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You don't push the button since our framework doesn't allow dynamic devices or input ports.

Thanks, hopefully sometime in the future support, I guess I will have to wait....

Is this a wanted cartridge for NES?

"Porter" by Mega Soft (CN-10)

Yes.

I'm resurrecting this old thread to update casual forum readers about latest changes concerning software lists

First of all, cross dependencies among different lists have been added, so that it's possible for an item (e.g. a PCE CD-ROM) to force loading of a different item (e.g. a CDSYS cartridge), making easier for average users to play with MESS, as long as they have the required items
PCE CDs are not the only situation where this is of benefit: Kaylee has already added the same mechanism to the couple of IBM PCJr carts which need a DOS disk to work, and eventually the bunch of Saturn CDs which support add-on carts will use it too.

The other big news is that Micko has added some basic filtering support to software lists and a7800.c has been updated to take advantage of this. Filters basically help users tnot to load software in the wrong driver by mistake.
The a7800 example should make things clear: PAL and NTSC carts were incompatible, being region locked, so if you load the NTSC version on a7800p or the PAL version on a7800 you'd get stuck to the Atari logo and you might think that there is a bug in the emulation. With filter, otoh, the a7800 accepts NTSC carts and a7800p accepts PAL carts but not viceversa.

Notice that filters only act if you load entries from the internal File Manager or with the noswitch command line, while no restriction is applied if you load files from command line by specifying the media switch (i.e. if you are supposed to know what you're doing)
so for instance
would not work, because a7800 is the NTSC console while ballblaz is the PAL cart (so you would not be able to play it), while
loads fine (even if it does not do anything, due to the region lock)

This will spread through the lists in due time and will save average users to get a "This software cannot be used outside Japan" message for some SNES/MD/Saturn etc. games, unless they explicitly decide to mount the games on the wrong system.

As a side note, QMC2 is adding support for the filters too

This has just been committed to SVN .

I thought the region lock on the US SNES was two plastic tabs in the cartridge slot? I remember when my friend ripped his out of the SNES. Did they ever have a software region lock on the SNES?

For the SNES, the filter would be more a NTSC/PAL like for a7800

SNES uses a chip as region lock. You'll either have to cut a trace on the mainboard or replace the chip in the cart with one from your console's region to get these games working. Of course there were also adapter cartridges available

Yeah, but the region lock chip doesn't stop you running US carts on JP consoles and vice versa - physical cartridge differences were supposed to stop that. IIRC it stops NTSC Asia (KR) and PAL carts running in a JP/US console, and may enforce regions on PAL carts. Some of the later titles can also detect disabled lockout chip (i.e. lockout chip unable to reset CPU by cutting trace) or the different display frequency if you use one of the two-cart lockout defeating adaptors to run PAL on NTSC or vice versa.