I can’t remember exactly why, but I recently decided I wanted to play around with Super Nintendo games that support more than two players. I have a Super Nintendo console along with several such games — Super Bomberman, NBA Jam, and Madden 97 come to mind. The most popular adapter designed for this purpose is called the Super Multitap. It plugs into the second controller port on the SNES and provides four controller ports, so you get a total of five ports available for use.
I looked on eBay for Super Multitaps and found plenty for sale, but I decided I wanted to make things more complicated. I stumbled upon a schematic for it, found in the official Super Nintendo developer manual. Google for it if you’re interested — I don’t want to link to it just in case lawyers want to ruin all of the fun. I was intrigued by the simplicity of the circuit. It’s basically 3 chips (a mux and a bunch of tri-state buffers), eight resistors, and the controller connectors. Why buy the ready-made adapter if I could just make my own? In theory, buying the parts would be cheaper than buying a used Multitap on eBay, but in practice, the controller sockets and plugs are hard to find so it’s probably not worth it from a monetary standpoint.
But still, I think it’s worth it for the geek cred! Right?
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