My Famicom to NES conversion (with pics)...

[19k]

This was mentioned in another post, but I figured it deserves its own thread. Sorry if it's a repeat. I just finished this little project a couple days ago... let me know what you all think.

I always wanted to play the original Goonies on my NES. Since it was never released in the US, I figured I'd have to improvise.

Started with this:
http://home.comcast.net/~gd300z/pics/conversion1.jpg
Original Gyromite cartridge and Famicom Goonies cart.

Take both cartridges apart with a very small flathead screwdriver.
NOTE: The Famicom cart doesn't have screws, you have to slide in the screwdriver and pop the little clips holding it together. Be VERY careful or they'll break.

Once apart, take the Gyromite board out of the black 60-72 pin converter and replace it with the Goonies board, like so:
http://home.comcast.net/~gd300z/pics/conversion2.jpg

Make sure the chips are facing up on the Famicom board or it won't work.

You also might have to remove the center post in the old NES cart to fit the Famicom board in properly. You can use a Dremmel tool to cut it, or heat up a larger flat tip screwdriver over a open flame and just melt right through it like butter. That's what I did. Quick and Clean. Now put it back together. Remember to leave out the center screw since it might damage the new Famicom board.

If you have any artistic talent, you can make a nice new label for your cart. (The dimensions are roughly 2.25" x 3.9", which allows a little extra room when trimming. I recommend an image that's at least 300DPI for a more professional appearance). Print it out on some glossy 3x5 labels, or if that's not available, a regular white label with some laminate looks pretty good, too. Or... if you want a really glossy finish, cover the image with some clear packaging tape.

Here's my NES creation next to the Famicom original :
http://home.comcast.net/~gd300z/pics/conversion3.jpg

And... the finished product:
http://home.comcast.net/~gd300z/pics/conversion4.jpg

Pretty slick. And it plays perfectly. I don't know if anyone has played the original Goonies before, but it's entirely in English. You'd never know it was only released in Japan.[/img]

[DeuZZ]

This makes me want to make a conversion with the japanese super mario bros 2, good job :)

[c0ldb33r]

lLooks great.

But what do you do if you ever want to play a different famicom cart? wouldn't you have to take it all apart?

[19k]

lLooks great.

But what do you do if you ever want to play a different famicom cart? wouldn't you have to take it all apart?

I suppose I would have to take it apart if I wanted to play different Famicom carts. Right now, "The Goonies" is the only one that I own.

If I do get more Famicom carts, I'll probably just put them all in their own unique NES cases.

Future projects might be Crisis Force, Gradius II, and Summer Carnival '92: Recca. Honestly, I'm not aware of too many other "only available in Japan" Famicom games that I've been missing out on. Any suggestions?

NOTE: They'd also have to be in English because I don't know Japanese.

[lotus13]

Future projects might be Crisis Force, Gradius II, and Summer Carnival '92: Recca. Honestly, I'm not aware of too many other "only available in Japan" Famicom games that I've been missing out on. Any suggestions?

This list of Famicom games also specifies whether or not the Famicom game was released in the US or not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Famicom_games

[jcalder8]

Thats pretty cool but way more work then I would do, but then there also aren't really that many famicom games that I'm interested in and the ones I am I would want them to look original.

[CosmicMonkey]

Good job, and nice work on the cart label too :rocker:

[MachineGex]

Very nice. What is the pixel size of the NES label? I have a multicart (w/o the label).

[CosmicMonkey]

This makes me want to make a conversion with the japanese super mario bros 2, good job :)

Good plan, a complete set of all the MArios would be cool.

I'm wondering if it would be possible to fit the PCB from inside a FDS cart adaptor inside a NES cart. It might need a bit of modding to look neat, but it would be cool to have a NES Disk System.

[christhegamer]

Wow, that's cool! Every body knows the about the ol' gyromite converter trick, but this; this is something in a league of it's own! Good job! (some meseta will be heading your way in the near future :D)

[19k]

Very nice. What is the pixel size of the NES label? I have a multicart (w/o the label).

The actual pixel size in Photoshop is 675(2.25") x 1171(3.903").

That's a little bigger than an actual label, but I did that purposely so there wouldn't be any white showing when I trimmed it for the cart.

Edited to add those pixel dimensions are at 300 DPI (just in case you couldn't do the math :D . I highly recommend the higher resolution (300 DPI or better) because the actual image size is so small; any little details will get washed out when it prints. I'm a Photoshop newbie so it took me many, many test prints to figure that out.

[§ Gideon §]

I like the label you made; it's a nice touch.

You should make some more, and trade them in at your local game store. Imagine finding one of those on the shelf! ROFL

[CYRiX]

they'd probably would either give him a lot for it or not except it. But wouldn't that be sweet if you get like 50 bucks!

[19k]

I was thinking about making more and maybe selling them on eBay or something. I'd have to track down a lot of Famicom Goonies carts though... and I'm not sure how legal it is. I suppose if I included the original empty Famicom case it wouldn't really be an issue. And I might have to change the label a little bit too (i.e. remove the "official nintendo seal of quality"). But it's probably not worth the effort, not to mention cost of having to buy the other carts.

[MrSmiley381]

Alas, only if this trick would work with Megami tensei 2.

Stupid double-sized cart probably won't convert correctly.

[InsaneDavid]

Like I said in the thread about making converts (that sprung from a question about a converter), those come out looking really nice but are a lot of bother if you want to play other games. You also kill two games to make one.

