Exclusive: 2 New Nintendo FDS Unlicensed Disk Dumps

As a proud digital archaeologist, I have the honor of passing along two new Nintendo Famicom Disk System (FDS) unlicensed dumps, both of which were sold on disk in Japan. I will pass them along to proper preservation initiatives as well. This adds two new titles to the relatively short list of FDS unlicensed dumps and ROMhacks, since FDS was notoriously difficult to hack.

The first title appears to have come from an old fanzine. I am dubbing it “Super Mario Bros. 2 ASH” in honor of Ashleigh from Sidney who bought it and passed it to Evilsim to dump. Details are sparse, but it was programmed in assembly and appears to change Mario’s state so that he’s swimming in every level, among other things. Ashleigh provided pictures of the disks and accompanying artwork, and I cleaned up a copy of the cover. The game was traded in to Gametraders Macarthur Square, where owner Benn Banasik passed it to Ashleigh for a low price to assist the effort.

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The second title is the more interesting of the two. Dumped by Sho, it’s an unlicensed FDS version of the Super Mario Bros. 256w Hack (AKA 256 Worlds) which allows you to access all 256 levels from a menu, instead of using the glitch trick that involves a Famicom, SMB, and Tennis (or via hacking/codes).

Press B at the title screen to select a starting world. You can select the FDS Minus World and other oddities. SMB 256w is one of the first ever FDS hacks, if not the first, and is based on one of the earliest SMB hacks as well. A true historical record of early Famicom hacking, and it was sold on disk. A thorough explanation of 256w with more details can be found here.

SMB 256w is popular in Japan I’m told, and this brings it to FDS. Some levels will load differently or crash in comparison to the NES version. Hacks have circulated for this before, but it is the first dump of the pirate disk that I know of.

Sho also provided scans of the disk and label. He has more FDS delights in store, so stay tuned.

Thanks to preservationists: Ashleigh, Sho, Evilsim, Benn
Download both here.