koitsu wrote:
- Often difficult to find the proper AC adapter, as the unit is known to have some half-ass voltage regulators on it, so something that's even slightly high/low from what it expects can often blow the thing up. If you need exact readings from the AC adapter (the original), let me know as I have one
Yes please. There is no way I'd be able to use the original AC adapter because the voltage in my country is 230V.
Also I understand how you could blow the thing by applying a voltage too high, but too low ? This should just make the thing not functioning at the worst.
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- Wires for controllers come out of the left side, rather than the top; makes for awkward holding (I tend to stick the wire between my index and middle fingers when gripping the controller)
Oh this sound annoying. I think the controllers looked pretty but I never even figured this problem out... I guess they fixed this for a reason.
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The controllers are attached to it and the cords are like 2 feet long.
2 feet sounds really
annoyingly short.
This would mean I'd definitely need one of those famous controllers who plugs itself in the expansion port and reads in bit 1 of $4016... but how common are such controllers ? Probably uncommon considering they're (supposedly) all 3rd party made and not compatible with any other system.
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- Many people have complained that the RF is weird and requires (at least on US TVs) to pick some insane numbered channel like 210 or 47 or something like that -- I've found this (consistently every time) to be utter nonsense. One thing to note is that the NES RF adapter can actually be used on the Famicom with success (that's how I use mine today, actually).
I think I'd have to AV-mod it in all cases. I prefectly remember I could only get the video from the RF output with my NTSC NES, but I would get white noise instead of audio which is, of course, not acceptable.
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- Not really a negative, but: the Famicom does sound slightly different than the NES (and AV Famicom, which also sounds like the NES). It sounds like there's a low-pass filter somewhere in the audio path, and possibly a more strict (?) high-pass filter, but it's the low-pass filter I tend to notice. Some frequencies sound slightly "muffled" is the only way I can describe it. It doesn't bother me in the least, it's just a difference.
In fact this would be a very good reason to buy an original famicom. After all this is how games were originally intended to sound.
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Like 3gengames, I would also recommend the AV Famicom over the standard Famicom. However, finding an AV Famicom for a fair (or even slightly exaggerated) price is almost impossible. eBay sellers and similar assholes jack the prices of these things up so high so they can make a fortune, then you've got the dudes who probably have 10 AV Famicoms "just to hoard them"... yeah, great. Mots of the time I tend to find people who want US$200 or higher for an AV Famicom, which is just highway robbery for no justified reason.
It sounds complex... the problem is that, unless I travel to Japan, it's very unlikely I can find any alternative to eBay... And a travel to japan is certainly much more expensive that $200.
$200 for a 20 year old console based on a 30 year old architecture is definitely a steal. But the worst is those Sharp FC-Twin consoles, they won't go for under $300 no matter what.
Design-side I think both the AV Famicom and the original Famicom looks very pretty, much better than the NES. And the AV Famicom is compatible with all the controller we're used to here, which is a nice thing.
However it sound like the FDS is mechanically better compatible with the original Famicom. In all cases it can't be worse than using the FDS with a gyromite adapter in a top-loader, it works but it's really ugly, and inconvenient. Swapping the RAM adapter in and out the console is a total nightmare.
If I would really pick up something cheap perhaps I could look for some famiclone, so I get native 60-pin cartride compatibility (which is really waht I'm looking for), but if I'd go that way I'd definitely want one with swapped duty cycles