Mapper

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A mapper is a piece of hardware soldered to a cartridge's printed circuit board that performs address decoding, bank switching, and possibly other tasks. Some mappers can generate interrupts for timing; some Famicom games' mappers even have extra audio channels.

NES cartridges can include extra hardware which allows the use of large program and graphics ROMs and extra features. This extra hardware is usually referred to as a "mapper", as it is used primarily to map the relatively small CPU and PPU address spaces to a portion of the larger address space of the ROM(s) on the cartridge.

Mappers vary in how they translate addresses. The various CPU memory mapping schemes expand the maximum program size above the standard 32 KiB to larger powers of 2, while PPU memory mapping schemes can add new graphic features.

Most mappers fall into one of two categories: discrete logic, and ASIC based. Some discrete logic mappers are susceptible to bus conflicts. Nintendo uses the term Memory Management Controller (or MMC for short) for its ASIC mappers ("Why Game Paks Never Forget" article in Nintendo Power).

Discrete logic mappers are often referred to by the name of a board that they are commonly used in (e.g. "UNROM"). ASIC mappers are named after the ASIC (e.g. "MMC1" or "FME-7"), except in boards that use an ASIC in an unusual way (such as "TQROM", "TLSROM", or "NES-EVENT"). The emulation community generally refers to mappers by a numbering scheme that originated with the iNES emulator (e.g. "mapper 002").

