Old NES carts with screws... any anecdotes to share?

[tony_good]

Hey, remember when the original carts came out with the screws in the back rather than rivets? I've heard that those were sometimes swapped with others and that the huge ass plastic case was made to make people think the cart was way bigger than the circuit board actually were.

Anybody know if that's true? I remember seeing one of my cousin's carts that was "Ice Hockey" in a "Renegade" (I think...) case.

The later carts you'd have to break to get open, but does anybody remember this phenomenon???

[JJNova]

If you have one of those security screw sockets, it's not any harder to open the REV-A carts (Three screw, clips at top). You don't need to break them in order to get inside. Some Karayzee people open up all their carts and clean the dust out of them. (ahem)

So it would still be just as easy to switch out boards, if you wnted to. I don't see how it benefits anyone, but it's possible, and very simple.

[soniko_karuto]

i just got a gyromite wich has the famicom adaptor :D

[JJNova]

i just got a gyromite wich has the famicom adaptor :D

Which method did you use to identify it? Weight? looking at the Pins? or just bought it and hoped? ;)

[soniko_karuto]

actually, i got home, and there they were, my mom bought me a lot of 7 games, and one CIB seales, wich was, to my surprise, Final Fantasy.

So i did the usual on the carts, open, clean, test, and in the open fase, hello hello! yah, mom loves me.

Actually they didn't had change on the trift store (it's called Tabgha, it's like a goodwill but to help the childrens hospital) and they offered the carts for about 100 pesos (9 and something dollars converts to).

[zektor]

i just got a gyromite wich has the famicom adaptor :D

Which method did you use to identify it? Weight? looking at the Pins? or just bought it and hoped? ;)

I used to get these all the time...in Gyromite carts as well. You can definitely tell the weight between one with it and one without.

[rbudrick]

Hey, remember when the original carts came out with the screws in the back rather than rivets? I've heard that those were sometimes swapped with others and that the huge ass plastic case was made to make people think the cart was way bigger than the circuit board actually were.

Anybody know if that's true? I remember seeing one of my cousin's carts that was "Ice Hockey" in a "Renegade" (I think...) case.

The later carts you'd have to break to get open, but does anybody remember this phenomenon???

Those screws aren't rivets...they are just screws that you need a special security bit to get out. Very few commercially released games actually take up the whole cart, though most prototypes do.

They didn't actually make the cart this big to make the games seem bigger, as that would benefit them nothing. The carts were larger because they needed to be inserted deeper into the toaster style NESs. The toaster NES got this weird way of putting games in because of Nintendo's desire to make the NES an 'Entertainment System' rather than a videogame system, which the market definitely did not seem to want. The market had just crashed in '84 and Nintendo used a successful strategy of making the NES seem much like a VCR...something that would look good in your entertainment system (games go in then down). This is why the were Game Paks and not game cartridges.

In addition, some early NES carts were really just Famicom cart with 72 pin adapters on them in order to fit in the NES.

-Rob

[jajaja]

i just got a gyromite wich has the famicom adaptor :D

Which method did you use to identify it? Weight? looking at the Pins? or just bought it and hoped? ;)

I read about this some time ago. It said that the old games like gyromite, excite bike etc.. who have 5 screw in the back instead of 3 have a 60 to 72 pin converter inside (famicom to NES). As also mentioned, you can check it on the weight.