My new ebay find - UFO drive for SNES

[stuffedmonkey]

Hello everybody! Long time listener, first time caller :)


I had decided recently to get back into the Super Nintendo - by far my favorite system ever. After messing around with emulation for a bit, I thought I would take the plunge and buy a system and some games. The auction I just won looks like it comes with a UFO drive - The lister had no idea what it does - I only even got the name from the picture. It looks like it is an add on that sits on the top of the SNES and lets it play rom games off of a floppy, as best as I can tell from my google research.

Has anyone used one of these before? Is it a good find for 36$ (with a snes, mario world, and the japenese starfox?) . Any info on it would be appreciated - I don't have it in hand yet.

Also - what would be the better places to get old snes games be? Right now I am not really looking for the rare ones, just the nintendo first party classics. I figure ebay and pawn type shops.....but was looking for suggestions!

Thanks! Looking forward to starting my collection again :)

[jonjandran]

To answer some of your questions.

1. Yes , it was a good deal

2. You're right, it lets you put Roms onto a floppy and play them just like you had the original game in the Snes. It also lets you back up tour Snes games into Rom format.

http://www.robwebb.clara.co.uk/backup/ufo/ufosuperufo.html

3. If you want some good Snes games for better than Ebay prices just post a " Wanted Snes Games " thread in the Buy and Sell forums and a lot of DP Members will hook you up. :D

[Flack]

Hello everybody! Long time listener, first time caller :)

I had decided recently to get back into the Super Nintendo - by far my favorite system ever. After messing around with emulation for a bit, I thought I would take the plunge and buy a system and some games. The auction I just won looks like it comes with a UFO drive - The lister had no idea what it does - I only even got the name from the picture. It looks like it is an add on that sits on the top of the SNES and lets it play rom games off of a floppy, as best as I can tell from my google research.

Has anyone used one of these before? Is it a good find for 36$ (with a snes, mario world, and the japenese starfox?) . Any info on it would be appreciated - I don't have it in hand yet.

Also - what would be the better places to get old snes games be? Right now I am not really looking for the rare ones, just the nintendo first party classics. I figure ebay and pawn type shops.....but was looking for suggestions!

Thanks! Looking forward to starting my collection again :)

Congratulations on your purchase! I have 6 Console Copiers and just bought my 7th off of eBay as well (3 N64, 2 Genesis, 2 SNES). SNES copiers go for between $50-$100, depending on the working condition and the model (SNES UFO copiers ran from the UFO 3 to the UFO 7, I believe).

That copier, as you know, works 2 ways. One, you can stick a cart in the top and a floppy disk in the side, and dump the game to a floppy. Then you can play the game later from the floppy without the cart. The other way is you can find ROM images from the Internet, put them on a floppy, and play them directly on your SNES now with that UFO unit. (I believe the UFO will play both .SMC and .SFD file extensions.) If you've ever wondered where ROMs for emulators came from, now you know. So what games it comes with is pretty irrelevant, as you now have the technology to play EVERY game -- even homebrews, hacks, and demos -- on the original hardware. Neat stuff, eh?

Depending on which model you bought, the UFO copiers came with different amounts of memory. Remember, game consoles use megaBITS instead of megaBYTES, so remember to divide everything by 8. If the unit says 24mb, that's 24 megabits, or 3 megabytes. So, any SNES Rom that's 3 meg or smaller should play on it. If you download a ROM that's too large for a floppy, use SNESTool.exe to split it into 1.4 meg chunks. The UFO will prompt you for the additional floppies.

Hope that helps! If you have other questions, feel free to PM me or post them here.

[stuffedmonkey]

Flak and Jon:

Thanks for the info! You guys rock. That was pretty much exactly what I had hoped to do :) I can't wait to get the package now ....

[rbudrick]

Definitely a good deal! Congrats! Oh, and I have a feeling the seller knew exactly what a UFO drive is LOL ;)

-Rob

[classic gamer]

can you post a link to your auction? I wanted to get a look at the unit but could not find it when searching eBay.

[Mangar]

I used to sell console copiers years ago, and used/owned many of the different ones - The Super UFO was by far my favorite, and the only one i still own and use after all these years.

The problem with the various SNES copiers, is that many had their own individual file formats, which only worked on the specific copier it was made for. Depending on what your "source" of roms/games were - This was an annoying problem, and you had to sit around converting games with some archaic DOS program on your PC.

The UFO also had a better selection of built in utlilitys, loaded faster, and was much more user friendly and "pleasant." You definately got a good deal.

[TheSmirk]

Nice find! I'd love to find one at that price

[-hellvin-]

Ohhhh dude, nice win. I saw this thing last night while I was checking prices of system lots since I need to sell a few ;D.

[stuffedmonkey]

Classic Gamer: Here you go...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=8134014608&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT

[SegaAges]

thats awesome. there is nothing wrong with a snes (as long as you play through turtles in time) :)