Sega Genesis Contacts

[Lanzo]

Hey guys, I just joined the forum. I recently got back into my genesis and I found this site. I really think its awesome. Well anyways I was digging through some of my old genesis games and noticed that Mortal Kombat 2 looked like it was missing 19 contacts on the front but none on the back, however the game still seems to work fine. Sorry if this is a noob question but do some games not have all the contacts or was I really that careless when I was little? How important are they for the game to work? Just a little curious because I've been buying some old games off ebay. Thanks.

[BetaWolf47]

I think that just means it's a Majesco re-release. My copy of Castlevania Bloodlines is like that. When did you buy it?

[izarate]

Not every game uses every contact on the cartridge. Tons of NES games shipped without the center pins which were more filler than anything since their only function is to make the connector 72 pins wide and thus incompatible with the Famicom and vice versa.

On the SNES most games that use the outher rows of pins just use 2 or 3 of them. On the Genesis most of the front pins are unused:

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/6873/img1010.jpg

Notice how a lot of the pins aren't connected to anything.

[Lanzo]

Ok, thats interesting. I think I got the game in 94. I was wondering why my sonic 2 had all the contacts when I played it even more than MK2. My Castlevania: Bloodlines has all the contacts but I have no idea when it was purchased (maybe 94). I'm going to look into that Majesco thing. Thanks for the responses guys.