Insert cartidge with EPROM sockets in the NES

Insert cartidge with EPROM sockets in the NES
by Bregalad on 2005-02-08 (#1149)

It may be a very stupid question, but how to remove the NES's metal bar limiting vertical space while insering a card ?
Also, has someone ever made a siple card such as NROM or CNROM on a home-made wrap board witout have any actual NES Game broken ? This would be easy scince they only need EPROMS and 74xxxx chips, but it would be very hard for mecanics stuff.
I guess SNES developement is much easier scince you can insert what you want easily in the console, ever a giant board.

Tried a toploader?
by tepples on 2005-02-08 (#1150)

If you use a frontloader, not only do you have to remove the metal bar in order to use socketed chips, but you also have to snip pin 4 of the lockout chip in order to use a custom PCB without either the Macronix/Color Dreams/Camerica charge-pump method or a Nintendo key chip desoldered from a $1 flea-market NROM cart.

Rumor has it that the easiest machine for NES development on custom PCBs is either of the toploaders: an AV Famicom or a new smaller NES, if you can find one.

by Memblers on 2005-02-08 (#1151)

I use a top-loader, but it's easier with it's case off. I had to take the SNES's case off also, to plug my EPROM emu into an SNES cart. Maybe it's just the size of my adapter, but if a board can't fit in the cart shell, it likely won't fit comfortably in the console either.

But there's not many reasons to make a one-off homemade NROM or CNROM cart, since they're both already EPROM compatible. I know sepi made a seperate board a while back that connects to an NROM cart and takes non-volatile SRAMs. And x|k cut up an edge connector and managed to connect it to a breadboard somehow.

Re: Tried a toploader?
by Bregalad on 2005-02-09 (#1154)

Quote:
If you use a frontloader, not only do you have to remove the metal bar in order to use socketed chips, but you also have to snip pin 4 of the lockout chip in order to use a custom PCB without either the Macronix/Color Dreams/Camerica charge-pump method or a Nintendo key chip desoldered from a $1 flea-market NROM cart.

The card I want to insert right now is a SLROM devcard that I made from CV2/Simon's quest cartidge, so the (european) lockout chip is still on board. I tried to insert it witout the box (only the board), but nothing woks, the screen is blue, gray, black or pink and sometimes I can have something looking like CV2's titlescreen with glitchy and flickering graphics and it fresees very fastly (should be bad connections).
tepples wrote:
Rumor has it that the easiest machine for NES development on custom PCBs is either of the toploaders: an AV Famicom or a new smaller NES, if you can find one.

I never saw anything like that. Does it exist in europe ? That would be cool, but it's now hard to find a working NES to buy (if I found a top-loader one I'll for sure buy it).
Quote:
But there's not many reasons to make a one-off homemade NROM or CNROM cart, since they're both already EPROM compatible.

That would be just fun to do and it would allow me to avoid dissolvering old chips (and may to remove the bar), etc...
Nice stuff, but I still don't know how I can remove the metal bar. Witout removing it, I'm only able to insert a card witout the IC sokets and this means a single cartidge is for a single game. Thanks in advance.

by Memblers on 2005-02-09 (#1155)

If you take the NES and cart apart (removing the spring-loading mechanism) I think you'll need to put some weight on the cart for it to make good contact. Try pushing down on it and powering it on (or set something on it).

by Memblers on 2005-02-09 (#1157)

BTW, the only socket type I've found that'll fit into a cart case are low-profile types of surface-mount PLCC sockets. Which is what I'll be using on the next version of Squeedo.

by teaguecl on 2005-02-10 (#1188)

I have used a top loader for about a year. They were only made for the NTSC versions, so not available in Europe. They are pretty expensive on Ebay because they are rare. I've also used the Game Genie extender to let me put EEPROM carts in an unmodified front loader. The extender is also very hard to come by. One solution that looks good, but which I haven't tried are the NES to NES adapters available here:
http://www.robwebb.clara.co.uk/shop/nes/nes.htm

by Great Hierophant on 2005-02-10 (#1189)

[quote]They were only made for the NTSC versions, so not available in Europe.[/quote]

A PAL Top Loader came out in Australia if I remember correctly.

by Bregalad on 2005-06-10 (#2404)

Memblers wrote:
BTW, the only socket type I've found that'll fit into a cart case are low-profile types of surface-mount PLCC sockets. Which is what I'll be using on the next version of Squeedo.

I'm interessted about them, but I'm unsure about wich type of socket you're talking about. Could you show me a picture of them, please ? So I'll look forwad to purchase some, so I'll be able to both replace the PRG/CHR chip on the same card and lend it to friends that have unmodified NES.

by Memblers on 2005-06-10 (#2407)

You won't be able to use them without a new PCB, but I was talking about these (32-pin ones):
http://www.mill-max.com/images/products/PDF/095.pdf

They're also kinda troublesome to install, I might go without them on the rev2 Squeedo. Since CopyNES can reprogram the flash, the socket shouldn't be needed as much.

by tepples on 2005-06-11 (#2411)

True, but not all of us can afford a CopyNES and a Squeedo cart.

by Bregalad on 2005-06-11 (#2412)

Ah, so this would only work for PLCC chips, not for DIL chips. I also found some "low-profile" DIL socets, but they're just like the regular socets exepts they're a bit less tall (they're certainely too much tall). Maybe I'll be able to only need to make an hole in the cartidge, but not to remove the metal bar (this would make me things easier)

by Guest on 2005-07-17 (#2839)

Removing that bar is easy. Push the cart holder down when it's empty, grab the bar, and pull. I do it to all of mine, so that I can fit two games in at once - a second cart on top holds the bottom cart in perfectly.