It's missing Game Genie and Sonic and Knuckles cartridges
this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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That was an experiment somebody did on Twitch a few years back, although only with a single 32X. They posted their findings in this Twitter thread.
tl;dr: It works until it doesn't, each cart is adding some extra power draw and eventually there isn't enough juice for the whole stack.
IIRC just Sonic & Knuckles plus Sonic 2 or Sonic 3 isn't happy when plugged into a 32X
Weird. The 32x has its own power supply.
And a Honey Bee cartridge
That's clearly a Megadrive.
what's the difference?
Locale, and pedantry.
16 bit is gold and not silver.
Also it literally says mega drive on the corner, you have to look at the 4 pixels on the side.
What actually happens if you try to boot this? Stuck at SEGA splash screen? Error code?
Lights flicker and dim throughout the neighborhood as a white-hot glow builds through the stack of 32Xs. A bright blue flash signals the destruction of the transformer down the block but you spare no attention for the freshly-darkened row of houses, captivated by the scene unfolding in your own living room.
Rather than sputtering out and returning to its previously inert form, the Sega only glows brighter. A voice is whispering to you but dissolves into wordless static against the ambient hum of the room. Your skin tingles and itches, the smell of ozone tickles your nose and you're starting to think you should have brought some kind of eye protection. Probably too late to worry about that now though.
A crack of darkness forms in the center of the column of light -- that, or your tortured optical nerves are finally burning out. The air takes on an unnatural viscosity which seems to conduct the ever-present hum straight into your bones. In an instant, the darkness pulses and ripples along its wispy edges before falling in on itself, carrying with it the last beams of your technological abomination like a mangled lighthouse blasting its warnings into a roiling hurricane.
You wake up in the morning to find a box on your doorstep. Oh yeah, you remember, that eBay listing for an old Sega and collection of accessories. Absently clicking together a stack of 32X modules while examining the contents of the package, you start to wonder if the thing will even power on...
You can't even boot with two 32x units installed, at least based on previous experience the last time I tried. So alas, this 256x assembly won't work.
That's because you didn't hook up enough of them.
Sure. That still doesn't answer my question though, what happens?
Just a black screen when I tried it.
Somebody provide context for those of us who have no idea what this monstrosity is?
The Sega Genesis (or Mega Drive) had expansions that were meant to improve the capability of the system and extend its lifespan, but ultimately they weren't super popular because it didn't make sense to make games for such a small subset of Sega's market share.
This is the 32x add-on that allowed for 32bit processing, and someone has just stacked a bunch of them on top of each other to be funny.
(Pictured here is the base system in the center, with the 32x add-on on top and the CD player below)
The idea of a plug-in processor is wild. Isn't that most of the console functionality right there?
everything in most cartridge based consoles is on a bus. CPU, SPU, RAM, ROM, whatever, it's all on the same communication channel. the SNES didn't have 3D capabilities but some games like Starfox had a GPU in the cartridge. there are modern mods for the NES that add a raspberry pi on the bus which allows it to do full motion video.
So he hacks a NES to run Mario Bros? I'm not that impressed....
Someone didn’t get the joke he made in the video
now this is what I call redundant memory allocation.
The Sega Omega
256x sounds sweet to me!
Would be interesting to see somebody get that many coprocessors actually working.
144 bits?
i've seen a few pictures like this before but it only just dawned on me- why is the card 3dge connector for mega drive and 32X games the same? you'd think even if it was all the same signals they'd add a few duds to the 32X card slot so that you don't try to plug a 32X into a 32X or a 32X game into a mega drive. even a piece of plastic like the ones used to keep 3DS carts from being inserted into a DS would get the job done. i guess they wanted you to always leave the 32X in even when playing standard games?
They did indeed want you to leave the 32x in for regular games. It came with brackets that kept the cart slot open and grounded the 32x to the genesis’ rf shield. They are a pain to put in and they fall out when you take the 32x out.
The SNES had that bizarre bazooka light gun, but the Genesis could do this
Where is the Sega CD?
Looks like a Model 1 SCD is set up under the console. The Model 2 SCD is the one that attaches to the side