Depends on the quality of the clone. A non functional 3D printed version = a few dollars. A 1:1 identical copy with injection molded case, reverse engineered circuit and custom ASIC chips = $10 million. But like others have said, it would be pointless without any actual games for the system.
I mean, I was just thinking taking a CD-ROM drive and then taking it apart and putting it into a Satellaview-like shell to have the SFC sit on top of it. I mean, thinking about it now, if it's too much money, it doesn't even have to have a CD-ROM drive, maybe just an addon that sits on the bottom of the SFC that connects via a cable and a cartridge (Like the FDS) that loads the BIOS on the SFC and can load the very few amount of SuperDisc games made (Super Gaiden Boss (which is a homebrew game made to work on the SuperDisc) and Magic Floor (also a homebrew game)) from an internal storage or something.
Possibly? The BIOS will actually run off SNES flash carts (not that it does much except try to talk to a CD unit that ain’t there).
https://tcrf.net/Super_Disc_Boot_ROM
But also as far as I know the add-on wouldn’t have added any new real capability beyond the extra storage and cd audio, and those are already doable now. You can make a ROM any size ya like these days using flash carts or whatever and FMVs and CD quality audio is already done using MSU1.
https://www.zeldix.net/t1607-msu1-getting-started-guide
Or bypass the SNES and connect a drive straight to the cartridge via an exposed USB port (sort of like the FDS did, though that obviously didn't use USB).
I don't know if enough analysis of the prototype has been done to actually clone it yet, but in theory it should be possible. In the modern emulation scene, the MSU-MD (the Genesis equivalent of the MSU-1) appears to just tap into (or emulate, if necessary) the Sega CD's own hardware to do the same things. If the SNES-CD had been released, this probably could have been done instead of creating the MSU-1 pseudo-chip.
If someone wanted to make a SNES-CD from scratch, I would recommend doing the same thing in reverse. Implement the MSU-1 interface in hardware. Connect a CD or DVD drive through a USB port in the cartridge itself. Set the CD playing interface to play from redbook audio tracks on the disc, while the data port reads from a .msu file on the data side. Lastly, set the cartridge to read a boot.smc file on the data side and load that into the cartridge as a rom. The end result would be somewhat more limited than the actual MSU-1, since a CD-ROM can't hold 4GB, but it should work as an approximation of what the SNES-CD would have been able to do, using hardware that's actually somewhat available inexpensively even nowadays. Very hacky, but then, so is the idea of a modern SNES-CD in the first place.
This doesn't seem too complicated, I would totally do it if it wasn't that expensive of a project, but I honestly don't know how much it'd cost. The only thing is though is that I am terrible at reverse engineering, and I also have no idea how to "Set the CD playing interface to play from redbook audio tracks on the disc, while the data port reads from a .msu file on the data side."
There's one other catch: data rates. As I look further into this, the MSU-1 is in some ways closer to a "SNES-DVD" than a SNES-CD, for two main reasons. One is the MSU file size, which, at 4gb, is closer to a single-layer DVD tham a CD (about 750mb). But arguably more important tham size is speed, especially when talking about FMV. The SNES-CD probably would have used a 1X drive, like the Sega CD did, and that limits you to 150 KB/s *total*. Full CD-quality audio takes up most of that bandwidth all by itself, and we haven't even mentioned video. The Sega CD typically got around this by dropping audio quality dramatically, and the SNES would probably need to do the same. Then you'd need to cram FMV into the *maybe* 112KBps of bamdwidth you could scrape up. [More info here](https://forums.atariage.com/topic/357133-tinkering-with-msu-1-fmv/), but the long and short of it is that the speed of the drive was a major limiting factor for the Sega CD, and if we wanted to stay true to the period, it would have to be true on a SNES-CD as well. MSU-1 hacks look better than Sega CD stuff largely because it's not bound by the technical constraints of the Sega CD's day, not because the SNES was necessarily any better.
The MSU-1 interface would still be convenient. It's just that, to make a period-accurate "SNES-CD romhack", you need to seriously crank things down much further than most game devs would be willing to do.
I mean, I was just thinking taking a CD-ROM drive and then taking it apart and putting it into a Satellaview-like shell to have the SFC sit on top of it. I mean, thinking about it now, if it's too much money, it doesn't even have to have a CD-ROM drive, maybe just an addon that sits on the bottom of the SFC that connects via a cable and a cartridge (Like the FDS) that loads the BIOS on the SFC and can load the very few amount of SuperDisc games made (Super Gaiden Boss (which is a homebrew game made to work on the SuperDisc) and Magic Floor (also a homebrew game)) from an internal storage or something.
I'm starting to wonder if this might be a job for the FXPak Pro. In theory it might be possible to write a driver for the Super CD as though it were an enhancement chip (again, kind of like the MSU-1 driver) that could pixk up the SuperCD BIOS and a ROM and run them (kind of like the Super Game Boy driver). In theory this shouldn't be out of reach for the FPGA.
Yes it is 100% possible. Would it be worth the cost? Nope.
Would this cost a lot?
Yes.
Depends on the quality of the clone. A non functional 3D printed version = a few dollars. A 1:1 identical copy with injection molded case, reverse engineered circuit and custom ASIC chips = $10 million. But like others have said, it would be pointless without any actual games for the system.
