Status Update -Major Famicom Find: Brag and Questions w/pics

[Goblin]

Today I had my first big find in quite a while. I found 2 big boxes of Famicom stuff. The first box contained an original Famicom, a 110-in-1 multi cartridge, a Famicom Disk System, and a "Turbo Game Doctor 4+ Game Saver Version 1" by venus electronics. This box also contained 2 famicom joysticks similiar to the NES Max, a famicom light gun, and an assortment of RF modulators, controllers, and adapters.

The second box contained disks for the Disk System, and was completely packed. I have spread them out on the floor to take inventory and count well over 300 titles. About 95% are in jewel cases, the rest in paper sleeves.

Go here for the rest of the pictures: http://home.comcast.net/~gamesfortrade/

http://home.comcast.net/~gamesfortrade/IMG_2246_1.jpg

Now for my questions:

1. What exactly does the "Turbo Game Doctor" do? It comes in 2 pieces. The first plugs horizontally into famicom, and has an exposed board with contacts coming out the back, a cartidge slot on top, and a socket for a power supply on the back. A little button is one the top in the front. Now the second piece plugs into the card in the back and stands vertical and has its own power supply socket. Which is a good thing since this blocks the plug on the first piece. Now what does it do as a whole, and can the first piece be used without the second.

2. What does the above do in relation to the disk system? Inside the box it was assembled: disk system into game doctor (with back attachment), all plugged into the famicom.

3. What is the likelyhood that these disks still contain any game data?

4. What might the value of this lot be? I'm not a famicom collector, but I had never seen a disk system up close and figured I should pick it up when I had the chance.

5. I've been searching this forum and a few others looking for information and have not been too successful. Does anybody have an english language links detailing how to get these items up a running. Perhaps a link to an English translation of the manuals. I realize that is probably pushing it, but I'll take any good links.

[Kuros]

I don't have an answer to the questions, but I wanna see a picture!

:)

[mills]

interesting, I have never heard of that doctor thing before either, but I'm interested in finding out more about it and maybe seeing some pictures.

[Flack]

1. What exactly does the "Turbo Game Doctor" do?

It's a pretty old console copier. The "4" meant four Mb of RAM, which isn't much, and it didn't come with a disk drive either which made it pretty inconvenient. Apparently it's used in conjunction with the FDS. I've never seen one in person.

Link: http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:ZlzDaU7J470J:forums.cherryroms.com/viewtopic.php%3Ft%3D3659%26sid%3D35e3b5b890aa78f18 d9c04d6751337b7+%22turbo+game+doctor+4%2B%22&hl=en

[Blitzwing256]

unless those disks are yellow, they are basicly pirated disks made with the copier you have (I have a ton of them myself) the disks are mostly worthless, basicly japanese floppies with roms on them.


if the fds system works, thats a nice find right there. Its very common for the drive belt to break (and very hard to fix it as well)

either way it sounds like a decent deal.

[Cauterize]

I don't have an answer to the questions, but I wanna see a picture!

:)

Seconded! Pictures are good :P

[Blitzwing256]

oh I forgot to mention, the part that goes on the top lets you use it without having to plug it in,.
to get it to work you need a disk drive attached to it (differnet from the fds drive)

[Ed Oscuro]

unless those disks are yellow, they are basicly pirated disks made with the copier you have (I have a ton of them myself) the disks are mostly worthless, basicly japanese floppies with roms on them.
Well, it's always possible you could find some development disks, which were, far as I know, blue, maybe white... LOL No chance of that. Sounds like a run-of-the-mill find with some unlicensed/pirate stuff, still good of course.

[Zach]

Wow! This is the first time I've seen someone one here mention that particular Game Doctor. I have the same one, but just the first piece, and lots of disks that were most likely pirated with it (none of them are readble with the FDS by itself) but I've never gotten the Game Doctor to work at all. When I plug it into my AV Famicom, all I get are garbled graphics that don't seem to respond to button presses.

