August 30, 2005 - November 19, 2018
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| Manufacturer | Nintendo |
| Generation | Fourth generation |
| Release date | November 21, 1990 (JP) August 23, 1991 (NA) |
| Media type | ROM cartridge |
| Input | 2 controller ports |
| Predecessor | Nintendo Entertainment System (1983) |
| Successor | Nintendo 64 (1996) |
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System [1] (also known as the Super NES, SNES or Super Nintendo) is a 16-bit video game console that was released in 1990 by Nintendo in Japan, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Europe & Australasia (Oceania), and South America in 1993. In Japan, the system is called the Super Famicom (スーパーファミコン?, officially adopting the abbreviated name of its predecessor, the Family Computer), or SFC for short. In South Korea, it is known as the Super Comboy (슈퍼 컴보이) and was distributed by Hyundai Electronics.
Hardware[]
CPU[]
Processor: Ricoh 5A22, based on a 16-bit 65C816 core
Clock rates (NTSC):
- Input: 21.47727 MHz
- Bus: 3.58 MHz, 2.68 MHz, or 1.79 MHz
Clock rates (PAL):
- Input: 21.28137 MHz
- Bus: 3.55 MHz, 2.66 MHz, or 1.77 MHz
Buses: 24-bit and 8-bit address buses, 8-bit data bus
Additional features:
- DMA and HDMA
- Timed IRQ
- Parallel I/O processing
- Hardware multiplication and division
Video[]
The Picture Processing Unit (PPU) consists of two closely tied IC packages. It contains 64 KB of SRAM for video data, 544 bytes of object attribute memory (OAM) for sprite data, and 256 × 15 bits of color generator RAM (CGRAM) for palette data. This CGRAM provisions up to 256 colors, chosen from the 15-bit RGB color space, from a palette of 32,768 colors. The PPU is clocked by the same signal as the CPU and generates a pixel every two or four cycles.
Audio[]
The S-SMP audio chip consists of an 8-bit CPU, a 16-bit DSP, and 64 KB of SRAM. It was designed and produced by Sony and is completely independent from the rest of the system. It is clocked at a nominal 24.576 MHz in both NTSC and PAL systems. It is capable of stereo sound, composed from 8 voices generated using 8 bit audio samples and various effects such as echo.
RAM[]
The CPU is a Ricoh 5A22, which is a derivative of the 16-bit WDC 65C816 microprocessor. In NTSC regions, its nominal clock speed is 3.58 MHz but the CPU will slow down to either 2.68 MHz or 1.79 MHz when accessing some slower peripherals.
This CPU has an 8-bit data bus and two address buses. The 24-bit "Bus A" is designated for general accesses, and the 8-bit "Bus B" can access support chip registers such as the video and audio co-processors.
The WDC 65C816 supports an 8-channel DMA unit, an 8-bit parallel I/O port a controller port interface circuits allowing serial and parallel access to controller data, a 16-bit multiplication and division unit, and circuitry for generating non-maskable interrupts on V-blank and IRQ interrupts on calculated screen positions.
Early revisions of the 5A22 used in SHVC boards are prone to spontaneous failure which can produce a variety of symptoms including graphics glitches in Mode 7, a black screen on power-on, or improperly reading the controllers. The first revision 5A22 has a fatal bug in the DMA controller that can crash games; this was corrected in subsequent revisions.
The console contains 128 KB of general-purpose RAM, which is separate from the 64 KB VRAM dedicated to the video and audio subsystems.
SNES Jr.[]
North American SNES Jr.
The SNES Jr., also referred to as the SNES 2, was a redesign of the SNES released late in the consoles lifetime. It does not support s-video output and lacks an RF jack, although an external RF adapter can be used.
List of SNES Games[]
- Super Mario World
- Super Mario All-Stars
- Donkey Kong Country
- Super Mario Kart
- Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior
- Super Punch-Out!!
- Disney's Pinocchio SNES