iNES 1.0 mapper grid

Mfr icon Nintendo.png 000 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 001 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 002 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 003 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 004 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 005 Mfr icon Bad.png 006 Mfr icon Rare.png 007 Mfr icon Bad.png 008 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 009 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 010 Mfr icon Color Dreams.png 011 012 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 013 Mfr icon pirate.png 014 Mfr icon pirate.png 015
Mfr icon Bandai.png 016 Mfr icon Bad.png 017 Mfr icon Jaleco.png 018 Mfr icon Namco.png 019 Mfr icon Bad.png 020 Mfr icon Konami.png 021 Mfr icon Konami.png 022 Mfr icon Konami.png 023 Mfr icon Konami.png 024 Mfr icon Konami.png 025 Mfr icon Konami.png 026 Mfr icon Missing.png 027 Mfr icon Missing.png 028 Mfr icon Missing.png 029 Mfr icon Missing.png 030 Mfr icon Missing.png 031
Mfr icon Irem.png 032 Mfr icon Taito.png 033 Mfr icon Irem AVE.png 034 Mfr icon Missing.png 035 Mfr icon Missing.png 036 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 037 038 Mfr icon Missing.png 039 Mfr icon Missing.png 040 041 Mfr icon Missing.png 042 Mfr icon Missing.png 043 Mfr icon pirate.png 044 Mfr icon pirate.png 045 046 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 047
Mfr icon Taito.png 048 Mfr icon pirate.png 049 Mfr icon pirate.png 050 Mfr icon pirate.png 051 052 Mfr icon Missing.png 053 Mfr icon Missing.png 054 Mfr icon Missing.png 055 Mfr icon Missing.png 056 Mfr icon pirate.png 057 058 Mfr icon Missing.png 059 Mfr icon pirate.png 060 Mfr icon pirate.png 061 Mfr icon pirate.png 062 Mfr icon Missing.png 063
064 Mfr icon Irem.png 065 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 066 Mfr icon Sunsoft.png 067 Mfr icon Sunsoft.png 068 Mfr icon Sunsoft.png 069 Mfr icon Bandai.png 070 Mfr icon Codemasters.png 071 Mfr icon Jaleco.png 072 Mfr icon Konami.png 073 074 Mfr icon Konami.png 075 Mfr icon Namco.png 076 Mfr icon Irem.png 077 Mfr icon Irem.png 078 Mfr icon AVE.png 079
Mfr icon Taito.png 080 Mfr icon Missing.png 081 Mfr icon Taito.png 082 Mfr icon Missing.png 083 Mfr icon Bad.png 084 Mfr icon Konami.png 085 Mfr icon Jaleco.png 086 Mfr icon Jaleco.png 087 Mfr icon Namco.png 088 Mfr icon Sunsoft.png 089 Mfr icon pirate.png 090 Mfr icon pirate.png 091 Mfr icon Jaleco.png 092 Mfr icon Sunsoft.png 093 Mfr icon Capcom.png 094 Mfr icon Namco.png 095
Mfr icon Bandai.png 096 Mfr icon Irem.png 097 Mfr icon Missing.png 098 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 099 Mfr icon Bad.png 100 Mfr icon Missing.png 101 Mfr icon Missing.png 102 Mfr icon Missing.png 103 Mfr icon Missing.png 104 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 105 Mfr icon Missing.png 106 107 Mfr icon Missing.png 108 Mfr icon Missing.png 109 Mfr icon Missing.png 110 Mfr icon Missing.png 111
112 Mfr icon AVE.png 113 Mfr icon Missing.png 114 115 116 Mfr icon Missing.png 117 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 118 Mfr icon Rare.png 119 Mfr icon Missing.png 120 Mfr icon Missing.png 121 Mfr icon Missing.png 122 Mfr icon Missing.png 123 Mfr icon Missing.png 124 Mfr icon Missing.png 125 Mfr icon Missing.png 126 Mfr icon Missing.png 127
Mfr icon Missing.png 128 Mfr icon Missing.png 129 Mfr icon Missing.png 130 Mfr icon Missing.png 131 Mfr icon Missing.png 132 Mfr icon Missing.png 133 Mfr icon Missing.png 134 Mfr icon Missing.png 135 Mfr icon Missing.png 136 Mfr icon Missing.png 137 Mfr icon Missing.png 138 Mfr icon Missing.png 139 Mfr icon Jaleco.png 140 Mfr icon Missing.png 141 Mfr icon Missing.png 142 Mfr icon Missing.png 143
144 Mfr icon Missing.png 145 Mfr icon Missing.png 146 Mfr icon Missing.png 147 Mfr icon Missing.png 148 Mfr icon Missing.png 149 Mfr icon Missing.png 150 Mfr icon Missing.png 151 152 Mfr icon Bandai.png 153 Mfr icon Namco.png 154 Mfr icon Missing.png 155 156 Mfr icon Missing.png 157 158 Mfr icon Bandai.png 159
Mfr icon Missing.png 160 Mfr icon Missing.png 161 Mfr icon Missing.png 162 163 164 Mfr icon pirate.png 165 Mfr icon Missing.png 166 Mfr icon Missing.png 167 Mfr icon Racermate.png 168 Mfr icon Missing.png 169 Mfr icon Bandai.png 170 Mfr icon Missing.png 171 Mfr icon Missing.png 172 Mfr icon Missing.png 173 Mfr icon pirate.png 174 Mfr icon Missing.png 175
176 Mfr icon Missing.png 177 178 Mfr icon Missing.png 179 Mfr icon Nichibutsu.png 180 Mfr icon Missing.png 181 182 Mfr icon pirate.png 183 Mfr icon Sunsoft.png 184 Mfr icon Nintendo.png 185 Mfr icon Missing.png 186 Mfr icon Missing.png 187 Mfr icon Missing.png 188 189 Mfr icon Missing.png 190 191
192 193 194 195 Mfr icon Missing.png 196 Mfr icon Missing.png 197 Mfr icon Missing.png 198 Mfr icon Missing.png 199 Mfr icon pirate.png 200 Mfr icon pirate.png 201 Mfr icon Missing.png 202 Mfr icon pirate.png 203 Mfr icon Missing.png 204 205 Mfr icon Namco.png 206 Mfr icon Taito.png 207
Mfr icon Missing.png 208 Mfr icon pirate.png 209 Mfr icon Namco.png 210 Mfr icon Missing.png 211 Mfr icon Missing.png 212 Mfr icon Missing.png 213 Mfr icon Missing.png 214 Mfr icon Missing.png 215 Mfr icon Missing.png 216 Mfr icon Missing.png 217 218 Mfr icon Missing.png 219 Mfr icon Missing.png 220 Mfr icon Missing.png 221 Mfr icon Missing.png 222 Mfr icon Missing.png 223
Mfr icon Missing.png 224 Mfr icon pirate.png 225 Mfr icon pirate.png 226 227 Mfr icon Active.png 228 Mfr icon Missing.png 229 Mfr icon pirate.png 230 Mfr icon pirate.png 231 Mfr icon Codemasters.png 232 Mfr icon pirate.png 233 Mfr icon AVE.png 234 Mfr icon Missing.png 235 Mfr icon Missing.png 236 Mfr icon Missing.png 237 Mfr icon Missing.png 238 Mfr icon Missing.png 239
240 241 242 243 Mfr icon Missing.png 244 245 246 Mfr icon Missing.png 247 Mfr icon Bad.png 248 Mfr icon Missing.png 249 Mfr icon Missing.png 250 Mfr icon Missing.png 251 252 Mfr icon Missing.png 253 Mfr icon Missing.png 254 Mfr icon Missing.png 255

See also

External links