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The cartridges are hardware, the game within is software. Although yes, sometimes. I mean some cartridges like Super FX (Starfox) or SA1 (Super Mario RPG) SNES
by Nexxxeh 5y ago
The cartridges are hardware, the game within is software. Although yes, sometimes. I mean some cartridges like Super FX (Starfox) or SA1 (Super Mario RPG) SNES cartridges include specific hardware accelerators.
- Wowfunhappy 5y agoThe point GP is making is that the game within the cartridge is immutable. But, I actually think cartridges are a great demonstration of how the hardware-software divide isn't obvious. Byuu used to write about the importance of capturing a cartridge's mapping. The chips in different cartridges are also connected differently, and if you don't capture that information, they game can't be fully recreated. Emulators either have to guess or use a database of known titles.
- mjevans 5y agoThe cartridge would indeed be Hardware, possibly with some bit of firmware or software storage are for game saves. Technically it might be entirely Firmware if the manufacturers decided to just use a single EEPROM chip for the whole thing, even if during normal operation the software on the chip only ever re-programmed a single page.