Using Floppy Disks on your Super Nintendo (Super Wild Card Floppy Disk Drive)

Piracy wasn't common on platforms that used cartridges, but it wasn't impossible. Today we're looking at the 'Super Wild Card', a floppy disk drive that slots on top of your Super Nintendo, facilitating the ability to copy cartridges to a floppy disk, as well as play back any game stored on a floppy. It also has the ability to create save states, which is pretty cool.

[videogameobsession]

Thanks for sharing a video on this. There really aren't a lot of them on YouTube. I'll always have fond memories of the old cart copiers. I still have my old SWC DX connected, even with Everdrives, FPGA, MiSTer, and so on. The nostalgia is just too strong. :) -Matt

[jessopjessopjessop]

Had one of these back in the day - my bro worked in a "mom 'n pop" games shop at the time, so he would just borrow all the games to copy. Good times!

[grahamhenderson]

I used to have a super wild card, in the 1990s when you could rent a game from places like Bloockbuster or your local video rental store, you rent the game for a few days andcontinue to play it, good bit of kit in its time but you needed a beefier power pack then those suplied by Nintendo

[videogameobsession]

8:11 The password function is actually like a Game Genie function. FFE used their own version, called "Gold Finger" codes. I guess to sidestep copyright issues with Galoob. :P Anyway, if you Google around you can find lists of these GF codes, and even convertors, which will accept Game Genie, and Action Replay codes and output Gold Finger codes.

This was actually quite useful when companies started adding protections on their cart, which would check to see if it was running on a copier (SRAM checks). These were often cracked on the same day of release and the codes were made available on the internet. Of course it would be better to patch the rom, but it was perfect to give out to those copier owners who weren't computer savvy.

[supertuesday]

I stole this exact Super Wild Card from a store when i was a kid! The store owner found my address by asking the kids around the neighbourhood, and my mom had to pay a bomb for it or he would report me to the police. Thats how i end up owning it. And i bought lots of snes disc games from another game store as they were relatively cheap. But most floppy discs got mouldy and faulty when u dont play them for months. Thats why i got so angry with floppy discs because they just don't last! :( But i had a fun childhood coz of SNES.

[videogameobsession]

The wording on some of this is a bit strange. DATA TRANSFER: "Cassette to Disk" will copy the cartridge rom to the floppy (which can be split into 4Mbit files, or one file, up to 12megabits or 1.6MB, if the floppy disk is properly formatted). Disk to Cassette is when you send the disk to the copier's DRAM memory. This is useful for testing to make sure a cartridge will run from the copier. Examples of games which won't run, are those with enhancement chips (DSP 1-4, FX, CX4, SA1, etc..), games with copy protection, and games that are larger than the size of the copier's DRAM (in this case 2MB, or 16Mbits).

[tokyolights]

Great video my mate had one was dope he’d just borrow a ton of games from blockbuster and rip them

[LeBlogDuNb]

I'm so old I remember 5" 1/4 floppy disk T__T
Thanks for the video, I just found one :-)

[Prouties]

Assuming this won't work with games that use extra chips in the cartridge?

[vajskidsconsoles]

its so cool this existed ! only just found out about it.. !

[monkeytrumpet]

Am I tripping or do I actually remember a device like this that worked on both snes and megadrive?