How did this knob cartridge work? Has anyone seen it?

I just read a Gamespot article from 2014 about the Game Genie that starts by explaining that Treasure Island Dizzy was once made as an (standalone?) NES cartridge with a knob to adjust the number of extra lives. And I'm thinking, what extra lives?! The original Treasure Island Dizzy was infamously stripped of its extra lives feature because the Oliver Twins couldn't figure out how to code respawning Dizzy if he dropped the vital snorkel in an unreachable place in time for bringing the game to market, and the enhanced remakes followed suit to maintain its difficulty level. So how could the Nintendo version have a way to adjust the number of lives if they wouldn't have bothered coding what happens when you lose a life without the game being over? Has anyone found any unused respawning code?! And does anyone have pictures of the special cartridge? I mean, two years after that article went up, there was a comment from someone claiming to have the one Game Genie 2 in existence, so anything's possible...

(Not to mention, the article calls that feature the forerunner of the Game Genie, but a closer parallel would seem to be the story passed around about how the first version of Micro Machines needed a single byte patched by a separate device in the cartridge to prevent a game-breaking glitch. I wonder why I haven't read more about this byte or the device in ROM dump discussions...)

Its first time I heard about it. The article may mistake the knob with one that defeats Lockout chip present in commercial product.
I did dig into the games code way back. I've found unused enemy, I found unused music tracks, I even found a invicibility mode for the player....but there is no extra lifes.

I suppose it's possible they misreported some other game as Treasure Island Dizzy, thinking of how The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy's second version was given some button-input cheat codes including one to start with another extra life, and then its third version made you start with another extra life in addition to still having the cheat codes (whereas the Fantastic Dizzy ports to other systems would have one cheat to start with another life and another cheat to gain another life later). Hmm, and not only did Treasure Island Dizzy have multiple cheat codes, but Super Robin Hood on the same NES cartridge also had a code to start with another extra life, apparently a staple of the Oliver Twins' NES work. What do you do to find secret button inputs like that? I'd be curious to know if there's anything I didn't find for The Cutting Room Floor that hasn't already been reported on cheat websites.

So it was you. Great job on filling that page.
For Treasure Island Dizzy...the only thing that I know, which is not on the TCRF would be a possible softlock that can be achived by jumping from a certain position. Was it Fantastic Dizzy or Dizzy Adventurer, I would have more things to report.
Finding input codes NES games will largely depend on whenever you know NES assembly language:
If you do then set debugger to break on $4016 reads, identify which RAM value the reads are being written to and then trace reads from said RAM value.
If you dont know NES assembly, then best you can do is to mash buttons randomly {dizzy}:frown: