Super Nintendo Visual Synth
October 10, 2009
-Super Nintendo Visual Synth-



Depending on how long you've kept up with my work, it may or may not surprise you that I decided to build a video synthesizer out of a Super Nintendo Entertainment System. This old gem of a video game console has some of my favorite games and some of the best graphics out of any video games made. I'm looking at you PS3, you've got nothing on Chrono Trigger's 16-bit goodness.

In any case this device takes the video RAM of the SNES and randomly connects the pins on the two chips based upon human interaction via a 28-pin breakout box. The purpose of all of this is to randomly rearrange the image tables and color palettes found within the game cartridge. If you're interested, there's a lot more in-depth technical info here.

For your viewing pleasure, I made the following video. It contains information on how to build your own SNES synth (with a circuit diagram!) and has a long demo of the graphics in action. Enjoy!