Nintendo Entertainment System

Nintendo Entertainment System Test Carts

Control Deck Test Cart

Released only to Nintendo Service Centers

Owner and dumper unknown.

This one's been around forever. There really isn't much interaction in this one. Kinda nifty in that completely useless way. Color bars, CHR table, some movement, etc... After all the tests are completed, the ROM brings up a controller test. One thing of note: if you press the "Insert Coin" key for a VS. ROM, the message "MIC OK" appears. I would assume this refers to the Famicom microphone. However, if this was a Nintendo of America released cart, why would they have a test for something that wasn't even released on this side of the Pacific? It's also a little odd that the VS coin function would be tied into the same input as the Famicom microphone... guess they really produced those VS games at a minimum of cost or something.

View the fullsize cart picture.

NES Test

Released only to Nintendo Service Centers

Owned by: NES-God
Dumped By: Kevtris

This seems to be the most advanced of all of the test carts. Unlike the NTF Test cart below, all of the tests in this cart work. The cart's got the standard RAM tests, color tests, character tests, as well as the musical controller test. Yes, musical. With this controller test, you actually get 8 musical notes to play with while testing your controllers.

OK, so I'm childish. Big deal. Its still more fun than these other test carts =P

NTF2 Test

Released only to Nintendo Service Centers

Owned and dumped by Firebug

NTF2 was released just a short while ago by Firebug in old-school PRG and CHR format. So, for your enjoyment, here is that same ROM slapped together, complete with a header. It's rather an odd test cart. For some reason, the controler test fails on this ROM. After speaking to Firebug, it has been determined that no emu supports the NES controller precicely enough to pass this controller test, as several redumps of this cart have resulted in the exact same ROM CRCs.

So download and give it a try. Watch a test cart fail!

View the fullsize cart picture.

Power Pad Test Cart

Released only to Nintendo Service Centers.

Owned by: NES-God
Dumped by: Kevtris

	Heh. Well, this is it folks. Until emus support the Power Pad, this is all you're gonna see with this one. Hey authors, you have a test rom now, get it working!!!

Prototype Test Cart

Unreleased

UNDUMPED

	This very recently was sold on Yahoo! Auctions by Nes.King. This has got to be one of the sweetest carts I've ever seen. I probably could have bought it too - I mean, who needs to pay rent or eat when you got your games, eh? Anyway this puppy remains undumped - for now. The screenshots you see represent a sucessful test to the left, and a failed test below.
View the fullsize cart picture. View the PCB of the test cart proto

Port Test Cart

Released only to Nintendo Service Centers.

Owned by DreamTR
Dumped by Kevtris

This one finally got dumped thanks to an exchange by Skrybe. As it was earlier guessed, the cart doesn't work too well on emulators. However, the interesting thing is that this dump has identified what the above prototype test cart is - comparing the pictures posted by NES.King when he sold the prototype to the ones from this cart, they seem identical. There could be some internal differences, but it's no longer in doubt. This cart also came with a jig - which is pictured below. This special controller could be the reason that this proto does not run very well in emus.

View the fullsize pic of this cart.

Joystick Test Cart

Released only to Nintendo Service Centers.

Owned by DreamTR
Dumped by Kevtris

	Another test cart dumped thanks to the trade from Skrybe. This one appears to be just a piece of code taken from another test cart, especially with the non-functional "Return to main menu" on the title screen. And, not surprisingly, it tests the NES controllers in both the two player and four player setups.
View the fullsize pic of this cart.

U-Force Test Cart

Released to Nintendo Service Centers?

Owned by DreamTR
Dumped by Kevtris

Yet another test cart dumped thanks to the trade from Skrybe. This test cart, unsurprisingly, is meant to test the crazy touchless controller released for the NES, the U-Force. Since emulators do not emulate the U-Force, nor do they need to, this ROM will do very little. It is not known if this was released to service centers, or if this was an internal diagnostic cart only at the company that produced the U-Force. However, as of this writing, it is the only known cartridge produced that was specifically written for the U-Force.

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