Sisyphus: A Flash Cartridge Prototype for the Nintendo Entertainment System Using FPGA-Based Hardware Emulation

Abstract

This thesis presents Sisyphus, a flash cartridge prototype for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) that utilizes FPGA-based hardware emulation to replace traditional game cartridges. The system architecture employs a modular hardware design utilizing Dynamic Function eXchange (DFX) on the Diligent ZedBoard—a popular development board. This allows for runtime reconfiguration to support different memory mappers, with initial implementations focusing on NROM, UxROM, and MMC1 to provide foundational coverage of the NES game library. To ensure operational stability across asynchronous clock domains, a custom synchronization pipeline was developed to mitigate signal disturbances inherent in the prototype’s physical assembly. Results demonstrate a functional end-to-end pipeline, successfully booting, configuring, and executing NROM-based titles such as Super Mario Bros., Ice Climber, and Donkey Kong on PAL-region consoles. While the prototype exhibits graphical artifacts and significant stability issues caused by the physical assembly—with most tested titles consistently freezing or crashing—it establishes a solid architectural foundation for further research and development. Due to a hardware fault in the debug card used, UxROM and MMC1 mappers were implemented, but could not be validated on hardware.