Everyone has heard of the saying that only two things in life are for certain “death and taxes”. Early on at some point in our lives everyone come to terms with the fact that they will someday die as well as everyone else. It is a law of the universe that all things die, the same goes for non-living things. While non-breathing things don’t die in the same way, without repair they do eventually break down. This has to do with the second law of thermodynamics, it’s the reason why we all have jobs to do. Things need to be repaired and maintained to keep functioning, especially man-made mechanical, electronic and other forms of non-static machines.
Therefore it probably isn’t new to anyone reading this that they know one day their beloved SNES and other consoles will cease to function if left to it’s own devices. The problem is that the old gaming consoles we cherish so much were built many years ago (technologically speaking) and the manufacturing industry has changed so much that some of the electrical components used have been replaced with new “technologically superior” versions and the infrastructure used to manufacture the original component may not even be available anymore. A good example of this is CRT Televisions, the old curved screen ultra heavy screens that we all grew up with are no longer manufactured pretty much anywhere in favor of the new LCD, LED, Plasma, etc flat and widescreens that we have no got so accustomed to.
Basically that scenario with televisions has occured with the CPU used in the Super Nintendo. The Ricoh 5A22-02 was the central processor unit used in the Super Nintendo with a variable clock speed of between 1.79 to 3.58MHz. Since Super Nintendo’s have stopped being manufactured in 2003 (in Japan) there hasn’t been any need for RICOH to continue producing the 5A22 CPU. Technology has moved forward and modern CPU speed and architecture had improved since then, making the old 5A22 obsolete. Yes there has been a “SNES Classic” console released in 2017 but it’s actually Allwinner R16 system on a chip with four ARM Cortex-A7 CPUs. It actually was just a mini computer packaged in a Super Nintendo console looking shell running Linux with a SNES emulator. It wasn’t a real Super Nintendo.
So inevitably the CPU in Super Nintendo’s will eventually fail in fact people have actually noticed CPU’s slowly drifting from specifications and starting to run slightly faster. It’s nothing to worry about yet as the change in speed is imperceptible to the human eye but it’s a sign that the technology is degrading, albeit very slowly. A SNES enthusiast needed a replacement for a dud S-CPU A revision for his console and was disenchanted learning that it would cost about $50 to obtain another CPU that would probably have been removed from a perfectly good SNES console. As it turns out the CPU used from a new DIY console project called FPGA had the perfect replacement CPU already available the ICE40HX8K. The amateur project developer known as leonllr had devised a clever installation method to make installation of the CPU to a real Super NES console easy.
The replacement CPU and installation unit should be available very soon and hopefully I will be able to sell it in the online store on the web site shortly. For now more information about the price, availability and technical details can be found by clicking the links listed below.
The FPGA SNES CPU replacement Project Page
Time Extension FPGA SNES CPU Replacement article
