Super A'can Games on Super Famicom or Sega Mega Drive?

[fcgamer | 4,723]

I was talking with a buddy the other day, and the discussion turned to the topic of the Super A'can and the untapped potential that this machine had, despite its failure commercially. One thing turned to another, which then led to the following question:

Does anyone know how similar the architecture is of the Super A'can to the Super Famicom or Sega Mega Drive? Would it be feasible to create some sort of adaptor allowing Super A'can games to run on one of those other machines, or vice versa? I've seen adaptors allowing one to play Sega Mega Drive and NES games on the Super Nintendo. So would something like this for the A'can be possible?

[Sumez | 2,951]

9 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

I've seen adaptors allowing one to play Sega Mega Drive and NES games on the Super Nintendo. So would something like this for the A'can be possible?

The megadrive adapter is literally just a megadrive clone that uses the Snes for power and input reading. It even has its own separate video out as far as I remember, so nothing is actually running on the Snes outside of very basic input reading routines. 

Anyway, not really familiar with the "A'can", but it seems that it uses a 68k cpu like the Megadrive. Also the Megadrive uses standard off-the-shelf video hardware (unlike the Snes which is completely custom and much more unique and complex), so I guess there's a slight possibility that the hardware is similar enough that it would be possible to make a conversion process that could make at least some games work? 

Very much doubt that an adapter would be enough though

Edited August 3, 2023 by Sumez

[fcgamer | 4,723]

Just now, Sumez said:

The megadrive adapter is literally just a megadrive clone that uses the Snes for power and input reading. It even has its own separate video out as far as I remember, so nothing is actually running on the Snes outside of very basic input reading routines. 

Anyway, not really familiar with the "A'can", but it uses a 68k cpu like the Megadrive. Also the Megadrive uses standard off-the-shelf video hardwate (unlike the Snes which is completely custom and much more unique and complex), so I guess there's a slight possibility that the hardware is similar enough that it would be possible to make a conversion process that could make at least some games work? 

Very much doubt that an adapter would be enough though

Oh wow, so the adaptor is more like a Mega Drive on a chip or something? 

 

[Sumez | 2,951]

Yeah exactly. There is no way a Snes could effeciently emulate a megadrive

People have been converting some nes games to Snes though (since the Snes cpu actually has a "nes" mode). Not sure the adapter you're thinking of does this though. Probably not. 

[fcgamer | 4,723]

3 minutes ago, Sumez said:

Yeah exactly. There is no way a Snes could effeciently emulate a megadrive

People have been converting some nes games to Snes though (since the Snes cpu actually has a "nes" mode). Not sure the adapter you're thinking of does this though. Probably not. 

Well I had seen people getting NES games running on the PC engine, which made me start wondering about this all to begin with 

[Tulpa | 3,494]

12 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Well I had seen people getting NES games running on the PC engine, which made me start wondering about this all to begin with 

The PC-Engine uses a beefed up Ricoh 6502 that the NES uses, but my understanding is that they still had to do some porting to make them work.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

1 minute ago, Tulpa said:

The PC-Engine uses a beefed up Ricoh 6502 that the NES uses, but my understanding is that they still had to do some porting to make them work.

Yeah I had heard this with the music for example.