Yes, the FDS is prone to belt breakage! I have two of them, and they both had broken belts when I got them. I couldn't find a real Nintendo replacement belt, but a trip to a local VCR repair shop yielded a belt of the correct inner diameter. It was twice as wide as the original FDS belt, so I carefully cut it right down the middle, longways, and had two belts of the correct width. Both of my Famicom Disk Systems are now working! Tough replacement job, for sure.

[Videogamerdaryll]

I don't have an answer to the questions, but I wanna see a picture!

:)

Seconded! Pictures are good :P

Third on the pics... :)

And getting ready to :puke: because if you picked this up at a Flea market that I didn't decide to go to today I'm going to be sick.. LOL........ (New Jersey)

... Congratulations though on a great find..:rocker:

[rbudrick]

According to Kyuusaku, the absolute master of all things game copier:

http://www.cherryroms.com/viewtopic.php?t=3659&highlight=doctor


*Sigh* Sorry, you're a little lost. There is no disk drive for the Turbo Game Doctor 4 or 6. Famicom units use the original Nintendo disk drive to load games. Rob REALLY needs to change that caption because it is completely false.

The expansion port on the back of the TGD is for expansion hardware (home made stuff) not a disk drive. There are no disk drives for Famicom Game Doctor units. This 50 pin connector is simply an extension of the cartridge port allowing the unit to interrupt the game and hand control over to attached hardware. The expansion was used with two devices: the Venus Save Card, and a inhouse device allowing Venus to link the TGD6 to a PC/XT (386)

To use a TGD6 you need:

A) Famicom Disk System
B) Games hacked by *VENUS THEMSELVES* for the unit

The order of operations is:

A) Place Disk System RAM adapter on top of the TGD6
B) Turn on system
C) Insert TGD6 game disk (Side A) into FDS

If it loads, it will prompt for you to insert "side B", then "side C" (disk 2, side A) etc until complete. Immediately after that, the game will load. There is no graphical interface and absolutely no way to load games from a floppy diskette.

To get original Venus game disks you'll need to:

A) Buy them (look at eBay, sometimes people think they're normal FDS games)
B) Buy a few of them, learn how to read/write 2.8" Nintendo disks and reverse engineer the disk format. To do this, of course you'll need to understand 6502 assembly and low level hardware to discover the TGD6's different hardware functions.

Because it's insanely hard to find any Game Doctor 2.8 diskettes, and generally pointless since 99% of them died 10 years ago, and even worse when 99% of those games are pre-1988 games, you'll need to make the game disks yourself.

Of course, theat's the TGD6, but the idea is basically the same.

They are worth around $50. PM me if you want to sell. :-P I'd wouldn't mind adding one to my collection.

-Rob

[TheRedEye]

Just so you know what to expect:

That drive is going to make whirring noises and sputter and do anything it can that doesn't involve actually running a videogame. And on the off-chance that it does still work, it's not going to read those shoddy pirated disks anymore. And on the even more unlikely chance that it does, you're not going to find anything interesting. They'll just be common FDS and early Famicom games.

On the plus side, it's likely that you have a disk with a blank label that reads "TURBO DICK." Enjoy it.

[Goblin]

Thanks for the information. - Keep it coming.

I have snapped a few pictures. A few I did in "santulli" style where all the titles are spread across the floor. Only problem is that my internet at home was down pretty much all Sunday from the time I first posted until I left the house this morning. I am currently on a bussiness trip so if someone can do me a favor and host the pictures I would appreciate it. PM me and I can email them.

The disks do look like they are pirates, but almost 275 of them have nice color inserts and look rather impressive. Only a small subset have white generic labels and much of the writting is in japanese so I can't read them. I'd like to get it working since a number of the titles look to be japanese games I've never heard of before. I haven't even tried it yet, I've just been too busy since I got home.

