Earlier this summer I was in Austin, Texas and snagged a handful of uncommons for half-decent prices. Among them was AVE's Krazy Kreatures; sadly, it didn't work when I got back from my trip to test it. Ultimately, it's not a huge loss, since I just picked up a clamshell copy of Maxi 15 online and will do my playing on that version. I was wondering, though, if I can get it up and running again... it shows the title screen but gives me the "blinks," which means that the lockout bypass mechanism in the cart isn't working. I've had this happen with a licensed cart, which presumably means that the chip that communicates with the 10NES chip wasn't working; in an unlicensed cart, of course, I know that the bypass mechanisms vary depending on the developer. Is there any easy way to fix this, or a cheap, somewhat more complicated way? I figure some of you are quite a bit more savvy than I am on this...

Some late release Toaster systems had a board revision that bypasses the lockout defeat circuit. Most unlicensed companies (with the exception of Tengen, who literally copied the entire chip) used a current pump to supply a voltage of -5V to one of the lockout pins. This caused the lockout chip to malfunction, temporarily preventing it from operating properly. In later board revisions of the NES, Nintendo added a series resistor and a reverse-biased diode connected to ground. The diode safely drained the negative logic signal, preventing said carts from operating. Check the serial number on your NES. If it's rather high (above 10 million or so), you may have a late release model which can't play certain unlicensed games. I would personally recommend permanently disabling the "blinky screen" syndrome by opening the NES and cutting pin 4 of the lockout chip. No soldering iron required, and your NES will load all games more reliably.

If he's having problems with it, but other unlicensed carts work, I'm guessing the lockout bypass just isn't compatible with the system he has, or the bypass in the cart doesn't work. Either way, clipping the lockout chip should fix the problem (Google should help with the how-to, it did for me ).

I'm thinking that the bypass in the cart is screwy, given that my copy of Dudes With Attitude works fine - also AVE. I've never had problems with my Wisdom Tree stuff either. I'd be interested to see what the serial number is, though - I'd never heard of that issue before.

Are there any side effects the pin 4 clip? Ages ago, I thought I read somewhere that there are a select few carts that *require* the lockout chip to be functional and unclipped, because of some weird situation with the lockout workaround causing problems if it doesn't find a working chip to bypass. Maybe I imagined that, or maybe it was for some random PAL game (which would make the matter a moot point with an NTSC system). I've heard of the clip trick, but I've been hesitant to circumcise my NES because of my uncertainty regarding lockout-requiring carts - which, again, may or may not be a figment of my imagination.

Unless you're playing the original NWC, Clipping pin 4 probably won't affect you in any way. As for the problem, I have know idea. I know KK uses hardware and then software to pulse the defeater circuit to kill the lockout, that's about it. If it doesn't work, clean it. If that doesn't work, start testing caps and diodes/transistors.

I've never had an issue. Only side effect is that you never get a blinking screen, so if you have to wiggle the cart to get it to work, you need to hit reset every time you shift the cart (as opposed to shifting until the title screen blinks on). I figure that's a fair swap to have unlicensed games work every time.