The PowerPak is a flash cartridge made by RetroUSB. It uses an FPGA to emulate a wide variety of mappers, allowing the user to store a large collection of ROMs on a single Compact Flash card and run them on an NES. It is widely used by homebrew NES developers to test their software. It's also compatible with the CopyNES.
In addition to NES ROMs, the PowerPak is able to play FDS disk images, as well as NSF music files.
Famicom expansion audio is supported, and output on the EXP 6 expansion pin on the cartridge connector. A simple modification to the NES allows the expansion audio to be mixed with its output.
Specifications:
Product page: http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?products_id=34
See also: Everdrive N8 - A similar product by Krikzz.
The PowerPak mappers have undergone several revisions, gradually improving compatibility. After official development ceased in 2010, Loopy and TheFox have each created a supplemental set of PowerPak mappers to improve its capabilities.
The commonly recommended setup is:
TheFox created a set of revised PowerPak mappers to supplement or augment the existing ones, most notably adding a savestate feature for the mappers it contains, but removing the Game Genie feature.
Download: http://fo.aspekt.fi
Known problems:
Loopy released a set of revised PowerPak mappers in 2011, adding fixes and additional support for several mappers:
Download: http://3dscapture.com/NES/powerpak_loopy.zip
Known problems:
Notes:
Myask made a few mappers not yet covered by others.
Download: here. BBS Thread: here.
The last official release of mappers was in 2010. It supports a wide variety of popular mappers.
Download: here
Supported mappers:
000 | 001 | 002 | 003 | 004 | 005 | --- | 007 | --- | 009 | 010 | 011 | --- | 013 | --- | --- |
--- | --- | --- | 019 | --- | 021 | 022 | 023 | 024 | 025 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
--- | --- | 034 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | 040 | 041 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | 047 |
--- | --- | 050 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | 061 | --- | --- |
064 | --- | 066 | 067 | 068 | 069 | 070 | 071 | 072 | --- | 074 | 075 | 076 | 077 | 078 | 079 |
080 | 081 | 082 | --- | --- | --- | 086 | 087 | 088 | 089 | --- | --- | 092 | 093 | 094 | 095 |
096 | 097 | --- | 099 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | 105 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
112 | 113 | --- | --- | --- | --- | 118 | 119 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | 133 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
144 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | 151 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
--- | 161 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
--- | --- | --- | --- | 180 | --- | --- | --- | 184 | 185 | --- | --- | 188 | --- | --- | --- |
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
--- | --- | --- | --- | 228 | 229 | --- | 231 | 232 | --- | 234 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
240 | 241 | 242 | 243 | --- | --- | 246 | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
Known problems:
Aside from mapper incompatibility, there are minor differences between running NES programs on the PowerPak versus a traditional single-game cartridge.