I'm hoping the pictures can generate a bit more information. After I understand how it works, I'll probably sell it or trade it, only problem is the disks are heavy so I'd hate to get a shipping quote on that. If it gets to that point, people in the NJ area probably will get first crack since they can pick it up. Right now I just want to get home and get a chance to play with it.

[Goblin]

And getting ready to :puke: because if you picked this up at a Flea market that I didn't decide to go to today I'm going to be sick.. LOL........ (New Jersey)

I'll make sure to stand back then.....

[Goblin]

Initial post edited to include pictures. The picture of the turbo game doctor 4+ and a bunch of others can be seen at the link:
http://home.comcast.net/~gamesfortrade/

[Blitzwing256]

well well, most of those are the pirate disks I mentioned before,

but the yellow disks are real fds games as far as I can tell.
those should work just fine in your fds without the copier (unless the belt is broken of course)

zelda 2, castlevania and simons quest are nice finds alone,
I'd be interested in a few of those if you wanted to trade/sell them at some point.

[Lord Contaminous]

Let me get this straight, with that copier you can convert data from a Famicom cartridge to a disk to play on your FDS?

I noticed Layla and Air Wolf were on disks. And I believe those games are really on cartridge.

[rbudrick]

Goblin, please let me now when you sell, I'd really be interested in a lot of those.

-Rob

[Blitzwing256]

the copier basicly makes roms and puts them on the disks.
so most of the games are just cart games on disks but they don't load in the fds (you need an external drive to load them)

[y-bot]

Is there a problem with playing copied disks on a stock FDS? I finally got a Disk System working last night and a whole bunch of copied disks I have don't work. There almost all light blue and a few black ones. My Nintendo brand disks almost all work and one of the black copied disks works but I tried about 40 of the blue disks and most come up with errors. 3 of them loaded side A but had errors on side b. Is there a specific problem with copied disks or are they just of lower quality so they have wen't bad? Another completely sperarate problem I had last night was a Disk System belt not tracking properly. It would either run off the top of the plastic pulley and rub on something or go below the groove on the motor pulley. It would load the game if I put pressure on the belt so it wasn't rubbing on anything but I could never get the belt to track properly. I was getting very frustrated but luckily I have 3 Disk Systems and 3 Twin Famicoms right now so I took the belt off and put it in another Disk System and it works perfectly. I didn't even have to adjust the speed of the motor. Has anyone else had a similar probelm? Is there a way to fix it? To put this back on topic I am also interested in the official Nintendo disks and if you need any help getting your Famicom setup going PM me.
Thanks, y-bot

[rbudrick]

Sounds like the belt is stretched.

As for the bootleg disks, pirate and store bought quickdisks (modified quickdisks) were generally of lesser quality than Nintendo's by FAR. They are ok in short term, but are usually best overwritten. In a couple weeks I am going to post a translated tutorial on how to copy FDS disks. I know I've been saying this forever in other threads, but it is really coming along quite nicely now.

I'll keep you posted.

-Rob

[jajaja]

the copier basicly makes roms and puts them on the disks.
so most of the games are just cart games on disks but they don't load in the fds (you need an external drive to load them)

That copier is pretty cool. I'd like to get a FDS copier myself. But what external drive do you mean? Its not enough just to copy over the ROM and insert it into the FDS?

[bazariah]

after seeing all of those FDS discs i have just lost all bodily control... and im drooling like a dog near bacon

[Goblin]

Thanks to all who have offered advice. I can't wait to get home this weekend and try this thing out. It took a lot of restraint not fire everything up the minutes I got home Sunday morning. I figured it was more important to research the pieces rather than risk damaging anything.

I just remembered something else I wanted to ask about. The turbo game doctor power supply has 2 sets of wires coming out of the DC portion of the AC/DC adapter. The first set has a plug that mates with the Game doctor. The second are 2 bare wires. Almost as if someone cut off the adapter that should be there. I'm thinking one set would be for the game doctor, the other for the FDS itself. Does this sound right? The supply looks to be 2000mA, so it probably could support the extra HW. I didn't check the voltage yet, but I will.


Wow! This is the first time I've seen someone one here mention that particular Game Doctor. I have the same one, but just the first piece,

Any thought on what the second piece is? Is the button on the front a power button, or a button to activate the copy feature?


According to Kyuusaku, the absolute master of all things game copier:
I've seen Kyuusaku's name on a bunch of old posts. Is he still around somewhere? Does he frequent this forum (or any other)? Does he have a website?



On the plus side, it's likely that you have a disk with a blank label that reads "TURBO DICK." Enjoy it.

I did see that. The 2nd grader in me laughed hysterically too.


well well, most of those are the pirate disks I mentioned before,

but the yellow disks are real fds games as far as I can tell.
those should work just fine in your fds without the copier (unless the belt is broken of course)

zelda 2, castlevania and simons quest are nice finds alone,
I'd be interested in a few of those if you wanted to trade/sell them at some point.

I figured they were mostly pirates. But it is cool a few may be real. I can't say I noticed a difference when I checked them out. I'll have to look closer. As for trade/sell, I'll let you know after I play around with everything what my intentions are. This takes up way too much room, so it will probably end up for sale or trade. The box of disks alone must weigh close to 30 pounds. If you are interested in any specific titles just send me a PM.


Goblin, please let me now when you sell, I'd really be interested in a lot of those.

Same as above, PM me with specifics wants. I won't promise anything now, but we can see what happens. I'll help you guys out if I can.

[rbudrick]

I've seen Kyuusaku's name on a bunch of old posts. Is he still around somewhere? Does he frequent this forum (or any other)? Does he have a website?

He mostly hangs out at the cherryroms forums as far as I've seen, and sometimes tototek, but I've seen him in a crapload of forums. Make sure you do a thorough search on cherryroms for any info first before contacting him. You'll probably run into a lot of GD SF3, 6, and 7 info first, but search through and you'll probably find what you need in the copier forum there.

Any disk that doesn't specifically say NINTENDO across the front tip (where the disks are indented) is a bootleg disk. A lot of companies started pirating these disks when it was discovered they are identical to quickdisks, which were used in a handful of old computers, musical keyboards, word processors, and maybe a couple of other things. Quickdisks are slightly shorter in length (they are square rather tha rectangular like FDS disks). Also, they have to have a couple of tabs cut off the sides to be FDS. Bootleg disk lenghtheners were sold in some hacker publications to make the QDs fit right (the alternative to the length adapter was a slight mod to the FDS drive. Otherwise, QDs were identical.

As for the two sets of wires on the adapter, yes it sounds like one was cut off, but under no circumstances use it on the FDS itself, you will kill it almost without doubt. There are two plug outlets on the back of the GD, right? Often, that was so you could use a male to mal adapter to go between the Famicom and GD, and then use one ACadapter to power them both. Of course, if the AC adapter has two tips, then that works too. If you open the GD up, you will see both power ports are directly connected.

-Rob

[rbudrick]

Oh, I almost forgot...for those insisting the GD uses an external drive, please note where Kyuusaku said:



The expansion port on the back of the TGD is for expansion hardware (home made stuff) not a disk drive. There are no disk drives for Famicom Game Doctor units. This 50 pin connector is simply an extension of the cartridge port allowing the unit to interrupt the game and hand control over to attached hardware. The expansion was used with two devices: the Venus Save Card, and a inhouse device allowing Venus to link the TGD6 to a PC/XT (386

Hope that clarifies. Trust me, Kyuusaku is the god of copier knowledge...there really isn't a thing he doesn't know about any of them.

-Rob

[Goblin]

There are two plug outlets on the back of the GD, right?

There is one plug on the back of the GD unit, which is actually blocked by the second card. The second card has the only accessible plug, which has to supply power to the first piece through the board. From your follow up I am guessing the expansion I have must be the venus save card. You are right, it probaby makes sense to have this power the famicom and not the FDS.

Any idea on a value for all this? I don't have a frame of reference.

[rbudrick]

The pirate disks are probably worth around $1.50 apiece, since they have a high failure rate. The unit is worth around $50.

Ok, so it only has one power port...many famicom "copiers" had two for the purposes I described above....sometimes the other was blocked off by a plastic plug or something.

-Rob

[Goblin]

Just wanted to give everyone an update as to where I am in going through this lot. Once I got back from my travels I was just too overwhelmed by the sheer volume that I wasn't sure where to start.

The first thing I did attempt to test the famicom and multicart. The famicom is the original RF model, w/o out A/V. In going through the lot I noticed there was no power supply. Instead I had the Game Doctor supply (with one set of plugs cut off), and an NES supply. (there were a few random items in the lot like a master system RF modulator, half a 2600 paddle, an NES pad, and a few other things. ) The NES power supply scared me as I knew the 2 systems were not compatible, and I feared someone less knowledgeable had done damage. Fortunately I had a famicom clone which had the required 10V center negative supply. Since I new this other system worked I used this as my control.

Sure enough when I went to test the console I saw nothing. Fearing damage, I opened the system up and carefully began to trace the power back. Ultimately I traced the power back to a blown inline safety fuse. After a few minutes and nice piece of wire later, I was back in business. Now I was able to hear sound through the TV, but could see no picture. This was because the US and Japanese TV’s use different frequencies. I thought by using the fine tune on an old TV, I would be able to get something. This proved unsuccessful so I ended up online looking for answers. A few minutes with google, and I had my answer: cable channel 95 equates to japanese channel 1 and cable channel 96 equates to channel 2.

Armed with this information I reassembled the system and went upstairs to the main TV. Sure enough both picture and audio appear on 95 as advertised. The only problem is that the right side of the screen is a bit jumbled, and the left side looks squished. Audio works perfectly, as does the microphone in controller 2. The microphone is a strange little feature. What games actually used this? I know it was removed in the subsequent models.

Anyway I attempted to clean the cartridge slot and didn’t see much of an improvement. I then went to another TV wanting to see if this were a sync problem. Unfortunately the results were the same. This is where I took a break and decided to call it a day.

Saturday morning I got up early and decided to try things again. Like the last time the left side looks squished, and the right side is jumbled. When the game starts the full screen looks good, but certain characters don't fully appear. Figuring something was wrong with either a single data or address line I found a schematic and traced back everything. No dice, everything checked out. Not wanting to let this get in my way of finally checking out the FDS, and the game doctor I decided to scrap work on the famicom and use a famiclone that I have.

I was using the clones PS with the famicom, but the next step was to verify the voltages on the Game Doctor power supply. As I mentioned in a previous post, one of the plugs was cut off, so after a quick trip to the junk box, I managed to find an extra power supply plug. Along with about 2 feet of wire, and a piece of shrink wrap I was able to restore the game doctor supply to it’s full useful state. Now this is capable of powering both the system and doctor.

No I was getting ready to plug in the game doctor into my clone system. The unique shape of this particular clone had the cartridge slot too far recessed accept the doctor. Not willing to let this stop me, I instead took the clone apart and plugged the doctor into the bareboard. The multicart works good, the cartridge slot of the doctor works, and the green LED on the top of the doctor works. What else is this thing supposed to do? The green LED always appears lit and the little button doesn't appear to have any impact on the LED.

I decided to continue going, especially since I wasn’t sure where that was yet. Next I plugged in the Famicom Disk System, and immediately saw Mario move across the screen and give me the error code corresponding to no power. I planned ahead and went out to pick up 6 c batteries, I just forgot to put them in. I eventually plan to eventually use a power supply, I just didn’t want to take any chances after the famicom experience earlier.

With batteries installed, I could hear the whir of the motor, the click of the disk. ERROR 22. So far all disks I have tried have returned this error. Is this indicative of a belt problem, or am I missing a step with the game doctor unit? Disappointed, I decided to call it a night and plan to regroup later this week. I don't feel like monkeying with the FDS or belts until I'm sure there is not another step I might be missing.

