The Retrode (formerly: snega2usb) is an easy to use USB adapter for *Super Nintendo / *Super Famicom and *SEGA Mega Drive / *Genesis game cartridges. Play your favorite 16-bit games – legally! – on your PC, smartphone, laptop, network router, *Wii, or *Pandora. There is a huge number of emulators for virtually all existing systems, and the Retrode is the link that enables them to load the ROM data straight from the cartridge. Of course, the savegame RAM on many *SNES cartridges can also be read and written.
What’s needed?
- Game cartridges, and lots of them
- Emulators for SNES/SFC and Genesis/Mega Drive: SNES9x, ZSNES, Gens, Fusion, …
- A computer with a USB port, running any of the above (Windows/Linux/MacOS/*NIX)
- A Retrode – buy yours now!
The Retrode is for you if…
- you like playing legacy video games on your PC, and doing so legally
- you want to preserve your investment in these games, even after all hardware has expired
- you want to back up your game progress, e.g. before replacing the cartridge battery
- you like emulator cheats, but prefer to finish the boss on the real console
- you simply think it’s cool to plug huge game cartridges into a PDA or cell phone
The Retrode is not for you if… you don’t see the difference between making private backup copies of games that you own, and downloading 10,000 ROMs from the internets.
Features
- USB adapter for *SNES and *SEGA *Genesis game cartridges
- Custom-made cartridge connectors of video game quality
- USB 2.0 Full-Speed composite device (Mass Storage + HID)
- SRAM feature: Reading/writing of *SNES savegames
- Driverless operation under all halfway modern operating systems
- Extension pins for up to four *SNES/*NES gamepads. [1]
- retrode.cfg file for easy customisation.
- Updateable firmware.
- Aluminum enclosure with logo print.
- Made in Germany. (As if anyone cares ;-))
- Dimensions (approx.): 148mm x 65mm x 25.5mm (5.8″ x 2.6″ x 1.0″)
- The first batch of Retrodes (”Golden Edition”) is available now! Order yours in my online store or through our friends at Stone Age Gamer.
[1] To use this feature, you have to get an old multitap adapter (< $10 on eBay), take the connectors, and connect each of them to the Retrode using five wires.
Demo Video #3
Industrial prototypes, new firmware, enclosure, gamepad retrofit
Demo Video #2
New features: *SEGA *Genesis game and SRAM savegames
Demo Video #1
For nostalgic reasons, here’s the crappy video that started it all: