and unscrew the screws on the bottom of the case. Inside a metal shroud is held in by screws which must be removed to get access to the board and your culprit connector.There is a whole assembly which holds the cartridge in place and springs it into and up from the system. This connecter is easy to get access to, just be careful not to break anything! You may have to unscrew and remove the assembly to cleanly disconnect the old connector.

Also, the wires inside are probably quite old and dusty. It would not hurt to use some compressed air to clean it up, or if any wires are damaged - to replace them. Of course, replacing wires and other electronic components is slightly riskier, but always a possability.

The new connector solved all of the problems I was experiencing with my NES. Remember, if you’re pins are not making a good solid connection, everything from screen flicker, to some graphics showing up garbled to scratchy music can occur. This made games play flawlessly for me, just like they used to - success on the first try - no flickers and glicthes.