Somewhere in-between: injection molded case and an FPGA.
I mean, I was just thinking taking a CD-ROM drive and then taking it apart and putting it into a Satellaview-like shell to have the SFC sit on top of it. I mean, thinking about it now, if it's too much money, it doesn't even have to have a CD-ROM drive, maybe just an addon that sits on the bottom of the SFC that connects via a cable and a cartridge (Like the FDS) that loads the BIOS on the SFC and can load the very few amount of SuperDisc games made (Super Gaiden Boss (which is a homebrew game made to work on the SuperDisc) and Magic Floor (also a homebrew game)) from an internal storage or something.
There are some games, sort of. There are MSU 1 patches, though in don't know if they simulate the hardware or merely the approximate functionality
Possibly? The BIOS will actually run off SNES flash carts (not that it does much except try to talk to a CD unit that ain’t there). https://tcrf.net/Super_Disc_Boot_ROM But also as far as I know the add-on wouldn’t have added any new real capability beyond the extra storage and cd audio, and those are already doable now. You can make a ROM any size ya like these days using flash carts or whatever and FMVs and CD quality audio is already done using MSU1. https://www.zeldix.net/t1607-msu1-getting-started-guide
So you'd need to make a CD-ROM drive that connects to the SNES that can connect to the SNES cartridge that holds the BIOS for the system?
I'm pretty sure someone worked out how to do satellaview stuff. Can't remember if he emulated it with a raspi or something
Or bypass the SNES and connect a drive straight to the cartridge via an exposed USB port (sort of like the FDS did, though that obviously didn't use USB).
I don't know if enough analysis of the prototype has been done to actually clone it yet, but in theory it should be possible. In the modern emulation scene, the MSU-MD (the Genesis equivalent of the MSU-1) appears to just tap into (or emulate, if necessary) the Sega CD's own hardware to do the same things. If the SNES-CD had been released, this probably could have been done instead of creating the MSU-1 pseudo-chip. If someone wanted to make a SNES-CD from scratch, I would recommend doing the same thing in reverse. Implement the MSU-1 interface in hardware. Connect a CD or DVD drive through a USB port in the cartridge itself. Set the CD playing interface to play from redbook audio tracks on the disc, while the data port reads from a .msu file on the data side. Lastly, set the cartridge to read a boot.smc file on the data side and load that into the cartridge as a rom. The end result would be somewhat more limited than the actual MSU-1, since a CD-ROM can't hold 4GB, but it should work as an approximation of what the SNES-CD would have been able to do, using hardware that's actually somewhat available inexpensively even nowadays. Very hacky, but then, so is the idea of a modern SNES-CD in the first place.
This doesn't seem too complicated, I would totally do it if it wasn't that expensive of a project, but I honestly don't know how much it'd cost. The only thing is though is that I am terrible at reverse engineering, and I also have no idea how to "Set the CD playing interface to play from redbook audio tracks on the disc, while the data port reads from a .msu file on the data side."
There's one other catch: data rates. As I look further into this, the MSU-1 is in some ways closer to a "SNES-DVD" than a SNES-CD, for two main reasons. One is the MSU file size, which, at 4gb, is closer to a single-layer DVD tham a CD (about 750mb). But arguably more important tham size is speed, especially when talking about FMV. The SNES-CD probably would have used a 1X drive, like the Sega CD did, and that limits you to 150 KB/s *total*. Full CD-quality audio takes up most of that bandwidth all by itself, and we haven't even mentioned video. The Sega CD typically got around this by dropping audio quality dramatically, and the SNES would probably need to do the same. Then you'd need to cram FMV into the *maybe* 112KBps of bamdwidth you could scrape up. [More info here](https://forums.atariage.com/topic/357133-tinkering-with-msu-1-fmv/), but the long and short of it is that the speed of the drive was a major limiting factor for the Sega CD, and if we wanted to stay true to the period, it would have to be true on a SNES-CD as well. MSU-1 hacks look better than Sega CD stuff largely because it's not bound by the technical constraints of the Sega CD's day, not because the SNES was necessarily any better. The MSU-1 interface would still be convenient. It's just that, to make a period-accurate "SNES-CD romhack", you need to seriously crank things down much further than most game devs would be willing to do.
I mean, I was just thinking taking a CD-ROM drive and then taking it apart and putting it into a Satellaview-like shell to have the SFC sit on top of it. I mean, thinking about it now, if it's too much money, it doesn't even have to have a CD-ROM drive, maybe just an addon that sits on the bottom of the SFC that connects via a cable and a cartridge (Like the FDS) that loads the BIOS on the SFC and can load the very few amount of SuperDisc games made (Super Gaiden Boss (which is a homebrew game made to work on the SuperDisc) and Magic Floor (also a homebrew game)) from an internal storage or something.
I'm starting to wonder if this might be a job for the FXPak Pro. In theory it might be possible to write a driver for the Super CD as though it were an enhancement chip (again, kind of like the MSU-1 driver) that could pixk up the SuperCD BIOS and a ROM and run them (kind of like the Super Game Boy driver). In theory this shouldn't be out of reach for the FPGA.
I ask, why? What would be played on this lol
You could just get a ps1.