koitsu wrote:
What defines "early" vs. "later"? There's no manufacturing dates on them, only a serial number. And I have no idea if my Famicom (prior to me owning it, because I got it off eBay 12+ years ago) had its mainboard swapped out (something I've seen many people do, and not just with Famicoms -- they get two identical consoles and swap out the parts to make one that's working/visually pristine/whatever). All I could go off of was the serial number, hence my last paragraph.
With regards to the NES top-loader, I remember reading (likely here on nesdev) that there were some super late-revision models which had completely reengineered motherboards which did not suffer from the "jailbar" effect, and that for a short while after they were released, you could send your top-loader to Nintendo (complaining about the problem) and they'd replace the board. I think someone somewhere had pictures of the different mainboards, but it's been a while...
I am not 100% sure my definition would be or is universally accepted, I classify Famicoms into four categories:
1. The Square Button Famicom, which uses the HVC-CPU board up to and including revision 06. The early boards formed the recall and tend not to be the most reliable. They have the AV board connected to the main board via a ribbon cable. The red bottom of the case has a glossy finish.
2. The Round Button Famicom HVC, these have the HVC-CPU 05-08 revisions, and have the AV board connected to the main board via a ribbon cable. The red bottom of the case usually has a matte finish. There is overlap between the square and round button famicoms when it comes to the HVC-CPU-05 and 06 revisions.
3. The Round Button Famicom GPM, these have the HVC-GPM boards, tend to be more reliable and have the AV board soldered to the main board via the shield. They always have a matte finish to the bottom shell. Apparently these will show less noticeable jailbars than the HVC boards after modding :
http://jpx72.detailne.sk/modd_files/fc/avmod.htm4. The Famicom AV
Game-Tech has some pictures and a video of a Nintendo-fixed RF output NES Top Loader, as you can see, the internals are almost identical to a Famicom AV (but apparently still accepts AC input.)
http://www.game-tech.us/pmwiki/pmwiki.p ... S-101IntroI am positive that an Nintendo Top Loader AV version exists, this guy posted a video about it :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEhNt5q7Hl0It uses the Nintendo Multi-Out. It's backplane refers to the power jack as DC IN where other Top Loaders say AC ADAPTER, but it has a bridge rectifier on it, so I believe it uses the standard NES-002 brick.