Thead concerning making universal Famicom to NES converters out of these carts... http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=958894

Totally different subject though, both may coexist. :) Also remember that nearly every series of Famicom cartridges is held together in a slightly different way concerning tab locations. There was also a good walkthrough of the same type permanet conversion project posted at VintageComputing.com...
http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/39

They also have a rather incorrect "how to tell if your Gyromite has a converter inside" guide but so does pretty much everyone else. LOL

Anyway, here are some pictures of the conversion I do to Famicom adapter rich NES cartridges...

http://www.startoursinfo.com/junk/DP-NESconvert02.jpg

http://www.startoursinfo.com/junk/DP-NESconvert03.jpg

The www button below my post will go to my site, I wrote an editorial about these at David's Video Game Insanity.


This makes me want to make a conversion with the japanese super mario bros 2, good job :)

SMB2 (J) was on the Famicom Disk System. You have to dump it to a chip (the rom is out there) and replace a same mapper cart with it. It's a totally different process than converter mods.

Also in response to other posts, there are an ASSLOAD of great Famicom games that never got US releases, I'll post up a list here later if anyone cares.

[jasonlotp]

I just lucked out and found the 72 pin version of the pirate Goonies cart you had. I love that game.

[SNKFan75]

Awesome job here! It's great to be able to play the games you want without hassles.


SNKFan75

[rbudrick]

SMB2 (J) was on the Famicom Disk System. You have to dump it to a chip (the rom is out there) and replace a same mapper cart with it. It's a totally different process than converter mods.

It's way more complex than that. Much of the game would have to be entirely rewritten to work as a cart. There are rare pirate versions of SMB2j out there, and I believe they all have stage selects built in.

However, it would be nice if someone made a longboard Fami-NES adapter so one could use the disk system on the NES. Of course, the Microphone in Controller 2 of Famicom systems won't be there for game like Zelda and Kid Icarus, but oh well.

Hey, anyone ever played these two NES games on a Famicom or any other game that uses the mic and checked if the functions still work?

-Rob

[dojosky]

it looks damn nice ! but i wouldn't want to rip my geniune KONAMI Goonies Cart for the famicom that I have ! i won it for like $1-3 on ebay LOL and few years ago i found a bootleg goonies for 50 cents at goodwill so decided to ebay it and got $25 for it weird ! LOL .

[jasonlotp]

SMB2 (J) was on the Famicom Disk System. You have to dump it to a chip (the rom is out there) and replace a same mapper cart with it. It's a totally different process than converter mods.

It's way more complex than that. Much of the game would have to be entirely rewritten to work as a cart. There are rare pirate versions of SMB2j out there, and I believe they all have stage selects built in.

However, it would be nice if someone made a longboard Fami-NES adapter so one could use the disk system on the NES. Of course, the Microphone in Controller 2 of Famicom systems won't be there for game like Zelda and Kid Icarus, but oh well.

Hey, anyone ever played these two NES games on a Famicom or any other game that uses the mic and checked if the functions still work?

-Rob

There must be some version of SMB2j that will work on a cart since nesreproductions.com is offering to put it on a mapper 4 cart... I wish I knew which rom it is, I'd love to put that game on a cart.

[Dr. Morbis]

There must be some version of SMB2j that will work on a cart since nesreproductions.com is offering to put it on a mapper 4 cart... I wish I knew which rom it is, I'd love to put that game on a cart.

I have the ROM for the cart version, but I wouldn't post it without Leonk's permission. You should email/pm him and ask him to send it to you.

On a related note, if anyone has the technical know-how to hack the cart ROM version of SMB2J to boot up with 8 stars on the title screen, you'd make my dreams come true.

[ClassicGameTrader]

Does anybody think it is wierd that the goonies was released on Famicom in Japan only? It was an american movie after all, but it only made it to PC10 in the US? Wierd!

[c0ldb33r]

I've always wondered that. It would have killed here on the NES.

[19k]

Like I said in the thread about making converts (that sprung from a question about a converter), those come out looking really nice but are a lot of bother if you want to play other games. You also kill two games to make one.

Good point, but I didn't really kill any games. I can very easily put the Goonies game (and the Gyromite game for that matter) back in it's original cart. The only thing I really destroyed was the Gyromite label. Not a big deal though because it wasn't in very good shape to begin with.

I'm sure your method works great for playing multiple Famicom carts. But don't they already sell plug-in converters like that?

"The Goonies" is the only Famicom cart I own. And I only needed a small screwdriver and some Photoshop fun to create it. Plus, now it looks like an actual NES game which is the whole reason I did it this way. ;)

[InsaneDavid]

I'm sure your method works great for playing multiple Famicom carts. But don't they already sell plug-in converters like that?

Yes, there are grey market pirate converters. However they don't use an official 10NES lockout chip inside and the higher quality Nintendo connectors, shell construction, etc. To get around the lockout they use the same methods the non-Tengen unlicensed NES games use - sending different voltages to the 10NES chip inside the NES. So many of them have "flip the switch on the back to..." or "it is normal for the screen to flash 11 times..." and so forth. These = cheap construction and buggy design.

There's a reason that say, a Wisdom Tree game can take awhile to get going, and a licensed cartridge or an unlicensed Tengen cartridge will start up no problem - that difference is the 10NES chip. (Tengen used an illegal clone they made of the 10NES chip called their "rabbit" chip, works exactly the same though)

I wasn't trying to harsh on your work, it looks very nice.


"The Goonies" is the only Famicom cart I own. And I only needed a small screwdriver and some Photoshop fun to create it. Plus, now it looks like an actual NES game which is the whole reason I did it this way. ;)

Technically you own no Famicom games now, instead a FC-NES Goonies conversion. :) Just like NeoGeo MVS to AES stuff.

[Zi]

did the same thing. gradius II, battle city, choplifter.

attached is my battle city.

[MarioMania]

I have a Super Mario Bros. 2(J) in a Gyromite cart