f
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
The moral is, don't **** with Uncle Tim when he's been drinking!
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?Originally Posted by Blitzwing256
after seeing all of those FDS discs i have just lost all bodily control... and im drooling like a dog near bacon
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.
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?
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?
I did see that. The 2nd grader in me laughed hysterically too.
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.
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.
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.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?
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
The moral is, don't **** with Uncle Tim when he's been drinking!
f
Oh, I almost forgot...for those insisting the GD uses an external drive, please note where Kyuusaku said:
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.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
-Rob
The moral is, don't **** with Uncle Tim when he's been drinking!
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.
f
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
The moral is, don't **** with Uncle Tim when he's been drinking!
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.
You pretty much went through what I did when I got the same lot.
this might help a little
PICTURE TIME!
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.
Hey, Blitz, the cover art of that second disc is from a Sachen game...that crazy Contra clone, whatever it's called.
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.
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.
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)
I'll make sure to stand back then.....And getting ready tobecause if you picked this up at a Flea market that I didn't decide to go to today I'm going to be sick..
........ (New Jersey)
..
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..?
Yeah Goblin. I'm definitely still interested too.
-Rob
The moral is, don't **** with Uncle Tim when he's been drinking!
Union County, NJ.I'll make sure to stand back then.....And getting ready to
Man that is an Awesome Score..
(I didn't read past this post)..where are you located in Jersey.?
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
