ROM programmers??

[Iggy]

ok. I'm very old school. I have a PS3 but the NES and SNES games are sooo much more fun to me. As I isolate my PS3 over in the corner, I'm over here on the computer trying to figure out how Nintendo programs their games. I sold my Madden 2007 on ebay and continue to play my Tecmo Super Bowl for the SNES after 13 years (ZSNES of course.) That's my all time favorite game!

Anyway, my question to the mass is: I need to know how the game programmers of Nintendo programmed their chips/EEPROMS/etc. I want to hack SNES games sooo bad.

I've opened up the source code of ROMS through Visual Studio and it's nothing more than Hex code. I can edit a few Strings, but I want to be able to do more.

Any sites out there where I can get a jump start on hacking these ROMS? I plan on this being my new hobby. Also, I'm a Computer Science major and I love programming. I've looked at a few Hex editors, but is that the only way to tweak a ROM?

Any replies would make me much obliged,

Iggy