Nintendo DS Debug Cartridge

Nintendo DS Debug Cartridge

Sometime ago a Nintendo DS debug cartridge was sold on eBay and a couple of weeks ago the rom of that cart was shared and preserved online (NINTENDO DS NTR DEBUG) thanks to NintendyFan from the GBAtemp Form. There is some interesting stuff that we can see in this DS debug cart, such as weird icons, models of Nintendo characters and music from Mario Kart 64 (?!?). We are not sure why they chose such kind of strange images and sounds to test the Nintendo DS hardware, but it could be possible that hidden in the rom’s code there could be even more unusual / beta files, just like in that old SNES debug / hardware test cart. Does anyone want to try to find them?

In order to get to the menu, you have to hold Start + Select when launching the ROM.

Here’s the description from the eBay auction:

Up for grabs is a Debug Mode / Dev cartridge for the Original Nintendo DS and DS Lite Models of handhelds. I have never seen anything quite like this before on the market. We received a few of these, totally smashed and broken up, however we were able to recover this cart and get it to load up. It was tested on each model of DSi including the 3DS, but would error out. This is because the cart is specific to testing on the original DS software on the older handhelds. This is an official Nintendo cart that was apparently supposed to be decommissioned before being tossed out, but whoever attempted to break this one didn’t do a thorough enough job.

As you can see from the photos and video, the date on the program is August 18th, 2004; which is 3 months before the handheld was released anywhere in the world! The Product ID on the back of the cart reads: NTR-005

Videos:


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monokoma




11 thoughts on “Nintendo DS Debug Cartridge

  1. John Doom

    salve xd. I’ve found some interesting strings in the rom. Probably these are the names of each program executed, but I’m not a great fan of ‘Mario & Co.’, so I don’t know if there is some connection between this strings and some interesting beta stuff. I’ll continue to search in the rom. Meanwhile, you can have a look to this strings:

    SEQ_MARIOKART64_TITLE
    SEQ_SE_D01
    SEQ_SE_DBEND
    SEQ_SE_DVIB
    SEQ_SE_GBEND2
    SEQ_SE_SWEP2
    SEQ_SE_NOISE
    SEQ_SOUND3
    SEQ_SE_DBEN2
    SEQ_SE_GBEND
    SEQ_SE_SWEEP
    SEQ_SE_DGMIX
    SEQ_AGB2000
    SEQ_WARIO
    SEQ_ENGIN
    SEQ_CGB
    SEQ_SE
    SE_COIN
    SE_AMBULANCE
    SE_REPEAT
    SE_PATTERN
    SE_PORTAMENT
    SE_PORTAMENT2
    SE_SWEEP
    SE_VIBRATE
    SE_VIBRATE2
    SE_SUPER_MARIO
    SE_SUPER_MARIO2
    SEQ_CHECKER
    SE_CHECKER_OK
    SE_CHECKER_NG
    SE_CHECKER_OK1
    SE_CHECKER_SIN
    SE_CHECKER_SIN_R
    SE_CHECKER_SIN_L
    SE_CHECKER_ANNOTATION
    SE_CHECKER_NOTE_C
    SE_CHECKER_NOTE_D
    SE_CHECKER_NOTE_E
    SE_CHECKER_NOTE_F
    SE_CHECKER_NOTE_G
    SE_CHECKER_NOTE_A
    SE_CHECKER_NOTE_B
    SE_CHECKER_NOTE_C5
    BANK_SE
    BANK_MK64
    BANK_AGB
    BANK_CHECKER
    WAVE_SE
    WAVE_MK64
    WAVE_AGB
    WAVE_CHECKER

  2. John Doom

    … also, “Nitro Explorer” (program used to view nds roms’ files) doesn’t find anything. Probably this rom is using different extensions from those used by regual nds roms. Because it’s a Nitro cartridge, I guess…

    1. monokoma Post author

      Thanks for the info John! From the video, i see some “screenshots” with Mario in there, i wonder if it could be from an early Super Mario 64 DS port or something else :)

  3. NintedyFan

    Thanks for the article Monokoma, I love unseen64 and it’s cool to see something I’ve been working on get some attention from you guys. :)

    As a side note, to get to the menu of the ROM all you have to hold in is “Start”.

    I’ve got a handful of different carts from Nintendo that need a little TLC before they will load up, so I will be busy with that and will let you know what my findings are.

  4. Emoluvjd2

    After looking at the screen of Super Mario 64 DS, I knoticed that the background in the screen is different than the one used in the final game.

  5. Rhys

    This looks like there are very early super Mario 64 x4 ports in there. Great find i paused it at the right time and i found some important history from the SM64X4 development. One Frame looks like he has sunshine textures, in another frame it looks like he has a very bad quality texture.
    and the trees look really round.
    The location hes in i have no idea? where that is?! looks like a location from sunshine or a test location, because behind him is like Mt. Fuji. (The SM64DS Dev team is in japan)

    THANK YOU SOO MUCH! verry helpful

  6. Rhys

    This looks like there are very early super Mario 64 x4 ports in there. Great find i paused it at the right time and i found some important history from the SM64X4 development. One Frame looks like he has sunshine textures, in another frame it looks like he has a very bad quality texture.
    and the trees look really round.
    The location hes in i have no idea? where that is?! looks like a location from sunshine or a test location, because behind him is like Mt. Fuji. (The SM64DS Dev team is in japan)

    THANK YOU SOO MUCH! very helpful. If you could please see if there is a way to play this or walk around as him in that place. :)

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