Now I decided to quickly run through some of the disks. I weighed the box and it is almost 40 pounds!!! From the prior posts it sounds like a few of the disks might be real, and then the majority of the rest pirates. At this point I am having difficulty still figuring this out. I have no yellow disk, mostly orange, beige, and black. I am assuming this means they are all pirates. I have a number of blue disks, with labels: 1989 Tiger. I'm guess this isn't TIger Electronics, but maybe it is. Someone mentioned blue disks being development disks. Is this true or are these pirates as well?

To anyone who PM'ed regarding this lot, I'll get back to you sometime later this week. I'm still trying to figure out if I care to get it working or eventually sell it off as is.

Slowly I’m getting there.

More updates to follow.

[Blitzwing256]

You pretty much went through what I did when I got the same lot.

this might help a little

PICTURE TIME!
http://www.green-ranger.com/lj/fdslot.jpg

the first disk in the list (the yellow one) is a real fds game (mario 2) and is far more durable then the pirate disks.
the other 3 are differnt slight varients to the pirate disks.

the easiest way to tell a pirate from a real one is via the nintendo embeded in the top of the disk. I've seen a few blue ones with that attached, but those I think are rare.

and I think the hardware I have is just a model higher then yours.

and as a side note, if you have any of the genuine fds disks in the lot ,I'd be interested.

[TheRedEye]

Hey, Blitz, the cover art of that second disc is from a Sachen game...that crazy Contra clone, whatever it's called.

[Blitzwing256]

thats amusing, a pirate of a pirate.
not surprisnigly I've never gotten any of those to work.

I don't think I had the displeasure of playing the sachen one though.

[Goblin]

Blitzwing: Thanks for the pictures, that helped a lot. Sadly I think I've all pirates. I don't think I've got one real disk in the lot

Tonight I sat down and figured I would give it another try to get things going. I started by opening my famiclone up and plugging in the game doctor. Then I plugged in the FDS ram pack and turned on the system.

What does the little connector behind the small sliding window on the back of the ram pack do?

When I attempted to load a disk I got the same error 22, I got last time. This time I decided to open the FDS and check out the motor and the drive belt. First off the belt is definately present and seems to be in working order. I decided to try and adjust the motor screw to vary the speed. After about 10 minutes of minute changes and reloads I was successful in at least getting a different error code. This time it was error 21, and that was just 2 or 3 times. Mostly it was still error 22. From everything I have read, I have a feeling a new belt would probably solve the problem and make things operational.

I decided to call it a night and test out the famicom light gun by playing a bit of hogan's alley.

Now I'm at a cross roads. Considering that I'm not a famicom or an import collector I really don't know if I feel like spending the time, effort, and money to get a drive belt and make the repair myself. I'd love to be able to play all these games, but I'm getting bored by everything.

At this point I have a feeling I will be putting the whole lot up for sale.

[Blitzwing256]

let me know what you'd sell it all for
or just the system or just the games.
i'm interested in the fds system (working or not) and the pile of goofy controllers.

pm me what you'd be asking for it and maybe we can work something out (money or trade)

[Videogamerdaryll]

And getting ready to :puke: because if you picked this up at a Flea market that I didn't decide to go to today I'm going to be sick.. LOL........ (New Jersey)

I'll make sure to stand back then.....

:D ..

Man that is an Awesome Score..
(I didn't read past this post)..where are you located in Jersey.?

What did all that run you..?

[rbudrick]

Yeah Goblin. I'm definitely still interested too. :)

-Rob

[Goblin]

And getting ready to :puke: because if you picked this up at a Flea market that I didn't decide to go to today I'm going to be sick.. LOL........ (New Jersey)

I'll make sure to stand back then.....

:D ..

Man that is an Awesome Score..
(I didn't read past this post)..where are you located in Jersey.?


Union County, NJ.