Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (aka Super NES, SNES) is a video game console designed and built by Nintendo.
Specs:
- CPU: WDC 65C816 16 bit processor running at 2.68 MHz or 3.58Mhz
- Sound CPU: Sony SPC700 running at 4.1 MHz
- Main sound Chip: 8-channel DSP with hardware decompression similar to ADPCM
- Palette: 32,768 Colors
- Onscreen colors: 241 in mode 1 or 256 in mode 7, not counting sum-blending
- Maximum onscreen sprites: 128
- Maximum number of sprite pixels on one scanline: 256. The picture had a bug such that it would drop the frontmost sprites instead of the rearmost sprites if a scanline exceeded the limit.
- Most common display modes: Pixel-to-pixel text mode 1 (16 colors per tile; 3 scrolling layers) and affine mapped text mode 7 (256 colors per tile; one rotating/scaling layer)
- Resolution: Most games used 256x224 pixels; there were tricks to get 512x448 but these were rarely used.
- Expansion port on the bottom right hand side used for the Satellaview attachment (released only in Japan) and a never-released Nintendo CD attachment that eventually became the Sony PlayStation
- 2 seven pin controller ports in the front of the machine
On the back of marginally superior technical capabilities to its main competitor, the Sega Genesis, many beautifully designed and illustrated games, Nintendo's family-friendly image, and the popularity of icon game characters including Mario, the SNES was popular throughout the world throughout the early to mid 1990's, though in the United States the Genesis was marginally more successful.
The Super NES was superseded by the Nintendo 64. Many of the successful games for the system are being revived in the Game Boy Advance, which has remarkably similar capabilities.