Before the days of the R4 where you can pop in a microSD card full of games and play it straight from the DS cartridge slot, these PassMe and NoPass devices were the earliest way of booting DS software. They worked by tapping into slot-2 (the GBA slot) by re-directing its access from GBA-mode to DS-mode to run unsigned code. It existed way before the blowfish encryption was eventually cracked by "nocash", and after his eventual findings, rather than needing a specific game, like "Metroid Prime Hunters" to boot into your totally legit homebrew(tm), NoPass devices do not require a game to be attached as they bypass the console's copy protection on their own and does it all through software.
The Super Key is one of those NoPass devices manufactured (at least) by SuperCard. These were the folks that brought out the SuperCard SD, a mediocre GBA flashcart with bugs, lackluster game compatibility, and the requirement to use their software to convert & transfer games. That's not a problem anymore, however, as thanks to community-made CFWs from talented developers like David G.F. and MetroidManiac with SuperFW and SCFW, it fixed a lot of the issues the SuperCard had at launch.
It comes in a regular, grey shell. Nothing special. The label shows the "Super Key" logo in front of a plain, white background with two distinctive fontface styles of Super Contra and Gradius in typical SuperCard fashion. On the back, the casing is held together by three screws – two at the top and one in the center. I had a feeling this wasn’t a quality product, so I embarked on a teardown mission. The screws weren't difficult to remove, and after removing them, the casing fell apart.
Wow... just WOW. Uh, where do I even begin?
This is truly the AliExpress special we've got going on here. The entire board is one-sided, something I've never seen before on an unlicensed DS cartridge, with only one main component that runs it, being this black blob that makes the Super Key work—that's it. Other than that, there's nothing else on this cartridge; no SMD parts like a flash or a CPLD. They cheaped out of this as they possibly could, with only one capacitor sitting there to filter out the noise from input power. The contacts use a small amount of gold and mostly tin if you turn it in the right direction. There's some light corrosion, which is how it arrived, and cleaning the contacts with an eraser and isopropyl alcohol made no attempt at restoring them.
I'm probably not going to use any of my systems in fear that something bad may happen. If I could, I'd most likely use it in a console that's in bad shape. Other than that, I think it's both neat and funny that SuperCard of all things made the cheapest DS cartridge that nobody could even attempt. And for something that has one purpose in mind, it makes sense to cut corners without going all out on a quality product that does the same thing.
Thanks for reading.
The Super Key is one of those NoPass devices manufactured (at least) by SuperCard. These were the folks that brought out the SuperCard SD, a mediocre GBA flashcart with bugs, lackluster game compatibility, and the requirement to use their software to convert & transfer games. That's not a problem anymore, however, as thanks to community-made CFWs from talented developers like David G.F. and MetroidManiac with SuperFW and SCFW, it fixed a lot of the issues the SuperCard had at launch.
It comes in a regular, grey shell. Nothing special. The label shows the "Super Key" logo in front of a plain, white background with two distinctive fontface styles of Super Contra and Gradius in typical SuperCard fashion. On the back, the casing is held together by three screws – two at the top and one in the center. I had a feeling this wasn’t a quality product, so I embarked on a teardown mission. The screws weren't difficult to remove, and after removing them, the casing fell apart.
Wow... just WOW. Uh, where do I even begin?This is truly the AliExpress special we've got going on here. The entire board is one-sided, something I've never seen before on an unlicensed DS cartridge, with only one main component that runs it, being this black blob that makes the Super Key work—that's it. Other than that, there's nothing else on this cartridge; no SMD parts like a flash or a CPLD. They cheaped out of this as they possibly could, with only one capacitor sitting there to filter out the noise from input power. The contacts use a small amount of gold and mostly tin if you turn it in the right direction. There's some light corrosion, which is how it arrived, and cleaning the contacts with an eraser and isopropyl alcohol made no attempt at restoring them.
I'm probably not going to use any of my systems in fear that something bad may happen. If I could, I'd most likely use it in a console that's in bad shape. Other than that, I think it's both neat and funny that SuperCard of all things made the cheapest DS cartridge that nobody could even attempt. And for something that has one purpose in mind, it makes sense to cut corners without going all out on a quality product that does the same thing.
Thanks for reading.
