INES Mapper 227

iNES Mapper 227 denotes an address-latch-based multicart circuit board (PCB code 810449-C-A1 among others) mounting 1 MiB of PRG-ROM plus 8 KiB of unbanked CHR-RAM. A variant used by Chinese RPGs from Nanjing, Waixing (PCB code FW-01) and Yancheng adds 8 KiB battery-backed WRAM and does not implement the UNROM-like bankswitching modes. This mapper is used too by the 1992 Contra 120 in 1 multicart.

Nestopia Plus! has defined submappers 0 and 1, submapper 0 denoting that CHR-RAM is not write-protected in NROM modes (for use with Chinese RPGs), submapper 1 denoting that CHR-RAM is write-protected in NROM modes (for use with multicarts).

Address Latch ($8000-$FFFF, write)

[A~1... .mLQ OQQP PpMS]
         ||| |||| |||+-0: PRG A14=p
         ||| |||| |||  1: PRG A14=CPU A14
         ||| |||| ||+- 0: Vertical mirroring
         ||| |||| ||   1: Horizontal mirroring
         ||| |||+-++-- PRG A16..A14 (inner bank)
         ||+-|++------ PRG A19..A17 (outer bank)
         ||  +-------- 0: When CPU A14=1: PRG A16..14=LLL
         ||            1: When CPU A14=1: PRG A16..14=PPp
         |+----------- Value for PRG A16..14 when CPU A14=1 and O=0
         +------------ 0: PRG A3..A0=CPU A3..A0
                       1: PRG A3..A0=Solder pad 3-0
Power-on value: 0

Effective meaning:

Bit 9   Bit 7   Bit 0   Meaning
$200s   $080s   $001s
 (L)     (O)     (S)
  0       0       0     Switchable inner 16 KiB bank PPp at CPU $8000-$BFFF, fixed inner bank #0 at CPU $C000-$FFFF (UNROM-like with fixed bank 0)
  0       0       1     Switchable inner 16 KIB bank PP0 at CPU $8000-$BFFF, fixed inner bank #0 at CPU $C000-$FFFF (UNROM-like with only even banks reachable, pointless)
  1       0       0     Switchable inner 16 KiB bank PPp at CPU $8000-$BFFF, fixed inner bank #7 at CPU $C000-$FFFF (UNROM)
  1       0       1     Switchable inner 16 KIB bank PP0 at CPU $8000-$BFFF, fixed inner bank #7 at CPU $C000-$FFFF (UNROM with only even banks reachable, pointless)
  ?       1       0     Switchable 16 KiB inner bank PPp at CPU $8000-$BFFF, mirrored at CPU $C000-$FFFF (NROM-128)
  ?       1       1     Switchable 32 KiB inner bank PP at CPU $8000-$FFFF (NROM-256)

• On multicart PCBs (no battery or submapper 1), CHR-RAM is write-protected when O=1 and write-enabled when O=0, i.e. write-protected in the NROM-128 and NROM-256 modes.
• When the m bit is set, PRG A3-A0 are replaced with the values of four solder pads, which when the menu code reads particular ROM locations effectively selects one of up to sixteen menus with different game counts.
• Because all bits are cleared on reset, both CPU $8000-$BFFF and $C000-$FFFF are set to 16 KiB bank #0 on reset.

Similar mappers

• INES Mapper 242 is a variant with only up to 512 KiB PRG-ROM that moves the m bit to a different bit location. A variant with two PRG-ROM chips exists as well.
• NES 2.0 Mapper 375 is a variant with up to 2 MiB PRG-ROM that allows the UNROM-like switchable bank to be changed via a data latch.
• NES 2.0 Mapper 380 is an incompatible variant with similar functionality.
• NES 2.0 Mapper 449 is an incompatible variant that adds 32 KiB CHR-RAM bankswitching functionality.

See also

• Dumping thread: https://forums.nesdev.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=15271